Our Bike Ride

Last Thursday, in the middle of the night, Stanzie woke me up. "Hey. Dianna... you awake?" "Wha?" "I know what we should do on Monday. For Memorial Day." "Wha?" "We should rent bikes. And then bike to Idaho Falls." "..........okay. Sure." "It's gonna be awesome!"

For the record, Idaho Falls takes about 30 minutes by car on the highway to get to. It's not fair to make me agree to things like that in the middle of the night. Stanzie says it's okay, though, since once I woke her up to tell her that it was warmer in Anchorage, Alaska than it was here in Rexburg (this has since happened numerous times, including yesterday when it was a nice 70 degrees in Anchorage and less than 40 degrees here with a wind chill on top). In my defense, this fact totally disgusts me, and I thought Stanzie should know.

But I digress. So yes, yesterday Stanzie and I went to the ORC and rented bikes. And then we rode. And rode. And rode.

We prepared well. We printed the directions on Mapquest so we wouldn't be on the highway. We told everyone where we were going and when we'd be back. We checked the weather and saw the rain in the forecast so we dressed appropriately. I used a lot of ziplock bags and packed towels and such in them. We also packed snacks like fresh veggies and peanut butter. We brought plenty of water, of course. We were soooo prepared. 70 mile bike ride, here we come!



Neither one of us had ridden a bike more than the typical bike riding years of childhood. It had been two years for Stanzie and about four for me since either of us had been on a bicycle. We walked to the ORC and got everything we needed. The first five miles were by far, the hardest. In fact, after the first one or two miles I was wondering if this was going to happen.

On miles 5 through about 20, I felt great! I thought for sure this would happen. This was also the most interesting and fun filled part of the trip. For one thing, this was the sky we were looking at and riding into. We planned for rain in the forecast. But about two minutes after I took this picture I felt something coming out of the sky, but it was definitely not rain.



"Ouch... ow!... OUCH! Stanzie... is it seriously hailing on us!?"

Yes. Indeed it was.

It only hailed for a little while and it wasn't totally terrible. It mainly just stung my face. We both found it more amusing than anything. I mean, seriously. Hail?

Then there were the dogs we had to deal with. The first set of dogs were tiny little yappers. I don't have pictures because despite how tiny they were, we still rode away fast because they were aggressive to the point that I didn't want to learn how aggressive their owners were.

We had actually made a wrong turn for those first dogs. Or, should I say, failed to make the right turn. I was the navigator. In my defense, roads in Idaho all have two names. They have their "number" name, like 4200 South, and then their "real" name, like "Miller Street." Sometimes, my directions would only say "4200 South" and the street name would say "Miller Street" so I just had to guess for the most part. But I will say we didn't go more than two miles out of our way due to these problems. I'm proud of this! There were a LOT of turns.



Anyway, we went back and found the correct road and went down that one. The scenery was gorgeous.



And then we saw the next dog. He was much bigger and actually stalked us. We saw him stalking us. At first we thought he might not attack and then he was right by my tires barking and growling. I was scared out of my mind and pedaled as hard as I could. We rode down about a mile and the road was named "400 South" or something. We were looking for "Archer Highway." However, this road was about where it was supposed to be. Stanzie wanted to ask someone for directions, and I wanted to go back the way we came and look again. We compromised and did both. As we rode back we realized we'd have to cross the evil barking dog again. We pedaled as fast as possible and sure enough he came to attack again. My legs were getting tired and I was wondering how many more dogs we'd have to out run and why owners would let their evil little dogs run wild.

Just past the evil dog's house we saw a little old man by the side of the road. As we got closer, we saw he was picking asparagus. He didn't look too creepy, so we pulled over to ask him. I asked if he knew of the road we needed and he said that the road we were just at (400 South or whatever) was the one that would take us where we wanted to go. Then he started telling us about how he met his wife ten years ago and asked if we wanted some cinnamon. "I've always carried cinnamon in my pocket, just for times like these!" He told us with a smile. Such a cute old man. I still have my cinnamon candy he gave us. There's no way I'm eating it. I'm keeping it forever as a memento of the coolest bike ride EVER!

We told the man our fears about the horrible outdoor dog and he explained a different route we could use that would mean we wouldn't have to go by it a third time. So we did, and shortly thereafter we were in Ririe!



