we came, we did.

or we saw, we conquered. however that phrase goes.

this morning my friend and i hiked up to silver lake. it was an absolutely perfect day for the occasion.  we knew where the trail head was, but since there are several lakes and trails, we thought that we would explore a little and see how far we could get. 

poor ruby got herself very intricately wedged between several aspens and dry dirt...bad combo (sorry papa randy).

well...

we made some friends (literally...they asked us to come jeeping with them sometime. digits exchanged and everything.).   i was so pleasantly surprised at the readiness of strangers to come help us. mind you, this was no short task. we had gotten ourselves pretty far up there and caught in the tightest possible spot on that road. whoops. but 5 men, 1 beckie, 2 jeeps, 1 truck, 1 tow rope,1 wench and 1 hour later... we were ready for our hike.

holy gorgeous. it was a decently difficult hike (only priming us for timpanogas next month) and well worth it in the end.

when we arrived at the top, we were greeted by this lovely lake scene. and of course there is only thing to do when you reach the peak of a hike- jump in. but please note all the snow that surrounded that lovely body of water. let's just say that once i got under water and started to swim to shore- i didn't almost drown because i cannot swim- but because i could not feel anything from the extremely cold temperatures of the water. dan jumped in a bit a after me and when he came out he exclaimed "i feel so alive! well... that was either death or alive- i am not sure which!" and right he was. it was refreshing, but frigid.

we hiked around the lake a bit and i cannot wait to get the pictures that he took with his super cool camera. it was breathtaking being up there. i could see for miles and it was all landscape brushed by the hands of god and untouched by "human intrusion" (para daniel). 

how does beckie survive a hike? nothing like sweedish fish to get those glucose levels up. we pretty much ran down the rest of the way and it felt great (my knees have only been throbbing the last 4 hours, nbd).

pictures just do not serve the view justice. we found a pretty cool rock ledge to climb out onto (only slightly, totally stupid and scary since our legs were jell-o) and just sat out there in our soaking wetness and overlooked all of this. it is moments like these that i just cannot understand how people don't believe in a god. our bodies were capable of getting there and to see that view: simply stunning.

we got home around 7 pm and as we were grabbing things out of the jeep some girls were also just getting home and so we chatted for a moment. i looked at them- in their adorable little dresses, hats and shoes and they told me that they had just returned home from a tea party. there was a stark contrast between their ladylike attire and my own...i looked down at my tie-dyed t-shirt, muddy legs, and shoes (not to mention the hair, no make up, need i really go on??) and just sort of laughed to myself. what is worse is that only a part of me was horribly embarrassed for my messy, boyish, disheveled look- but the larger part of me didn't care at all. i was explaining this to my friend's husband tonight and just laughing about it and said,

"and that is why those girls will get married someday, unlike myself." 

and his perfect reply, 

"no. that just means that you and your husband will be kick ass together!" 

so my resolution to become more feminine--> short lived. i may love cute clothes, but muddy hikes and lakes will always win out in my book.