"These flowers are so beautiful!"

     Okay so this week was awesome. On Monday I drove up Trail Ridge Road to see the sunset for Elizabeth's birthday. Rachel joined us and we had a great time watching the sun set over the mountains. I don't think I'll ever get sick of seeing it.

     A group of us also went to see Inside Out on Tuesday. It was fantastic. I loved seeing all of the creative ways that the brain was interpreted. It had a great and important message about processing your feelings and I'm pretty sure that over half of the theater cried.
     My job was also a blast this week. The first two days of the week were spent brainstorming themes for the Y's Annual Campaign in the fall. Anything raised in the Annual Campaign goes to supporting the Y's mission. So any of the programs we've promoted in the past summer campaigns like GRACE (for families affected by childhood cancer) to Military Getaway are funded by money from the Annual Campaign. When there was a huge flood in Colorado my freshman year of college, the Y provided housing for everyone who was displaced by the flooding. Money from the Annual Campaign helped make that happen. Joanna, my co-worker/one of my supervisors, is in charge of launching the campaign to the Board and volunteers to making calls to raise funds for this. She uses a themes to make it fun. Last year she used The Wizard of Oz (bummer that I couldn't do that...you know, being from Kansas and all), so I've been finding ideas to help her "top it."
     It took some creative thinking and by the end of the day Tuesday I had it narrowed down to six ideas- Disney, Olympics, The Wheel of Fortune, LIFE, Superheroes and Broadway. I gave Joanna a short presentation and next week I'll present it to the department so we can make an official vote. After that I'll get to make all of the campaign materials reflect the theme, which will be super fun. I'm happy that they care about my learning and want me to get the most out of my experience here.
     Tuesday mornings are also fun because there's a small gathering by the museum for guests to come and hear about the philanthropy programs that the Y does. Our first one had a bit of rain but the one this past week had gorgeous weather. There are quite a few cabin donors that stop by so I'm getting to know them better and I really enjoy that! (There are also donuts so obviously it's a great time.) Our department also has meetings on Tuesdays so it's nice to start off interacting with people before having to go to a bunch of meetings.
     Thursday was, by far, one of the most fun days I've had with the internship. Almost all of the department traveled over to the other side of Trail Ridge Road to Snow Mountain Ranch. It's an area that's a little more secluded but just as beautiful as the Estes Park Center. We are in the process of filming an impact video so the main purpose of our visit was to get footage of different programs and activities happening throughout the day. We also talked to different guests and got their "Y story." Two activities to watch were the stick horse rodeo (aka kids running around obstacles on stick horses aka one of the most adorable things I have ever seen) and the tubing hill. I even got to take a turn down the tubing hill!

"We were told to throw you down as fast as possible."
"...Oh." 

    The day was full of filming and fun. I had never been out to Snow Mountain Ranch so I loved seeing it. There were a ton of gorgeous wildflowers all over the place. The outdoor chapel was called Columbine Point because there were clusters of Columbine flowers all over the place. It was so cool to see it all!

     Driving over Trail Ridge Road was gorgeous, too. The wildflowers are all starting to come into full bloom and they're beautiful. I didn't get any pictures of Trail Ridge but I got a ton on our hikes throughout the week. Unfortunately we weren't graced with the presence of a moose on the drive (they're really popular on the other side of the divide), but I saw one from far away at SMR and it was huge. 

     My favorite part of the day was talking to Camp Chief Ouray counselors and campers. CCO is the Y's residential camp out at Snow Mountain Ranch. A lot of the campers we interviewed said nice things, but I loved hearing the counselors' stories. Some of them had been going to CCO for over 10 years. One guy even said, "CCO has made me the person I am today." Wow. It's seriously so cool hearing everyone's stories. I still think it's the best part of my job. There was a lot of crazy thunderstorms so Courtney, my other supervisor, and I had to book it back to the Y. Even with leaving early it was still a 12 hour day so I crashed almost as soon as I got home.
     With the 12 hour day on Thursday, I got to take Friday afternoon off. It was great- I even got to spend some time talking to one of my roommates in Theta for two hours. Rose has been gone for so long with Field Training and such so it was fantastic being able to talk to her for such a long time. That night, I hiked to Cub Lake with a small group. The sun was shining so bright on all of the lily pads and we got to see some incredible flowers on the way back. Another cool thing was seeing a whole herd of elk on our path. It took us a while to get past them (there were lots of babies in the herd and the moms are super protective so we had to be careful) but we were off the trail just before dusk.