The scenery reminded me a lot of Virginia (except for the insanely ice cold air, disgustingly gray mountains and lack of rolling hills). The things that were similar was the wide stretches of beautiful farmland, green grass, cows, numerous tractors, and farmers out working. We even saw some llamas and a camel!



We rode and rode some more, stopping every now and then for water or to look at something cool. The final turn we made was a bigger "highway" (it had a bike path) that would last 10.8 miles. Then we would be in Idaho Falls. The first few miles were fine. Then, suddenly, it just got harder and harder. My butt hurt more and more, mainly. And the wind on this road was unlike any wind I've ever experienced before. Stanzie and I agreed that had we not been pedaling forward, we'd have been moving backwards. It was soooo hard.

I actually enjoyed it when the cars went past literally two feet away from me because their wind would pull me forward for just one second and it felt sooo good. We stopped for some breaks and the main issue was that of our butts hurting from the bike seats. Neither one of us have biker pants and those seats we tiny!



We knew we were close to the end of this insanely long stretch. My bum couldn't take it anymore so I got off and walked while Stanzie went ahead. She waited for me in a chair at an old antique shop by the side of the road. I caught up to her and sat beside her and we began eating. This is when I told her there was no way I was going to make it all the way back to Rexburg. My bum just couldn't take the pain and the wind was extremely painful both in my ears, and in freezing me. I knew she was in pain, too.

I knew we were close to the Mall (which was our ultimate destination). We were definitely in Idaho Falls. We talked about our options and I eventually made the call to my friend's dad to see if he could come get us. I didn't know the names of the roads, but as I described what I saw around me he knew where we were. Fortunately, he's lived in this area his whole life.

I wanted to go all the way to the Mall and get picked up there. Stanzie wanted him to just drive us back to Ririe so we could bike home from there. Both of us could have gone more miles. I could only go probably about 5 more. Stanzie could have gone 10 or 15 more maybe. But it was ultimately easier for us just to stay put. Kelly's dad doesn't have a cell phone and he was worried about the weather since it was pouring in Rexburg. Plus, if we had gone to the Mall it would have been farther for him to drive. We later found out we were literally two blocks from the end of our 10.8 mile stretch and less than five miles from the Mall.

We had ridden over 30 miles on our bikes in five hours (8:30am until almost 2pm). I, for one, have never been so proud to accomplish half of a goal in my entire life.

As we entered Rexburg the rain was absolutely pouring. Craig drove us not only to return the bikes, but then drove us home. I paid him for the gas and his time. I couldn't even say in words how grateful I was for him. He's so stinkin' sweet!

Neither one of us was tired, or even sore... yet. Our butts just hurt and I was absolutely freezing. I had been frozen the whole time, actually. But I kept telling myself that riding would warm me up. Unfortunately, I think it was the wind, but I never, ever was warmed up. In fact, when we used the bathroom at a gas station we found, I lifted my shirt and saw that the front of my stomach had this blueish/redish splotchy rash on it and when I felt it, I realized it was because it was so cold. Crazy!

Later when I got home, my legs from the knees up were purple as I got into the shower. Purple! I couldn't tell if it was because I had worked them more than they had ever been worked before, or if it was because they were so stinking cold. The purpleness lasted for a couple of hours, though.

Some of the purple color never left and I have random bruises on my knee. Stanzie says it's from that one time I fell off my bike. Yes, I fell off once. Or maybe twice. But it was mainly on purpose. Those were the worst bikes to get on and off in my life and they had these horrible little stirrup things you had to slip your feet into that held them in place. I hated them!

Anyway, we got home around 3pm. We took our showers and I stretched for a while. Then we crashed on the couch and watched Disney movies. The longer I sat still, the more my legs started to hurt. More and more... and Stanzie's too. By the end of the night we were both in so much pain. It was unbelievable and I was even happier I decided to quit when we did.

30 miles is one heck of a bike ride! And what made me feel better was that in the school newspaper today, there was an article about the school's biking team. They do 8-10 miles for beginners, and 20 for the advanced riders. Sometimes, they go up to 30.

Yep. The Stanz and I are pretty much amazing. :)

The Closet*

There is a coat closet on the right just as you enter our front door. It's been packed to the brim since the day I moved in here with boxes and other random junk. Well last night, we decided to clean it out since all four of us were here (Cassie wasn't around, but we knew none of it belonged to her since this is her first semester ever). We found a lot of neat treasures! It was like Christmas!

