Gigantic spider

Lizzy and I stumbled across this "little" guy on our walk this morning:

I saw something move in front of us and thought it was a toad. Nope. It was this GIGANTIC spider. It gave me the chills instantly. It stopped. Lizzy and I stopped. We had a stare down. Then it jumped and I almost peed my pants. What did I do then? The intelligent choice was to get out of dodge, but no, not me. I busted out the cell phone and tried to take a picture of the prehistoric creature. It didn't turn out too well because I had to zoom in since I wasn't going to risk a nasty spider bite, but you get the picture. My head is the shadow, so that gives you a perspective on how big it was. It's body was the size of a pop bottle lid!

Then I came home and found another weird looking insect in one of my shoes. Great.

Beartooth Pass, Round 1

Took a Saturday road trip with a woman in HR from the hospital and her family. It was fabulous! We went to the Beartooth Pass, which is about an hour away just outside a little ski town called Red Lodge. I'm officially in love with the mountains (not the bears or the mountain lions or the rattlesnakes, MINOR details).

You can get more info about the Beartooth Pass here.

There was a blizzard at the top of the mountain, so we couldn't cross over to WY. When the road is open, it's a scenic way to get to Yellowstone. It's on the to-do list!

Don't mind my slovenly appearance. I'm also wearing sandals in the snow. That should shock no one.

Oh snow.

People were skiing down this thing! I'm aiming to cross-country ski on relatively flat land.

They were skiing with their dogs! Lizzy would have disowned me at the top.

Ladies and gentlemen, THIS is Montana.

The sky is ridiculous.

Fields of wildflowers.

Red Lodge, Montana.

 

Skydiving!

I did this in Indy about a week or two before I moved. I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

You can also watch it on YouTube.

A big thanks goes out to Jordan for his videography skills (although they need a little work). :)

The Move: IN to MT: The Drive

For those of you in the loop, I moved from Indiana to Montana. The two-day drive started on June 6.

Day One

IN to IL to IA to SD

Lizzy taking in the view on my Indy apartment one last time. I absolutely loved that apartment.

Wind farms were the only interesting thing on the drive between IN and SD.

Wind farms again.

My copilot. She looks rather relaxed. I can guarantee you she wasn't. She's not a fan of the car.

The lovely piece of metal that apparently came loose during my first and second gas stops on day one of the drive. It made an AWFUL sound...but I kept driving.

When I got to Sioux Falls, SD on the first night, I stopped at a gas station and had a lovely fellow help me analyze the situation. He had tools and a large truck, so I figured he had to know something about cars. He kindly crawled under my car and cut this thing off for me. I went to the Honda dealership when I got here and they said I'd have to replace the entire exhaust system to put it back on, but that it wasn't essential. Score! I'll just get an oil change. Thanks.

Day Two

SD to WY to MT

South Dakota was pretty boring for the most part. However, it did have lots of billboards for really random tourist attractions. Corn Palace, anyone? This happened to be a brief bit of scenery other than the rolling hills.

The biggest challenge of the entire trip was making sure I had enough gas to find the next gas station. I swear, in some parts the nearest gas stations were two hours apart.

The bugs on the windshield were out of control! Windshield wiper fluid couldn't even touch them.

Hello, WY! It was gorgeous! This was the first thing I saw when I crossed the border.

More bugs and a beautiful sky. I stopped at a McDonald's in Sturgis for sweet tea. It was my drug of choice for the trip and I was going through withdrawal in SD because there weren't a lot of places to stop, not even McDonald's!

I believe there are snow-capped mountains in the distance. I also tried to stop of Mt. Rushmore thinking it wasn't too far off the interstate. Yeah, that wasn't a smart move. I drove through this little town for about 15 minutes and then saw a sign that said Mt. Rushmore was another 20 miles. At that point I turned around since I didn't want to loose three hours of drive time.

My copilot again. At this point she was trying to mush herself into the seat with the hope of disappearing.

Mountains!

Bugs!

Welcome to Billings, MONTANA!

A little Phoenix action

I got shipped to Phoenix last week for work. It was 68 degrees and sunny with mountains and palm trees...rough life. Here's a little photo story with my always magical cell phone pictures.

View

Arizona Center

A new TV studio that's set up like The Today Show...I was the only one who thought this was awesome

Free Gin Blossoms concert...Hey Jealousy!

The love of my life: FOOD...Phoenix Public Market / Urban Grocery and Wine Bar

The craziest looking potatoes I've ever seen

ASU (I think it's a branch)...cool art...check out that bright blue sky

Apparently it's Fall in Arizona...if you look closely, you can see a little grass!

Chase Field

Civic Space Park

Happiness and intelligent people

Someone I just met shared this quote by Ernest Hemingway with me:

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."

It really clicked with me and kind of sums up how I feel at this point in my life. At first glance it may sound a little pessimistic, but I don't think it's meant to come across that way. Intelligent people are always trying to be and do so many things and they have a picture in their head about what they want or at least how they believe things should be. They are always working toward happiness (or certain goals that they believe will lead to happiness); it's part of their passion for life. They have goal/dream after goal/dream that they think will lead them to happiness. This is when the other quote about life being a journey and not a destination comes into play. The challenge is experiencing the happiness of the journey and celebrating the happiness of the destination. It can be challenging for a lot of people and it's something I know I need to work on.

I see the quote as a challenge:

I dare all you intelligent people out there to truly start experiencing happiness!
I dare you to follow your passion!
I dare you to reach your potential!
I dare you not the settle!

It was also a little thrown off that the person who shared the quote with me seemed to "get me" right from the start. (For those who have seen the move, I compare it to the Eat, Pray, Love scene where Elizabeth tells David  that it's disarming when a complete stranger sees you better than you see yourself.)

Emergency surgery

Don't worry, it's just surgery on the dinosaur Lizzy got for Christmas. She immediately tore out the inner contraption...it wasn't a squeaker...it was more like a plastic disk with a metal ball inside, which is much easier on the ears than a squeaker.

Look at those sutures! I miss my calling; I should have been a surgeon. Another stuffed animal rescued by Dr. Garcia.