Carbon River Loop

While Heidi was officiating at a show last month, I took advantage at went hiking. I knew I wasn't going to take the dogs so I decided to hit Mt. Rainier NP. I found this website: Hike Info, and figured that with an early start, I could take my time and be just fine. That turned out to be optimistic - it was quite the ordeal. The 3000 ft climb at the 8 mile mark was a killer. Here are the highlights of my 17+ mile trek:

Mt. Rainier

This is Mother Mountain, and the hike is basically a loop around this ridge.

This is the Carbon River. This area of Rainier gets the most rain (it shows) and there is plenty of evidence of the unusually large flooding of 2006. My trail had been washed away, so I had to cross the river, hike up a mile, and cross back on the suspension bridge below.

Heights usually don't bother me, but heights combined with a shaky bridge with broken and missing slats does not instill confidence. It was very 'Temple of Doom'. Have a look at the second board of the walkway. The bridge was 30 to 40 feet above the river bed and probably 50 yards long.

The last stop on the trail was Spray falls. It's a 300 foot drop from the top.

Iowa State Recruiting Trip

I have been lucky enough to be on Boeing's college recruiting team for four years now. I get to go back to my school, Iowa State University, to help work the booth at the gigantic Engineering Career Fair that is held every year. This year, I flew out early so that I could spend Saturday and Sunday with my mom and dad. They drove down from Minnesota to see me. It was so fun!

Here we are before they left on Sunday. We had fun walking around campus and Ames, going out to eat, and watching a movie.

Everyone who visits ISU's campus has to take the token picture with the Campanile in the background. It's the most iconic structure on the beautiful campus. I love how it chimes on the quarter hour. During the school year on weekdays, there is a musician who plays music at noon every day. It sounds so pretty!

This is Morrill Hall. It is one of the oldest buildings on campus. Iowa State just celebrated it's 150th anniversary, so that is pretty old! This building was always closed during my career at ISU because it was in such bad repair. It has now been renovated and I finally got to go inside! It is beautiful and I was so lucky to finally see inside it! It houses several museums and a student success center. I hope students love using it as much as I loved it from the outside!

This is the historic water tower. It is not functioning anymore but is actually listed on the Historic Landmark list and towers over many engineering buildings.

No visit to campus would be complete without visiting Lancelot and Elaine. Iowa State has always had a pair of swans and they are always named this. Iowa State loves traditions!

Here are two of my fellow Boeing recruiters, Julie and Nick. We were proud of our booth set up, can you tell?

The career fair was the craziest one I have ever been to. There were five of us, and we all seriously talked for six hours straight with no breaks. So many students wanted to find out about internships and jobs with Boeing. I barely moved from the same spot for at least the first three hours before I was dying for a drink of water. We talked to some really great people, and even though my voice was gone by the end of the night, it was fun! I love talking to people and telling them that Boeing is a great place to work!

I had a lot of fun seeing campus and Ames again. It was such a great place to go to school! But I was really happy to head home on Wednesday to see my family! Hope I get to go again next year.

Fancy Feet

Jack had new shoes put on last week. He has classic flat Thoroughbred feet, so he gets pads put on his front feet in the summer when the ground is hard and dry. He used to get the plastic cut to fit pads, but Nancy, our amazing farrier, has been trying pour-in pads the past few times.

Here is Jack warding off the pesky flies with his fly mask on. I still think it's adorable how all the Stoneybrook horses have their names across their forehead. It's like a bunch of little kids with name tags on. He's sticking out his tongue at the camera!

To do the pour-in pad, Nancy fits his shoe, then trims a piece of mesh to the outline of his hoof. She nails the shoe on with the mesh sandwiched between his hoof and the shoe. Then she squirted in the goo (I don't know what the actual noun for the stuff is!) so it fills the space under the mesh. You can see a piece of clear plastic over the whole mess to hold the goo in while it dries. It sets in just a few minutes. I wish I had taken a few more pictures of the steps... maybe next time, but that may not be until next year!

Once Nancy is done, I usually put Tuff Stuff on his nice, neat feet to seal the nail holes. This is what I tell Jack: "You have Fancy Feet, now!" He does not have great feet, but we are trying to keep them as nice as possible!

Now we're ready to ride! It was an easy, short ride in the indoor on the soft footing. The pads needed to cure completely, so we couldn't do any really hard work. Lucky Jack!

Oh, and Jill (if you read this), you would not believe how much everyone still raves about my market basket that you gave me! I still get comments on how cute and handy it is, and I love it! Perfect for toting all my stuff to the barn. Thanks!

Oops, this was posted by Heidi. Somehow the computer was already logged in as Dave. Oh well!

Delightful Driveway

As promised to my mom and dad, here are pictures of our house and the newly sealed driveway. I love it! The grass on either side of the driveway now looks especially sad compared to it, but I'm sure it will start raining before too much longer and things will green up. I'll take dead grass and beautiful weather any day!




These are the flowers my mom planted back in July. They are still exploding with color. Thanks, Mom! Oh, I better remember to pull those lovely dandelions. Yuck!