This is Stanzie getting some of the boxes out of the closet.



This is Stanzie, Katie, and Ashley (L to R) going through the random stuff we found.



Among the junk we found a box full of men's stuff. Including two pairs of shoes, several pairs of socks (we think some were even dirty) and some bank statements and receipts. That guy had $1,830 in his bank account as of a year and a half ago! We still have no clue who the dude was though, even though we have his first and last name.

We also found this map of Seattle.




So we put it on the wall. I bought duct tape a year ago to pull a prank on a friend. The prank never happened, but my duct tape has come in handy soooo much this year. We literally use it all. the. time. And it's lasted forever, too. I'm very impressed.



Ashley looks like she's about to punch me in the head from both sides... I'm pretty sure that wasn't intentional... I hope. :)

We also found this 72 hour kit. It actually wasn't very well stocked. It had a lighter, some toilet paper, breathing masks (random!), latex gloves, candles, wet wipes, and other stuff.



We also found this awesome blow up pool toy. I blew that whole thing up myself. It took a looong time.



We also found some fun little masks.







The most awesome thing we found were a bunch of Michael Jackson DVDs and music and such. Ashley thought this was just awesome.



We put the movies in the DVD player and watched for a while. The best was the Thriller. Stanzie was utterly freaked out. In fact, I sure everyone jumped for some parts. I caught that on film though. :) I think I was the only one in the apartment who had ever seen Thriller before which is weird because normally I'm the only one who hasn't seen stuff like that.



The music videos were in chronological order from his life and the first few were completely awesome. Unfortunately, his later work made it so we ended up throwing the whole DVD away, but the first few songs were fun while they lasted! Overall, a totally awesome night, even if it meant I didn't fall asleep until after 3am.

*My first title for this post was "Midnight Activities" since this whole thing took place in the middle of the night last night (or this morning I suppose). But I want this blog to remain G rated and I didn't want people getting the wrong impression. So yeah, there ya go.

cloudNINE Winter 2011 Video!!!

Because I still can't figure out how to put movies on my blog, here's the link to the video I made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V03tD9AQXvI

Yeah, I even made a Youtube account to go with it! Enjoy! (this is mainly for you, Ashley!)

One Gone and One Coming

After a cuh-razy week of packing, my roommate moved out Wednesday. She's officially in Texas now. It's kind of sad she's gone. There is waaaay less stuff in our apartment now. I mean, it feels so empty. I kinda like it, to be honest! But still, I miss Natalie.

This morning, however, I got a phone call from my old roommate and friend who said she's moving back up here next Wednesday! I'm super excited! It's only been just over a month since I last saw her, but I already miss her. She actually graduated, but she's coming back up here for my graduation!! Well... I think there may be other reasons too, but I like to say it's due to me. :)

Mini Heart Attack

I got an email from "Graduation" today. It told me there was a "Hold" on my account. I freaked out. Because I'm Dianna.

Then I read the email. They said that because I plan to graduate this semester, they're putting registration hold on my account for future semester so I can no longer register for classes.

Whew. I guess that's okay, then.

Also, I applied for graduation Monday! Hooray!

Trickery

Every week in my Photojournalism class, we have a quiz. Well, every class day but class is only held once a week. Anyway, this last Wednesday I got to class and started asking the students about what we learned last week because, as far as I knew, we didn't learn anything new, really and I was definitely in class. We mainly reviewed what we had already gone over and then went outside and took pictures. We were all trying to figure out what questions he would ask and then finally decided maybe there wouldn't be a quiz since there was no material to quiz on.

The teacher entered and told us to pull out a piece of paper for our quiz. I pulled out my paper and put my name at the top hoping that they were just simple review questions of what we had already learned. He asked something about lenses. We haven't gone over lenses! Every question on the quiz was completely foreign to me. I didn't even understand the language he was using! All the students were looking around at each other completely confused. Finally, one of the students called out, "Are we really supposed to know this stuff? Cuz I'm so lost!"

The teacher chuckled, "Oh, oops. I forgot to tell you. This is the pre-quiz to what we're going over today. We haven't discussed any of this yet, I just wanted to see how much you knew. Pass in your papers with your name on them and you'll get attendance credit today."