 
     Saturday was super long. One of my old co-workers asked Rachel and me to join her on a guided hike to Black and Blue Lake. We reported to Sweet Memorial at 6;15 that morning and started on the trail at 7:00. Normally I don't like guided hikes but we had a great group. It made the whole day very enjoyable. We made it to Mills Lake in no time and wow it was incredible that early in the morning.

     Black Lake was the next one we hit. It got a little tricky in the last half mile or so because there was a lot of snow but we made it there just fine. It's one of my favorite lakes in the park, and being able to see it again made me extremely happy.

     The stretch from Black Lake to Blue Lake was absolutely killer. It wasn't even one mile but it was all uphill. There also wasn't a specific trail so we spent a lot of time climbing up rocks and regretting our life choices. (This was Stage 5 of hiking, otherwise known as: "We should have gotten horses for this.") Luckily we made it to the top with no injuries and the view/lake was fantastic.

     We booked it back to the trailhead and made it back around 3:00 PM. I hadn't felt that tired or sore in a while but I still managed to drag myself downtown to go out to dinner with Rachel, Zoe (my past co-worker) and two other new friends who work in Sweet this year. It was a lot of fun hanging out with them and I spent the rest of the night recovering from the hike. I was juuuust about to call it a night and go to bed early (you know, like a responsible adult), but then Elizabeth texted a group of us to inform us that there was going to be a meteor shower. She wanted to know if we wanted to drive up Trail Ridge Road to watch it. My immediate response was "UM DUH," so we headed up around 11:30.
     As it turns out, the sky was super cloudy that night. We all noticed it driving up but for some reason we thought, "maybe it'll change by the time we get to the rest stop." I'm not sure how we came to that conclusion, but anyway we met Amanda up there and stayed until 1:15 AM. It was crazy. We didn't see any meteors but the sky was cleared almost in a circle right above us so we could still see a lot of stars. I even saw a beautiful shooting star! Despite being wrong about the meteor shower, I was still super happy that we made the trip up. I finally crawled into bed around 2 AM.
     Rachel and I were going to find another cool hike to do Sunday but since we had been awake for 21 hours we opted to sleep in and go into town in the afternoon. There was a Scandinavian festival happening so we wandering around with Kristina and Amanda for a while. We even stopped into a few shops as well. One shop we stopped in had a rabbit that we all got to stop and pet. We ended our trip in town with a stop in the bookstore (we all could have spent hours there) and then headed over to hang out at Amanda's house. She lives in town with her cousins, so we were able to actually cook dinner for ourselves. Well...we bought Kraft mac and cheese and then Kristina and I watched Rachel make it. Close enough. We hung out, watched a horrible movie called After the Ball (think A Cinderella Story meets She's the Man but about ten times worse) and made our "hiking bucket list." I'm starting to feel unusually urgent about hiking everything on the list. We have less than ten full days of hiking left in the summer so we won't hit everything but we're trying to find a way to hit as much as possible.
     It's so weird to think that this weekend is the Fourth of July. Summer is always nuts in Estes Park but July is absolutely insane. I don't think I'm mentally prepared for all of the traffic but it'll be fun to see what the crazy summer brings to the philanthropy department.

Everything I Need

            It’s been a good week, team. Work flew by- I finished filing and started working on cabin donor things. I also got to travel to Denver for another YMCA Collaborative meeting with the Y’s in Colorado. This time around we talked about the annual campaign materials. I loved seeing what other YMCAs did. Some of their things will lend themselves to our annual campaign as well as various projects we can do. I ran some cool ideas by the co-worker that went with me and I think we’ve got some great projects in line. On the way back we talked about different projects that could be done to accomplish those goals. One of those things is helping with prep work for the annual campaign, which will be most of my projects this week (along with a visit out to Snow Mountain Ranch)! Another great thing that happened on our trip to Denver was that we saw a bear walking across the road on our way home! Bears are incredible- I definitely forgot how big they were. The sighting made both my co-worker and me happy because I was hoping to see a bear again and she was seeing one for the first time. So cool!

