I remember Chris having pretty good luck no matter what we were doing. When I got my Jeep we decided that it needed to be tested because it was a Jeep and needed to be tested. We headed up Left Hand Fork and quickly found that with two feet of snow and ice on the ground, in a stock Jeep it’s easy to get stuck on flat ground. After spending a twenty minutes trying to free ourselves with no success I sent Chris out to see if he could find a loose fence post we could use to dig with. He returns pretty fast with a full size shovel that just happened to be leaning against the fence. “Look what I found!” We freed ourselves in no time and headed out just a huge storm set in. The stucks I’ve had without Chris have never gone so smoothly, if only he had been with me when my axle fell off.
Wanna go to Long Beach?
Chris went on a trip, and became infatuated with a girl whose name I don’t remember (maybe Chris will fill that in.) Only problem was what she lived in Long Beach. We were working at the computer store at the time, Friday night around six o’clock, and Chris was talking to the girl on the phone. I think they had a little jest going about what they were doing that night and how they should go visit each other. Chris looks at me and says, “Wanna go to Long Beach tonight?” How could I say no to that? So by seven o’clock we’re in the Probe (it’s a car, not the other thing) heading to Cali. There was a lot of caffeine involved and we were pretty wired when they stopped us at the border to see if we had any fruits or vegetables. It was a long ride but thanks to Cake, Dave Mathews, and The Beastie Boys we made it in record time. But it was four in the morning. Now the question was at what point is it too late, or too early, to knock on the door of a girl who lives with her parents? The rest of the weekend was a blur, I know we went to The Speedway and raced stuff and played some soccer but if you miss a whole night’s sleep everything is hazy.
On the way back we tested the high speed tires and Chris’s car in Death Valley. We found out that after a certain speed when you stick your arm out of the window the wind whips your arm hair around so fast, it hurts. We also found out that that Cadillac’s can go pretty fast too and the old mantra is true – “DO NOT SPEED THROUGH FILMORE.” I don’t think the relationship took off, apparently she didn’t think we would really drive down there. Chris was never one for planning. He is more a let’s put ourselves in a precarious situation and see how we can get out of it kind of a guy. It was a pretty fun trip.
Hiking!
We went camping quite a bit. Chris taught me that I’m not a very good mountain bike rider in Moab and in Jackson Hole. Somehow, on a random whim, we decided we needed big packs so we could go on long hikes in remote areas with way too much stuff. So after purchasing the big (expensive) packs (which I’ve used maybe twice) we decided to go test them out. I had really nice tent, but it wasn’t a packing tent, it was a five man four season tent. It was really heavy. No matter. We split it up and crammed all our gear and with about two hours of light left we headed up Green Canyon to where the single track starts. We hiked for about an hour but then we got bored. So not having any vehicle to hinder us we decided that it would be more of an adventure leave the beaten path and just head straight up the side of the mountain. We were sure there would be a great place to make camp at the top of the ridge and we made it there right as the sun was setting. At the top of the ridge the wind was blowing maybe thirty miles an hour and it was horribly rocky. So we headed back down; in a completely different direction; in the dark. We did have pretty cool head lamps that we had recently purchased to help us see in the dark. It was pretty scary. We ended up coming down a few cliffs which were much larger then they looked, (did you know depth perception is limited in the dark?) and through some pretty thick deer brush that scratched us up quite a bit in an attempt to find a place to set up camp. We had no success finding a spot, but we did find the trail that we had left two hours before. Just to the other side of the trail we found a nice spot to drop the 200 pound packs and make camp. The next morning we made breakfast and broke camp, the whole time waving to a fairly heavy stream of hikers on the trail. We were surprised to see so many people up that high; they seemed to be giving us weird looks. None the less, we pull on our packs and prepare for the long hike back. Fifty yards down the trail we find the Jeep. Another success.
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