That was sooo not funny. And they wonder why we have heart attacks young!

Moose

My roommate made moose for us for dinner tonight. She brought it back with her after visiting her family in Alaska a few weeks ago (along with some fresh fish, too). It was ground moose that she made into sloppy joes.

Well, I came home from class (which has another story in and of itself) and grabbed myself some of her moose sloppy joes and started to eat. As I was about halfway done, I asked Stanzie if she was the one who killed the moose. I was slightly afraid of her answer, because I find it disgusting to eat something you've killed yourself (yes, I have done that before with a chicken). When she answered no, I sighed with relief. Then she made it worse by saying, "No, we didn't kill it. It was road kill."

I dropped my fork. I just ate road kill! Ewwwwww! I was torn between laughter and utter disgust as I imagined eating that deer that I hit with my car almost four years ago and went through all the "West Virginians eat road kill" jokes I've told all my life.

Stanzie went on. "Yeah, when someone hits a moose, they call the police, and the police call the charity organizations! They send someone out to harvest the moose for meat and then they give most of the moose to charity and the harvesters get to keep some. We kept the leg!"

Then she proceeded to tell me, in detail, how it hangs up in their back shack and dries out and... well... and then I stopped listening because my gag reflexes were kicking in.

Earlier, I was just proud of myself for getting out and eating a new food, moose! But now? Now I just ate road kill!

Excuse me while I puke, and Stanzie continues laughing at me and telling me I'm ridiculous.

Disneyland: The Extended Version!

I had to drop my Auto Mechanics class. Sad but true. It required resources I didn't have and money that doesn't exist in my world. BUT I still downloaded some of the Powerpoints and tutorials so I can still learn about cars... hope that's not illegal...

Also, I went to Disneyland last week! Here are some more pics of that trip.

Easter Sunday. The day we left. Heather M., Me, Heather H., and Whitney. We left around noon-thirty (after church), and got to Anaheim around 11:30 (California time, so 12:30 Utah time which means it took us right about 12 hours to get there...)



The reason the trip took so long was because we hit traffic about ten miles outside of CA. Everything was perfect up til then. The weather had been beautiful and there was no traffic, even through Vegas! Then, BAM! Traffic jam in the middle of nowhere! Seriously. As far as we could see, in every direction, there was nothing. Except cars. Lots and lots of cars.

I started to get nervous about gas (despite my AAA card and awesome insurance-thanks parents!) so after a while of moving 20mph we finally found a gas station. I pulled off and it was fairly busy. I think the other cars had about the same idea as we did. We wanted to fill up because we didn't know how much longer this traffic would last and we were literally in the middle of nowhere. The ONLY thing at this exit were two gas stations across the street from each other.

I pulled into the Chevron and Heather M. got her card out to pay while other Heather and Whitney went to find a bathroom. They came back shortly saying that this gas station didn't have a bathroom and they were going across the street. In the meantime, Heather M.'s card stopped working after about $5 of gas. We pulled the car up to a different pump and it started working again. We filled up the car and then waited.

After a minute or two, we decided to drive across the street to where the others were so they wouldn't have to cross the busy street twice. We drove over there and waited a few more minutes. Nothing. Heather got out to look for them and came back a few minutes later. She went inside and saw there was no bathroom anywhere. Still couldn't find them.

So we called them. BOTH girls had left their cell phones in the car. This is when I got a little nervous. We drove back over to the last place we had parted, hoping they'd be there. Still nothing. So we parked as close to the gas pump as possible, and waited. And watched. And waited. Heather got out to look around again. There were some drunk teenagers (or at least they were acting drunk, but sometimes teens don't need alcohol to act drunk). Just as Heather and I were talking about how we were going to react when they got back (we had a great, long, loud lecture planned) and how we would react if they had, indeed, been kidnapped (we tried to avoid that topic), we finally saw their bright, smiling faces coming towards us from across the street. We, however, were not so happy to see them alive and in good condition. "ARE YOU SERIOUS! YOU SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF US! DON'T YOU EVER LEAVE YOUR CELL PHONES AGAIN! NOT AT A CREEPY GAS STATION IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE! AHHHHH!!!" Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what we sounded like. Anyway, the truth was I was extremely relieved and happy to see them fine. They said the bathroom was outside the gas station and around the corner. They had to wait in line AND they had to wait for someone to clean it so it took a while. Meh. Excuses excuses. I was still scared.