          Monday night was supposed to be $1 bowling but the computers broke down so Rachel, Elizabeth and I weren’t able to play. Instead we hung out in the arcade (I relived the glory days of losing in the computer race cars AND air hockey) and went in town for ice cream. We went to the LT service on Tuesday as well.

            On Wednesday I went hiking with Suzy, one of the other EXO interns. We decided to take on Lily Mountain. For some reason I was having a hard time breathing so we had to stop a lot. If that hike was a battle, the mountain would have been winning about 90% of the time. Luckily we were able to get to top to watch the sun set over the mountains. It was stunning- definitely worth the difficulties we faced climbing up. I loved revisiting the hike and hanging out with Suzy.

            Thursday, a small group of us planned to go to Lake Yipsilon. When we got to the trailhead we realized that that hike was eight miles, not four. We didn’t have time and we lost part of our group so Amanda, Elizabeth and I ended up going to Bierstadt Lake. I did it last year and though it’s not my favorite, it was easy to crank out. Since we started late we missed dinner at staff dining so we went to a small (and amazing) Thai place in town. They were fast and nice despite the fact that we walked in about ten minutes before closing time (not our fault, the whole city practically shuts down at 9 PM, it’s weird).

            Erica was in Colorado Springs for two weeks attending curriculum training for her school, so on Friday Rachel and I took a road trip to visit her. The drive wasn’t too bad. It felt super long on the way back but we had a blast talking about life and singing along to the radio. Country music was one of the only consistent stations the whole way so we listened to that most of the time and picked up on some fun songs. We heard “Sangria” about one million times and fell in love with “Homegrown” and “House Party.”

            Colorado Springs was great. We didn’t get there until about ten on Friday night so we just walked around the town for a bit. In the morning we went to the Olympic Training Center for a tour. The Olympics invokes a strange amount of pride and joy in me so I was pumped. The tour started with a video recap that ended with a preview of Rio de Janerio (!!!!!!!!). After that we went on a tour of the facilities. Most of the athletes don’t train on the weekends so we didn’t see anything special but it was still interesting. Chandler joined us for the second half of our day as we navigated the Garden of the Gods and then ate/explored the awesome town of Manitou Springs. It was similar to Estes Park but we all agreed that it had a lot more variety and less of a tourist feel. Erica's birthday was on Thursday so we went to a fondue place for dessert to celebrate. We stuck out like sore thumbs because none of us were dressed nice (I was definitely in Nike shorts and a t-shirt. Whoops). It definitely didn't help that we were in a room with two couples who weren't talking to each other. It was horribly awkward at first but once the whole room accepted that we were going to be the rookies who were a little too loud it was just fine. All in all, it was a great way to spend a day off travelling and exploring.

One of the most American things I've ever seen.

          

Appreciating my heritage. 

Accepting my gold medal in the sport of Diet Coke consumption.

Continuing my streak of not falling on any hikes (I know, I'm just as surprised as you).

Amanda, Kristina, Rachel and I all decided to go to Fern Lake on Sunday. Kristina brought her friend Kyle out with us as well. He told me halfway through our hike that I would be perfect on a Disney show, so we got along great. The hike started out perfect- it was flat and wildflowers were blooming all along the trail. At the last mile things got more difficult. It was basically all uphill. We made it to Fern Lake still feeling good and we spent a lot of time hanging out there. I love lake hikes a whole lot. There’s something so beautiful about the way the sun sparkles on the water.

Fern Lake!

After consulting our map we figured that Odessa Lake would be a reasonable trek. It was only 0.7 miles, how bad could it be?

As it turns out, pretty bad. The whole 0.7 miles was uphill. It was brutal. The good thing is that the lake was one of the best I’ve ever seen. It was gorgeous and I could have stayed for hours.We read somewhere that it was one of the most popular hikes in the park and I definitely understand why.

