…I believe I had given you very little in the way of concrete facts. It was another epic bout of philosophical ramblings from Rachel. I apologize for that, however I’m afraid there is nothing I can do about the fact that you have already read it (if you did), and now have gained an unfortunate glimpse into the inner workings of my mind when it is about to have a nervous breakdown. Don’t worry though, I promise I will not be so incredibly “out there” this time.
If you want a little bit of follow up to that though, I did actually take the Missouri Bar Exam. My mind did not explode, as I fully expected it to. I won’t find out the results until September though, so I am enjoying my reprieve right now and am just diving into work. After the bar exam, my family and I took a nice little vacay out to (I bet you can guess)… COLORADO!! Different part though. Went out to Basalt where my aunt & uncle live. The main goal of the trip was to end it by hiking my first 14’er, Mt. Elbert. Fun fact: Mt. Elbert is the second tallest mountain in the continental U.S., and is the tallest mountain in Colorado at 14,443 feet. It is very tall.
Mt. Elbert is on the left. This pic was taken when I was about done. This is probably at about 11,500 feet. I don’t know if you can tell, but there is a person on the horizon, on the right side of the pic. That might help with the depth perception, give you a frame of reference and all that jazz. It was an absolutely gorgeous hike. A very long, but gorgeous hike. I think round trip it ended up being about 11 miles. I’m also a little bit sad to report that I did not actually make it to the top. I made it to about 12,500 feet. This was my view from there:
It was, as I said, gorgeous. So while I did not make it to the top, I was still pretty proud of myself. That was the highest I’ve ever hiked anyway. I really just wasn’t prepared physically or mentally I don’t think. Yet another reason I need to live in Colorado, it helps so much to already have your lungs used to the altitude before doing a hike like this. We tried to do a lot of hiking leading up to this one so that we would acclimate and have a better shot at getting to the top. It just wasn’t enough. Plus, I’m already out of shape. Lesson learned: train a bunch before the next 14’er attempt. There will be more, I promise you.
Anyway, we had a great time during the week that we were out there. Watched a lot of Olympics coverage each night as we tried to recover from whatever physically exhausting hike we had done that day. Also saw Crested Butte for the first time. A little difficult to get to, even by car, but a beautiful little town way up in the mountains.
The day we got back from Colorado, I found out that my Grandpa had died. We went to see him on our way out to Colorado, and he wasn’t doing very well at that time, so this wasn’t really a surprise. That being said, I still felt the loss. I feel like I was pretty close to my Grandpa, he was certainly one of my role models growing up. Plus, he was my last grandpa, my other grandpa having already passed away last year. It is kind of weird that I don’t have any grandfathers anymore, at least to me.
On Monday, earlier this week, we had my Grandpa’s memorial service in Hutchinson, Kansas. It was pretty good, as far as memorial services go. The church was full of people that remembered him fondly, and that is an amazing thing to witness. To see the kind of impact someone has had on others, and to have it be so resoundingly good is incredible. He was an incredible man, and a wonderful grandfather.
Sagacious Student 