This is looking back down Main Street towards the train station. We were some of the first people to enter the park... we got there 50 minutes early to be a part of this crowd. Really, it was pretty empty. We picked a great time to come!



Itty bitty Sleeping Beauty's castle. I now know why I always had guests asking me where the walk-through in Cinderella's castle was. For the record, Cinderella's castle doesn't have a walk-through. There's a super ritzy restaurant up there and a Cinderella Castle Suite that rich and famous get to stay in! That's it.

If you look carefully, you can see they have a Partner's statue in front of this castle as well (the Partner's statue is of Walt and Mickey... they're partners)



This is me seeing the castle for the first time ever. I'm sooo happy Heather took this picture. I LOVE it! This is me, Heather and Whitney. Morning of the first day! I was so stinkin' excited!

I especially love this picture of Heather because it shows her personality perfectly. Map in one hand (although pretty soon she'll just have the map as a souvenir), video camera in the other, sunglasses on her head, and backpack full of snacks, water, etc.



Heather and I on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness! Their Big Thunder is very similar to the one in Florida, although it did feel a touch faster. Space Mountain also felt faster. Maybe it's because I don't have those tracks memorized, though. Heehee...



This is Heather on the (Not So) Fun Wheel in California Adventure. You can see my hand. And from my hand, gripping the walls for dear life, you can probably imagine my facial expression. I was pretty much curled up in the fetal position crying the whole entire ride. I'm not even lying, Heather, being the awesome friend that she is, filmed me. Worst. Ride. Ever!



Me, Whitney, and the Heathers meeting Duffy. I officially decided last year when I first met Duffy that I will someday own one, or at the very least, my children will have a stuffed Duffy. First, I'm a fan of stuffed animals. Second, Duffy's story is adorable and I LOVE to travel. Don't know the story? Look it up. :)



Heather H. and I in Minnie's house. Heather's going for Minnie's "diet" chocolate chip cookies. They're holographic. Good one, Minnie. Good one. They sure taste like air though...





This is my new favorite ride. The Storybook Canals Tour. You get to ride in a boat with a skipper and they tell you stories. Disney stories, of course.



The Pirates of the Caribbean 4 premiere is taking place this coming week. (Yes, they made another movie!) It costs like a thousand dollars to go on that day. Crazy! But they were doing a kind of "pre-premiere" trailer kind of showing while we were there. So we went. The pirates were hilarious!

At one point they were getting the crowd all excited as we were waiting to begin. One of the pirates yelled, "All the children, say 'Yo-ho!'" And they shouted, "Yo-ho!" Then he said, "All the women, say 'Yo-ho!'" We did. Then he shouted, "All the men, say 'Yo-ho!'" They shouted Yoho as well. Finally the pirate yelled, "Everyone else, say 'yoho!'" About a third of the crowd shouted. The pirates looked around confused. "So to all those who just yelled.... I'm confused... what are you?" Another pirate responded, "Probably French..." Buuuuurn!



At the end we got to meet Captain Jack Sparrow and Angelica (she'd from the new movie, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly aren't coming back for the fourth one).



Toontown in Disneyland is way better than Florida's Toontown. I'm still not really a Toontown freak, but I'll admit it was fun to spend a while there, especially since Disney World's Toontown is about to disappear to make way for the new Fantasyland expansion.



This is my favorite picture of the four of us. This was in California Adventure. And it's a construction wall. But still, I like it!



I had also never had so many fastpasses at one time before. I mean, I get them, but usually in Disney World I can do the single riders line or I know when to go when there's no line anyway.

The first set of fastpasses is from our day at California Adventure. The second is from Disneyland. And we had way more than this, too. This just shows how many passes I had at one time.




And, of course, no post of Disney a Disney trip is accurate without the fireworks. I actually didn't take many pictures of the three awesome shows we saw (Wishes: Disneyland Style; Magic, Memories, and You picture show; and World of Color water show). All were amazing!



Such an awesome trip. I can't say which park(s) I prefer, the one's in Florida or California. But I will say it was a totally awesome week. Worth every penny I spent and every second of worrying.