Beautiful Odessa Lake!

            The good thing about all of the uphill sections was that getting back to the trailhead was a piece of cake. It took us about four hours total to hike everywhere and we made it back to my car in an hour and a half. It was glorious.

            A group of us went down to a campfire that our friend Katie and her family made for us. They even bought s’mores supplies. All was well- we were making delicious s’mores, singing along to a guitar and oboe (a beautiful and unexpected combination) and admiring the stars when someone made a request for the guitar player to play “5,000 Candles in the Wind” from Parks and Rec. It took a few Google searches but we eventually found the chords and the lyrics and sang at the top of our lungs. It was hilarious- especially when we continued singing other songs and then closed the night out with “Shake it Off.”I hadn't done a campfire up until then and it was great to be next to the fire and underneath the beautiful stars again.

I am still reeling from how good this past week has been. Coming back to Estes was something that gave me a lot of comfort when things got rough this year. Whenever I thought about how great it would be to return, weeks like this were just what I imagined. It’s nice to feel like I’m thriving instead of just surviving. Don’t get me wrong, K-State is great and I’m super excited to go back in the fall. I just needed a break and I’m super happy that my break gets to be out here. I’m constantly reminded that despite having a year with disappointments and frustrations, there was so much hope and opportunity in it all. I still have a good chunk of time before school starts, but I already feel ready to take on the year. And that’s a really nice feeling.

A Sunset at 12,000 Feet

     It's the end of week three, and as usual, there have been a great deal of adventures.
     In terms of my job, my current project is reorganizing all of the membership files. This involves looking through each file and pulling anything older than fives years. After everything is updated I organize all of them alphabetically and make sure that the folders are in good shape/that they are organized in a way that makes sense. It's been taking up most of my day and it's mindless so things have been laid back. There's a variety of things that I need to do for my position in Theta so I've been able to work on that throughout the week and that's been really helpful. There's also another project that I got halfway through the week that involves cabin donors. I'll update all of the files and then I get to go around to the cabins again to make sure that everything is set up correctly. Since I was told that my job with decals is officially done I'm super happy that I get to go around and see more of the cabins again. It should be fun.

     Some of the people in the office and I went downtown on Thursday to go to a nonprofit conversation meeting. The conversation was focused on time management, which was interesting. A majority of the conversation was focused on the corporate business world, and there's only so much that you can relate to that as a college student. It was still cool getting to hear about the other nonprofits in town and meeting the people who work for them.
     There was also a huge conference here all week called Student Life. They played a lot of games on the big field by the Y's administration building, so for a few days I got to go outside and take pictures of their activities. My favorite thing I got to watch them play was a human version of Hungry Hungry Hippos. There was a huge tarp and plastic balls (think ball pit balls). Each team had one member standing and the other laying down holding a giant plastic tub. The person standing up would move the person on the ground around, trying to get the most plastic balls. It was absurd and so much fun to watch.

     Another thing I got to learn about this week was the Alumni Council. It's exactly what it sounds like- a group of people who try to keep past staff members of the Y engaged. The group is coming up to have an in-person meeting in late August. There's a good chance that I'll get to help with the planning despite the fact that their visit happens a few weeks after I leave.
     The week has been super laid back outside of work. There have been a few game nights, but my favorite one was on Wednesday. The night started with a staff kickball game that the RA office organized. Normally I hate sports because of my nonathletic nature (I especially hate super competitive people during sports games- that's one giant NOPE for me) but after sitting at an office desk for 8 hours doing nothing but filing, I was ready to be around people doing something active. Besides, kickball was one of my favorite sports programs that I helped with at Sweet last year. My team lost both games but I had a lot of fun. I even scored a run so whoooo sports! I'm going to come back super buff, just wait (hahahahahaha). After the games were over a small group of us went to the administration building to play games and we ended up teaching a group of staff members from Columbia how to play Bananagrams and Apples to Apples. In hindsight those were terrible games for people who didn't speak English as their first language, but they were good sports about it and we had a fun time.
     The weekend finally arrived and it was an absolute blast. Rachel, Amanda and I spent Friday night together. We went downtown and ate at a super good burger place called Penelope's and then took a drive up Trail Ridge Road. It's the highest continuous paved road in the US and its highest point is a little higher than 12,000 feet. Our goal was to make it up by sunset and thankfully we succeeded. We took a pitstop at a popular pull off section to take pictures and visit with some marmots (I saw three at once and my heart almost exploded with joy). It was beautiful because the sun was just starting to set so the sky was filled with yellows and blues and the mountains were getting a gorgeous purple tint to them.

