Uphill Battle

The worst part about having a wall of windows in your office is that you can see the great weather you are missing out on. Instead of sitting in my office debating about all of the things I could be doing outside I decided to take a stand, I declared Wednesday a half-day. [shocking]

I checked a few webcams at the mountain resorts, checked the weather forecast, sent out a text to a trusty friend, checked in on a few projects, and coworkers, and then I closed the laptop, shut my office door behind me and didn’t look back. I hadn't planned on it but I used this hike as an opportunity to break-in my new hiking/canyoneering shoes (bought for my trip to the Narrows this month). They were a little big out of the box but I had to put them to the test sometime, right? They were spot-on. Perfect shoes & well worth the money.

I love to hike Bald Mountain at Deer Valley in the early spring and late fall so it was a natural pick for this leisurely Wednesday trek. Jesse and I drove up to the Silver Lake Lodge and started a “quick hike” that would allows us enough time to get back down the valley for our separate meetings that started at 6:00 PM. Our intentions of a quick hike were modified due to one of us having a leg day at the gym the day before and the need to just have a relaxing time in the mountains. Jesse had his camera and needed some time to get inspired; he is not one to take the same picture that he knows everyone else has taken. [He’s quite talented behind his new Canon camera]

On a quick side note, one thing I like about Jesse is that he is an avid reader of blogs and always has the best talking points. He shares some great stuff through Google Reader and I know whatever it is it won’t be a waste of time. I can only relate it to being the exact opposite of those people that insist on emailing FWD’s that involve a quiz, a chain letter, a mystic story, or some extremist message (you know the type). If it’s not interesting it’s not going to complete his sentence of “So, there’s this blog I’ve been following and they were saying…” Case in point, after not taking too many pictures he shared a quote from a photography blog about how “no matter where you are, there are 10 great pictures within 10 meters.” Truer words.

Any way, by the time we made it to the top of Bald Mountain there was no way that we were making it back to the car, let alone Salt Lake City, before 6:00 PM. We had fun taking pictures and talking about the upcoming trip to the Narrows. I don’t think my 2-megapixel iPhone really compared to his digital SLR but I still put forth a valiant effort.

The weather allowed for us to be conveniently lazy in our descent, not too cold and just enough of a breeze to remind us a storm was rolling in. In typical fashion we were starving and ready for some good food. With our combined short-term memory loss of what is good to eat in PC we ended up pitting a Blackberry and an iPhone against each other for a final destination (also the name of a movie we couldn’t remember).

After scarfing a bucket of chips and two dishes of salsa we were quickly stuffed by our main dishes. Needless to say, we were happily pregnant with food babies. With the late return to the city we both missed our 6:00 meetings, I missed an 8:00 softball game (sorry guys) and opted to go see Observe & Report (the mall cop movie with Seth Rogen). Sadly, the movie was barely worth the $1.25 but we still found moments worth laughing at. If anything, I have an appreciation for the daily routine of a mall cop. I will gladly take a frustrated afternoon locked up in my office, looking out the window, instead of patrolling the Valley Fair Mall as a rent-a-cop. Then again, I will gladly take a half-day the next time the weather is nice and I can manage a few hours on away from my desk.

True story.