Oh I went I went a fishin'...

...On a hot summer day. I went fishing outside of Alaska for the first time a couple Saturdays ago. I have mixed feelings about the event overall (spoiler: I got sunburned all to crap, again) but it was a lot of fun. Actually, we did more than just fish. We also rode horses.

This is Milo showing obvious signs of inattention.

Apparently it's a "horse thing" that they need to be retaught to be good little obedient horses on their first ride every year after the long winter break. Unfortunately, winter lasted until August with the horses that we were riding. It was a pretty short trip once Aubrey found out about this. Also, I'm pretty sure Milo was so excited that he forgot to eat breakfast, because he would keep stopping to eat at whatever plants were around. At one point he pulled up an entire plant that was about two feet tall and was carrying it around with us.He then stopped in the middle of the road while we were crossing it and stopped responding to any and all commands/nudges. We didn't get hit by any cars though, as the car that came speeding around the corner saw us in time to slow down and stop.

My first Utah catch. I named him "Butch" (not really).

 But anyway, after I almost died thanks to a horse (which, based on my past experience means I'm maintaining an average of 66% for my life to be seriously threatened any time I get on a horse) we went fishing. We were up in the Uintas, so we went to this giant reservoir named "Starvation" of all things. Rumor has it there's some serious fishes up there, but we sure didn't see any. I don't want to overstate the obvious, but fishing for widdle fishes is a lot different than fishing for salmon. The biggest difference between salmon and these little perch was that I couldn't ever really tell if they were hooked or not. Many, many times I would see my bobber bobbing around, I'd give it a yank, it would continue to move around...yank...still moving...and I'd reel it in only to find that most of my bait was gone. Two of those many times, this very same thing would happen but a very tiny fish happened to be on the end of my line, looking confused. Silly fish, not even enough sense to fight it (or enough weight to be noticeable, which would have been nice).

But we did have a great time. We've certainly got a little bit of the fishing bug. we wanted to go again this past weekend of it didn't work out. We'll definitely get back out there before school starts. 

Aubrey's grandpa Larry. A mountain man if there ever was one.

Aubrey's dad and grandma Patsy.

 Note: The presence of cowboy hats in some pictures does not mean that Aubrey or I ever wore cowboy hats. I feel like this needs to be stated somewhere.

Not that I needed convincing...

Now that my readership is to an all-time low, I've decided to write again.

A lot has changed in the last few months, but we can discuss that later. Today I want to talk about a little town called Fairbanks. The Fairbanks in Alaska. The Fairbanks that I've never had any desire to visit.

CoolWife and I are in Alaska right now. We've had a wonderful time traveling, seeing the sights, eating tasty foods, and hanging out with my parents (photos probably to come). But we sure didn't go to Fairbanks, and one little conversation pretty much sealed the deal for me that I shouldn't bother for the rest of my life.

While we were visiting Denali National Park, Aubrey and I were checking out some gift shops near our hotel. (Also near the hotel: The Salmon Bake. Go there.) One of the shops had something to do with a Fairbanks Bowl Company, which sells overpriced wooden bowls and hires insane people to work at their stores.

"Wait!", you say? "What's this talk of insane people?", you ask? Keep reading.

First I'll set the scene. The store has shelves that go to the ceiling along the walls, and a few rows of waist-high shelves through the middle of the shop. The shop itself is only about 30ft by 60ft or so. We walk in, and after seeing the price tag on the first item by the door I've decided that there's no way I was going to buy something there. But CoolWife likes to look in shops, so we began making our way slowly through the winding rows of merchandise.

After about 30 seconds, the girl manning (or girling) the store comes out from her counter and tells us that everything in the shop was made in Fairbanks, and if we went there, we could see it ourselves. My face must have betrayed my thoughts ("Fairbanks? No frikkin' way.") because she called me out on having frowned when she talked about Fairbanks. I told her that we weren't planning on going to Fairbanks.

Sales Girl: Why wouldn't you go to Fairbanks?
Me: Well, I've never really had the desire.
SG: Are you from around here?
Me: I'm from Anchorage, well, Eagle River actually.
SG: THAT'S why. You've just never been and you don't know what good things are there. First, there's Chena Hot Springs, there's not so many people as there are in Anchorage, and it's pretty much a jumping off point for the wilderness if that's your thing (this last part about "my thing" was said condescendingly).
Me: Hmmmm....

Firstly, the hot springs aren't in Fairbanks, they're another 55 miles north of Fairbanks. If the #1 attraction for your town is another hour out of the way, you might want to restructure your argument. Secondly, I prefer to live in urban areas, and lastly, which city in Alaska isn't a jumping off point to the wilderness? At this point I felt pretty validated about not having been to Fairbanks.