     By the time we made it up to the Alpine Visitor's Center the sun was working its way down the mountains so we knew we had to work fast. There's still a ton of snow so we looked around at that for a little bit and booked it up these stairs nearby to see everything from a higher view. We made it to the top completely out of breath from running and then we looked up and holy crap.

     It was one of the most stunning things I've ever seen. Definitely one of those moments where the camera got the jist of it but didn't really come close to capturing its beauty. We drove down the mountain singing along to Disney songs and admiring the view of the cities in the dark. (Fun fact: you can see Loveland, Boulder and part of Denver from the top of Trail Ridge. So cool!) I came back to my dorm to a Parks and Rec marathon, which I gladly joined until about one in the morning.
     On Saturday, Rachel and I fulfilled a goal from last summer and went canoeing around Lake Estes. We wanted to do it a few times but between other adventures and not realizing when the place actually opened and closed we never got around to doing it. We were only out on the water for forty five minutes because a huge thunderstorm came rolling in but we had a great time hanging out on the water.

     Our timing was perfect, too because we missed the hail from that storm by about ten minutes. At night a group of us went to go see "Spy," which I thought was hilarious. The last fifteen minutes weren't great but the rest was super funny. Elizabeth and I came back and hung out in the lobby with people for a while, and then we attempted to make a hiking game plan with Kristina.
Around 1:00 AM, we all decided that we would hike Sand Beach Lake. It's at the Wild Basin trailhead so we thought it would be best for us to roll out around 8:30 and start hiking at 9. Long story short, we all overslept our alarms/wanted more sleep and just didn't get out of bed, and we ended up hiking after lunch.
     Plan B was to go to Bridal Veil Falls, a fairly flat 6 miles out in the Lumpy Ridge section of the park. When we got to the parking lot, however, it was completely full. People parked like jackwagons (pardon my French) so we had to go back to the main Lumpy Ridge trailhead. Our goal was to be back a little before six, and the only feasible thing was about two miles past Gem Lake. It was called Balanced Rock, and even though we had all been to Gem Lake (and were not fans, might I add), we decided that it would be cool to attempt something new. Off we went.
     Gem Lake is interesting because its view is more of Estes Park versus the rest of RMNP, and that's really cool to see up high. A group of friends and I even partially hiked there last year to see fireworks on the Fourth of July. We made it all the way to the lake with somewhat minimal complaining. There are these awful stairs that are at least one foot tall and they're just terrible climbing to get to the lake. My short little legs just can't keep up. It hurts just as bad going down too, which is unfortunate. We made it to part one of our destination and enjoyed the view before starting the next two miles towards Balanced Rock.

     The terrain to Balanced Rock was a complete 180 from Gem Lake. It was lush and full of beautiful, tall trees. Kristina and I joked that we were being led to Narnia. It took a little while but we finally made it to the site and....

