Saturday, August 28, 2010

Over the river and through the woods...

We started out the day with more cleaning, but this time it was shorter lived and we treated ourselves afterwards. Kerry's dad had the day off, so we decided to round everyone up, minus Taylor..he did have to work, and we headed up into the mountains. I'm a very traditional mountain lover: postcard worthy, snow-capped, admire from a distance type of thing, and I must say that as we entered the state and I saw that they just looked brown and plain, I wasn't too impressed. I'm not sure which one it was, but our destination was decided to be one of Alamosa's campgrounds, which didn't sound impressive either, as any campground I had ever been to was just a few picnic tables and trash barrels. It was quite a trip to get up there, and I think I was a Goldilocks in this situation: less pregnant would've made me more nauseous, and more pregnant would've made me go into labor, but where I was was just right. It was super bumpy and bouncy, and a little scary at times because as you wound up the mountain the road got narrower and narrower, especially when passing someone. We finally made it up there though, and it was pretty cold (of course we all forgot jackets). We'd cheated a little and got Subway to have on our picnic, so we went out to sit down and it started raining, making it even colder. (The mountain experts [the parentals] said that farther up the mountain it looked like they were about to get snow..insanity!) Despite the cold and rain, we set out to explore our surroundings, and boy was it worth it. Not sure what river/creek/whatever it was, but there was a really pretty little stream running through there, freezing water, but it was neat to look at. Parts of the water had what looked like sulphur deposits in it, making it look all swirly and rainbow-ish. As a side note, for awhile now we've been wondering what exactly sulphur was, so I'll inform Kerry, and anyone else who reads this. Straight from Wikipedia, ahem: Sulfur or sulphur, is the chemical element that has the atomic number 16. It is denoted with the symbol S. It is an abundant, multivalent non-metal. Sulfur, in its native form, is a bright yellow crystalline solid. In nature, it can be found as the pure element and as sulfide and sulfateminerals. It is an essential element for life and is found in two amino acids: cysteine and methionine. Its commercial uses are primarily in fertilizers, but it is also widely used in black gunpowder, matches, insecticides and fungicides. Elemental sulfur crystals are commonly sought after by mineral collectors for their brightly colored polyhedronshapes. In nonscientific contexts, it can also be referred to as brimstone. Anyhoo, our little getaway up there proved to be a really nice getaway, and not icky, brown mountain. It's very serene up there, where all you can hear is the sound of the water and that empty silence. The only bad part of the trip was when this pregnant lady had to use the outhouse..not fun. I'm always afraid there's something living down there! (Too many movies, I know, I know...) We got ice cream (Dairy Queen ice cream!) on our way back, and it was a delicious ending to a fun-filled day.



A real live Amish guy!! I've never seen one before, so I snapped a picture and probably ruined his life. =/



This was my "belly" picture for week 30. I feel as big as a house, but it was really neat to just be squashed by the greatness that our has God created.

--Kristin

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