Adventures With Bloe

"You're Becca and Chloe,

together you're Bloe." 
(quote from Pitch Perfect 2)

Girls night out!

Just another adventure with Bloe!

Yah, that's us - Becky and Chloe, together we are Bloe and we have some awesomely crazy adventures together. I can't divulge all of our adventures, but let me tell you about what happened today as we tried to celebrate Chloe's birthday with a morning hike and early lunch.

Wildflowers along the trail.

Chloe came over to my apartment around 8:45 this morning and we flipped through my hiking guide book to find a trail with a short hike nearby. We looked at several options and decided that Willow Heights, one of my favorite close short hikes, would be best for our purposes today. 

The sky was overcast but only a small percent chance of rain (20% according to my phone's weather app). We were both dressed in capris and had long-sleeve shirts to go over our tshirts. Being teachers of small children we took our own advice and hit the bathroom before heading out - "everyone needs to try, there won't be bathrooms there."

A short drive later we were half-way up the canyon and at our trail by the Silver Fork restaurant. We parked on the side of the road and meandered through the little neighborhood to find the trail head.

Love the birch trees and the views.

The sound of the wind through the birtch trees is magical. And with the wildflowers growing tall and close to the trail it was like walking through an enchanted fairy forest land. 

...and then there was a low rumbling in the distance. And it got louder and closer. Then in a blink there was a flash of light. I really hoped it was just Chloe taking a picture using flash, but the startled look on her face told me no. We had just started to wonder if we should keep going or turn back; the flash of light was all the answer we needed. 

We started to high tail it down the mountain as rain began to fall. As we neared the trail head the rain began to fall harder. A man pulling down a tent in his yard suggested we find shelter from the rain as it increased in volume. We agreed and walked faster back to the car. By the time we got there we were pretty thoroughly soaked. 

As we drove down the mountain to find some hot coffee and toasty bagels to warm us up, we laughed about this adventure. I had wondered what we would get up to on a hike, what mysterious adventure awaited us today. At least we didn't fall off a cliff, get chased by a swarm of killer bees, mauled by wild animals, or lost in the woods. We laughed as rain ran from our hair down our faces. It was a good adventure, but we are definitely taking a rain check for another hike.

Happy birthday, Chloe!

Always an adventure with Bloe!

Bells Canyon Reservoir Hike - Take 3

Another try at hiking Bells Canyon Reservoir looking for the waterfall this evening. Third - or is it the fourth? - try was the charm.

It was a lovely evening for a hike. We left for the trail around 6 pm. The temps were still in the 90s, but dropping. We were all loaded with water and Smartphones for tracking our hike and taking photos. And, as usual, I had my emergency granola bar in my hiking bag. We were bound and determined to find the waterfall this time.

It was about 5 miles round trip and took about 3 hours. We are exhausted but thought it was so worth it. Here are some photos of our journey this evening.

I Think I'm in Love

our walk last weekend

I think I'm in love- with Utah. How could you not love it here surrounded by all this natural beauty? Granted, the food/restaurant choices leave something to be desired and make me miss Seattle, but oh the beauty of this place!
And I'm in love with the new me. I'm so proud of how hard I've worked and happy about how I feel and

the view from school in the morning

look. How I feel now is an amazing, drastic difference to how I felt a year ago. I love being me and am absolutely comfortable in my own skin. (Except the day after I eat almost an entire pizza with my roommates help, then I'm not so comfy, but pizza aside, I'm happy being me.)
My roommate and I go hiking every weekend, sometimes twice in a weekend. Last weekend's "hike" didn't quite turn out as hoped, but our walk around the park allowed us some good time to chat with and get to know another coworker of ours.
I love being more active and having more energy. I've been able to jog even. THAT I don't love, and I may never love it, but I do LOVE that I'm able to do it. It's wonderful how my body can move.

First Day of First Grade 2014

Second Day of School 2014

Utah Hiker Girl

It's official, the UGH is now a Utah Hiker Girl!

Author: Mike Matson, no relation

Today I got a book in the mail from a lady whom I used to dog-sit for in Seattle. It was such a sweet surprise. The book was about hikes in the Salt Lake City area. (My roommate and I had been looking at a similar book in Costco just the other day. Funny enough, the author has the same name as my brother, but it's not written by him- at least that I know of.)
My roommate flipped though the book and found an easy hike close by. As we were returning home from some errands she suggested we try one after dinner. Since it was getting on in the day we decided to grab dinner on our way to the trail head (Chik-fil-A!). We were looking for Rocky Mouth Canyon, it's a 0.7 mile round-trip "family stroll" with a 262 foot gain.
I programmed it into the GPS and we were off. The guide book said that though the trail head is in a residential neighborhood, do not park on the street only park in the parking at the trail head, so when we saw a sign for a trail head we turned off.
We found an unpaved parking area near a trail head and got out of the car. That's when we noticed that neither of the trail head signs indicated the trail we were looking for. We said "oh well," choose one, and headed out.
It started out smoothly with a nice view of the mountains and the Wasatch Valley. We came to what appeared to be the end with a little bench, only to discover a sandy trail down the steep hillside. We paused to take pictures and then kept going, gathering a lot of dust in our shoes.

We ended up hiking 2.15 miles down and up some steep hillsides. We encountered five horse riders and one man and his dog- twice. We took that as a good sign that the trail circled around so we could get back to our car a different way than the path we came on.
All in all it was a beautiful trail and a great workout. Not the family stroll with a waterfall at the end that we had planned, but we'll go look for that tomorrow afternoon. Stay tuned for more adventures of the UTAH Hiker Girl!

Urban/Utah Hiker Girl at the start of the hike

Sunflowers grow wild here- makes me smile

Urban/Utah Hiker Girl at the end of the hike- still smiling!

Urban Hiker Girl Is Now In Utah!

Urban Hiker Girl has gone suburban! Though I don't have my Utah driver's license yet, as of 7pm last night I now live in Utah.

Due to thunderstorms today I decided to do my walking indoors this afternoon at the fitness center of my new apartment. There's also a universal weight machine that I gave a try. It felt good to get hot and sweaty from a good workout and not just from walking through the Seattle humidity for a few minutes.

As the weather here improves I look forward to exploring the area on foot. I'll be sure to post pictures.

I'm going to keep this entry short today as I don't have internet in the apartment yet so I'm using the shared computer in the clubhouse lobby, which is due to close soon; just wanted to give you all a quick update that the Urban Hiker Girl is alive and well, but now in Utah!

Keep walking, my friends!