     Well, it was cool for a few minutes. We were all a little bummed, but we stayed optimistic and started to head back. It had started to sprinkle and we had about an hour and a half until we needed to be back at the Y. We were confident that we could make it with plenty of time. Mother Nature, it turns out, had other plans for us. Instead of quickly hiking back, we got stuck in a 45 minute thunder storm. It was a scary one, too. Lightning was at least 5-7 miles away from us for most of the time. I said approximately one million Hail Marys as we hiked back. It was all downhill going to Balanced Rock, so it was delightful to hike uphill in the pouring rain. As the raindrops fell harder and thunder started to surround us, we all started to get nervous. Lightning is so incredibly dangerous at high altitudes- a group of people died last year from it- and we didn't want to have a similar fate. There was definitely a few moments when I really thought that someone was going to get hurt or we weren't going to make it back. It was that bad.
     Luckily Kristina and Elizabeth had the sense to stop us from continuing back to Gem Lake because with it being so open and surrounded by rocks, we would automatically be a lightning target. We pulled over in a lower area and stayed underneath the trees. I felt awful for most of it because I was wearing Elizabeth's raincoat. I hadn't packed mine because the forecast was totally clear and when it first started to rain she said she didn't mine and gladly lent me her jacket. Once it started pouring and getting windy things changed. It was one of those moments where we were all soaking wet and the jacket didn't help a whole lot, but I still felt terrible seeing sweet Elizabeth freezing her butt off. We huddled together to keep her warm and tried to distract ourselves from the thunder that seemed to be staying right over us. It was a great bonding moment and we were overjoyed after thirty minutes when the rain finally subsided and allowed us to continue.
     The descent took us forever because all of the paths were crazy flooded, but the last mile or so wasn't awful. There was a gorgeous rainbow that fell over Estes Park that we got to admire the whole way down.

     I decided that I wasn't a fan of Gem Lake and would probably not be returning to it. Rachel and I both decided that this hike was just as bad, if not worse, than Bluebird Lake. If you haven't heard the wonderful story of Bluebird Lake, don't worry- I'll fill you in later in the summer.
     We happily piled into Kristina's car, ate the most satisfying meal at Spruce ever (the whole "we thought we were going to die" thing most likely played a role in that...) and then went back to our rooms. I ended up going to the administration building to call my parents and then read and relax with Rachel. We ended up hanging out in Ponder Chapel with one of the chaplain's assistants, Michael. Michael and I were good friends last year and we frequently went to Ponder to watch movies. It was strange being back without our other group of friends. Even so, we had a blast watching John Mulaney's stand-up show.
     About halfway through the program, I heard keys jingle. It was after the building closed but my paranoid mind didn't wander because I already knew who was going to walk in the room- our old friend/security guard from last year. I first met him after he almost gave me a ticket for parking near no parking signs to go stargaze (his words to me were, and I quote, "Let's see...there's a no parking sign here, here AND here!"). He let me off with a warning and then we ended up running into him two days later while we were watching movies in Ponder. We saw him on a weekly basis after that. Luckily he only vaguely remembered us and was super nice. As he left, we all laughed about running into him again. It's nice to know that some things will never change. :)

The Week of 6 Lakes

Honestly, the week started off pretty dull. Most of my tasks in the office are, well, office-y things. I’ve been doing a lot of filing. The number of times I’ve sang the alphabet to myself has been unreal. Occasionally my reflexes get tested while listening to Pandora and songs such as “This Summer’s Gonna Hurt Like a Motherfucker” start playing. My supervisors give me projects whenever they can so in those in-between moments I just work on those office tasks and listen to TED Talks or Pandora. It’s nice having free time and not being bombarded every single day. One cool project that I got to finish today involved editing an information manual for a YMCA culture swap. Apparently the YMCA of the Rockies has a partnership with a YMCA in Russia and they take people over to experience the different cultures. A group from our YMCA is going at the end of August so I helped my supervisor finish up the packet for all of the participants.

Another cool project that I’ve been working on throughout the week is putting decals and pamphlets in vacant cabins to promote Connect 50- the summer campaign. We’re trying to bring 50 single-parent families to our YMCA for a free three night stay (and a one-year membership) so they can have a break and spend time together as a family. The Y does a lot of amazing programs and I love seeing what gets highlighted every summer- especially because they continue the program after the summer. In most cases, they were doing the program before they decided to highlight it. The project is taking forever but that’s mainly because we have to wait for people to check out before going in. 

Despite being directionally challenged I’ve been navigating the campus just fine and I've really enjoyed seeing all sorts of cabin options. There were newly renovated cabins, cabins with gorgeous views and cabins with cool crafts and artwork. There was even one with a giant elk head at the top of the fireplace. It totally didn’t scare the bejesus out of me when I walked in! The two story cabins also aren't creepy at all (I’m definitely lying- they are terrifying). I got a little freaked out because I realized I was in a prime state for a ghost attack or, more realistically, an opportunity to see some wildlife up close and personal (it would amaze you how many people leave their doors open). I got through it like a true adult by blasting music on my phone and running around both floors.