She must have sensed my good feelings, because she sure didn't stop there.

Sales Girl: Yeah, it's not like Eagle River, you can just go off by yourself in the woods and no one will bother you. And if you get lost and die out there...Eh, you're biodegradable.
Me, not altogether sure I heard that last part right: Oh really? So no one will come looking for you?
Sales Girl: Oh no, we'll just leave you out there to die.

This is the point where I got really nervous and figured we should probably get out of there soon. I decided to go for a "diffuse the situation" tactic instead of just running for the door. Also, CoolWife is still with me but not saying anything at all to help me out; she's just enjoying the show.

Me: Oh...well...I lived with a few guys from Fairbanks in college (three, to be exact), they were all really cool guys. They only had good things to say about the place.
Clearly Insane Sales Girl: Where was this?
Me: Idaho.
SG: Yeah, you don't really count has a true Fairbanks Person until you've left Fairbanks and come back. So their opinion probably didn't count.
Me: Oh? Well...they liked it....
SG: Also, winters in Fairbanks are way worse than Idaho or Anchorage. If it's too cold for your car to start, that's just your car's fault.
Me: (Now moving towards the door) Well, I guess you can't plug in every car to make sure they start (I was referring to engine bloc heaters, I just assumed she would know what I meant there).
SG: Also, going to Anchorage counts as leaving Fairbanks.
Me: Right.... Well, bye!
SG: Be sure to visit our store in Fairbanks when you go! If you go....

(Now outside)

Me: Holy crap!
CoolWife: WOW!!! That was amazing! Sorry I didn't have your back in there, but that was hilarious!

At this point, I feel like I should stick up for Idaho a little bit. Rexburg is actually very much like Fairbanks. It's small, really far away from anything worthwhile, and the winter does suck pretty hard. However, those aren't exactly the selling points. Fairbanks appears to embrace those traits. So if you're looking for cold and miserable nine months out of every twelve in a place where your friends and neighbors really will leave you out in the wilderness to die, Fairbanks is your place!

Also, if you ever find yourself in need of a good lawyer that won't cannibalize their own argument, don't ask around at Fairbanks Bowl Company.

Oh yeah, I went to Colorado once

I went on a small adventure to Colorado this past weekend. Much more of an adventure that I thought it was going to be too. The purpose was to see this band:


And you know what? We did!


We saw them from the second row of this place:


And it was AMAZING! Turns out there's a magical place in the Rockies will mountains and trees and streams with crazy huge red rocks sticking up out of the ground all over the place. And it also turns out that they do a lot of rock concerts there. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Red Rocks Amphitheater. My roommate B---- is a hardcore fan of the band (he's from the same town as them) so he was willing to 1) not only make the drive, but 2) sit in line for 4 hours so we could go get lunch and still get great seats. Props to you good buddy! It was a really good concert, I even enjoyed the songs I didn't know. The venue was beautiful, the town was beautiful, and I'm sure the 6,000 white chicks that were there would have been beautiful too if they hadn't been wasted (or at least pretending to be) and spilling their $7 cups of beer into each others hair and cleavage.

So that was day #1.

On day two I woke up in Colorado Springs, in the home of a family I had never before met (Friends of B---- from his LDS mission there). Turns out they were really nice and even made us breakfast! Of course, we didn't eat it until about 1 P.M., but it was still very good. We then spent the rest of the day visiting the Olympic Training Center, going to small town called Manitu where we found treasures such as the one shown at right (No, that is not my arm). The whole place reminded me a lot of Seward, AK but without the ocean. From Hippie Towne went went over to a park called The Garden of the Gods and hopped around a bit on the rocks there.

There was a small bit of debate over what to do next, but more importantly than that: this is when my cell phone decided to break. Precious little thing. It's doing okay now, but if anyone stumbles across a free iPhone or Blackberry, I'm your man.

Day #3 wasn't that great for me. My arm had been giving some trouble and I didn't sleep well. Also, the wonderful family that let us stay for two nights has a cat. A cat that I pet until it purred like a chainsaw and then I itched my eye. Did I mention I'm allergic to cats? Nice one. So church was sort of a non-event for me. We then went by the USAF Academy and checked out the chapel there. Turns out they have rooms for 4 denominations: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and even Buddhist! The Buddhist one was the coolest. I'd have gone in and hung out if I could.

That was the end of the vacation, we then spent 7 hours in the car or something. It was great...ish.

This is what my apartment should look like