Hey, guys! I'm sorry it's taken all week long to get this post up. I've been busy catching up on stuff and helping around the house, etc., plus Blogger has been stupid and not wanting to upload all these pictures. Anyway, without further ado...this picture was as we were in Illinois, crossing over the Mississippi River. I took so many pictures of that....I've always wanted to see the Mississippi. I don't know why, but I have.
When we got to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, my Sunday school teacher/youth adviser took three other kids from our church and I and we went for a 6AM walk from the hotel we stayed at to Sioux Falls. It was sooo pretty, and I took a LOT of pictures there as well.
Ruins of some sort, I read the sign on the rock but I can't remember it xD
A combination of an amazing landscape and an amazing camera equaled a very camera-shot-happy me. xD
And there were a bunch of geese there, too.
And this is the Badlands. (Ignore the time stamps on the pictures, they're a day or two off for some reason..gah.) It was fun trying to take pictures of the kids from my church climbing on the rocks and then zooming out to show how tiny the kids looked on the rocks...especially when the braver, "mountain goat" ones would climb to the top of some of the rocks. You wouldn't catch me dead climbing that high...yikes.
Because of some books I read as a little kid, I have allllways wanted to see cracked, parched ground, so I was sure to take pictures when the opportunity arose. I really like this picture, for some reason.
And I bet you don't know what this is...Mount Rushmore. I took plenty of pictures there, too, but I just found the best one and left it at that for the blog. There are only so many pictures of Mount Rushmore that you can look at before you get tired of practically looking up George or Lincoln's nose just to see the two hiding behind xD
Ahhh, the buffalo. We drove through Custer State Park in South Dakota, and encountered this MASSIVE herd of bison. One guy from our church lost count at five hundred head of them. It was insane! And we were stuck on that road for probably around an hour, if not longer, because they were crossing the road. One even tried a mock-charge at the bus, which was really cool. It came within INCHES of hitting the bus! (rather, I thought it was cool. Most of the girls were scared and screaming, though...)
And this is just one picture from Wyoming. I took a bunch, but they were mostly at a ranch and mostly had people in them. Soo this is one of the best people-free pictures I took from Wyoming. (:
And these are from our hike in Colorado, which was along the Rocky Mountains. It was really, really pretty, but I was TERRIFIED up there.
I started up at almost the beginning of our group, knowing that I had to be with at least two other people (they wouldn't allow any less, in case of an emergency) and also knowing that the kids I knew would be mostly up at the top of the group. Wellll....I started out fine, but the adviser that was leading the entire group of kids was BOOKING it up that mountain, and the more I tried to keep up, the more out of breath I got because the elevation was more than twice what we're used to, and I ended up almost throwing up and passing out and...yeah...so I made myself stop. By the time I could sort of breathe, I was completely separated from the group. Soo I tried to catch up, and I finally found some girls from our district. Well, let's just say that you sure feel like a nobody when they see you; one girl makes eye contact with you, and they literally jog off and won't let you keep up with them.
So I ended up alone on the two mile hike up the mountain, with clouds coming in, (at least three people had died up there the weekend before we left on the 14th, so we were told to book it down the mountain as soon as we saw lightning ANYWHERE...), without a partner, and alone. My extremely shy self ended up eavesdropping and having to stop a random elderly couple and asking if I could walk with them, since they were well on their way to the same spot my group was supposed to meet up at, because I was completely lost. They told me where to go, and so I was luckily able to keep going. [Thank you, random elderly couple, you guys rock.]
And, well, I ended up there, completely alone and about 9,000 feet in the air, praying that I didn't get lost or die (and wondering if anyone would even NOTICE) and also asking for just ONE person to be friends with me, (because let's just say that the trip was full of teasing and pure harassment from my roommates, who picked on and teased me for every single thing I do, every single thing I like, and even how I SLEEP and EAT! It was getting old.)
Shortly after, I finally made it up to Gem Lake (the place we were supposed to meet up at), tagging along with two other random stragglers that I'd caught up to. We hung out there for a little while, and then they left me, too..but then one of the boys from my church came over and we walked back down the mountain together. He's kind of shy and actually a lot like me (aside from the doll collecting and Disney obsessed part, of course...) and we had a surprisingly long conversation the whole way down the mountain. About halfway down, thunder started and we heard rain wayyyy up in the mountain...most of the girls started screaming and running down the mountain, afraid of getting wet, but we just kept poking along. Of course, we kind of hurried a little more when lightning struck somewhere close by, but yeah xD We crammed under the overhang for the restroom literal seconds before a long downpour started, so that was lucky! We were among the first back down the mountain, so a lot of people got soaked.
Anyway, that was my experience hiking on the foothills(?) of the Rocky Mountains. After that, the boy and I hung out for the majority of the trip (he and another guy from my church let me eat with them [which was awesome, because my roommates would ditch me constantly and it was getting awkward, always tagging with our Sunday school teacher xD]) but after that, if we were going the same place, we were going together and talking. And it was really nice. I'll be forever thankful and grateful to him for his companionship, and I do believe he was the answer to my prayers up there on the Rocky Mountains.
ANYWAY. You guys are probably really sick of reading this stupid drama, right? Moving on to more pictures from the Rockies. It's also been on my bucket list to go to the Rocky Mountains, so that was EPIC too.
Shortly after, I finally made it up to Gem Lake (the place we were supposed to meet up at), tagging along with two other random stragglers that I'd caught up to. We hung out there for a little while, and then they left me, too..but then one of the boys from my church came over and we walked back down the mountain together. He's kind of shy and actually a lot like me (aside from the doll collecting and Disney obsessed part, of course...) and we had a surprisingly long conversation the whole way down the mountain. About halfway down, thunder started and we heard rain wayyyy up in the mountain...most of the girls started screaming and running down the mountain, afraid of getting wet, but we just kept poking along. Of course, we kind of hurried a little more when lightning struck somewhere close by, but yeah xD We crammed under the overhang for the restroom literal seconds before a long downpour started, so that was lucky! We were among the first back down the mountain, so a lot of people got soaked.
Anyway, that was my experience hiking on the foothills(?) of the Rocky Mountains. After that, the boy and I hung out for the majority of the trip (he and another guy from my church let me eat with them [which was awesome, because my roommates would ditch me constantly and it was getting awkward, always tagging with our Sunday school teacher xD]) but after that, if we were going the same place, we were going together and talking. And it was really nice. I'll be forever thankful and grateful to him for his companionship, and I do believe he was the answer to my prayers up there on the Rocky Mountains.
ANYWAY. You guys are probably really sick of reading this stupid drama, right? Moving on to more pictures from the Rockies. It's also been on my bucket list to go to the Rocky Mountains, so that was EPIC too.
And this one is the view we had from our dorm room, at five in the morning. It was really pretty!
Anyway, that's about it. Reeeallly long post, sorry 'bout that! More posts coming soon, not about my trip, but about other stuffs. :P Talk to you guys soon, I hope!
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