The week was going well and I was doing great (minus the day I accidentally stole the car from someone and then almost left master keys in a cabin). By Friday I had my system down and was making good time on my route. Then disaster struck.

There I was, at Bluebird cabin, just trying to get done with the last ten cabins I had for the day. I got out of the car and locked it, as usual. I went into the cabin and came back to the car and then it hit me- I didn’t have the keys in my hands. Looking in the window confirmed my worst fears- I had just locked the keys in the YMCA company car.

Damn it.

I walked back to my office (which was about half a mile away) and explained the situation to my supervisors. They were totally understanding and told me to try looking for a spare key in the place where we check out the cars. A quick scan of the box and BAM- I saw a pair of car keys.I grabbed them and practically skipped back to the car. This worked out so well! I'll be back on my route in no time. I thought pleasantly.

Then I got to the car and realized that I grabbed the car keys for the OTHER company car.

Double damn it.

The walk back to the office was almost more shameful, but my supervisors had a good sense of humor. At first we were told that there wasn’t a spare key but after some phone calls and e-mails the situation was resolved. It was all horribly embarrassing but after all was said and done, it was a funny way to end my second week of work.

Meeting people still feels a little overwhelming but this week it’s calmed down a bit. I met a great group of girls on Tuesday from going to an LT service with my roommate. (LT is a ministry program here. Students from colleges come and work at the Y and also do various activities to grow in their faith. K-State friends- think Kaleo in the mountains.) We all hung out after the service and then went into town later in the week to get coffee. They’re all delightful so it’ll be fun seeing them around more. Rachel and I also had our fair share of adventures throughout the week. First we took a hike to Moraine Park with our friend Erica, then I showed her the Elkhorn Lodge (we tried to go upstairs but were told that people aren’t allowed upstairs...) and we took a drive through the National Park. We got to see a beautiful sunset, too!

Hey.

The weekend was an absolute blast but it was also crazy busy. Friday I went camping with a small group of people out in a free campsite called Allenspark. There was another group of YMCA people so we all hung out for a bit. It was really fun! Our smaller group got breakfast at a cool place right outside the campgrounds and then headed home. At night I hiked to Sprague Lake with another fun group of people.

The next day I went on another hike with Kristina, Elizabeth and Rachel. Our journey lasted for nine hours and about 10.5 miles. We went to Emerald Lake, went back to the trailhead and then continued on to Mills Lake and The Loch. It was both fun and exhausting. The hike up to Emerald Lake has two other lakes- Nymph and Dream- on the way, and it also has lots of snow piles. It seemed like we were walking on snow for a while but all of the lakes were gorgeous. Emerald Lake was still completely frozen, which was so cool to see. Before heading back to the trailhead we got to say hello to a marmot which was very exciting because my love for marmots burns brighter than one thousand suns.

Nymph Lake

Dream Lake- one of my absolute favorites!

Emerald Lake. 

HEY MARMOT FRIEND.

We stopped at Bear Lake (it’s right on the trailhead) for lunch and then headed towards our next destinations. Mills Lake and The Loch are both gorgeous and not far from each other so we were hoping to knock both of them out in the same day. Unfortunately time got the best of us and we were only able to make it to Mills. We were all okay with it, though, because that meant that we had plenty of time to lay down and take a nap. 

(Gorgeous) Bear Lake.

Mills Lake!!!! (Fun fact: if you grab a Colorado quarter, this is the image you'll see!

Getting home from that hike felt extremely satisfying, and we celebrated by ordering pizza and then hanging out afterwards. It was a great way to end my second week at the Y. The start of week three has been great as well! Today has been pretty laid back, which is nice for a Monday. Cabin decals are just about finished and there was a variety of other projects that made the rest of the day fly by. There are a few exciting things planned for this week so stay tuned- there will be even more fun pictures and stories to report next week! :)

So happy to be done with our hike!!!

How we felt on the inside.