Idaho

In this post I will talk about the trip that I took this summer to Idaho. It was a backpacking trip through the Selway Bitterroot Mountains. Each year the Dallas County Conservation, headed by Chris Adkins and Laura Zaugg, choose twelve people to go on this trek. This is an amazing place and I recomend everyone to go on the trip, it's a once in a lifetime experience.
To go on this trip you must be chosen. You have to fill out an application form and have someone write you a letter of recomandation. It takes about a month for them to get back to you, I had to call them, then they will tell you whether or not you made it. If you make it then you have to go a meeting where they will tell you when we will meet to get our packs and everything else, they also get a sheet of what you are going to want/need to get for the trek. Sometime in late June or early July we all meet to get our packs and start our team building excercises. I don't want to give too much away but I can tell you that this meeting is very fun, you get to meet all the people that are going to be going on the trek with you. At this time you should ask all of the questions that you have, because by the time you ask it might be too late.
The weeks to come after that and before the trek takes place, make sure you walk a couple of miles each week to brake in your shoes and to get used to carrying such a heavy pack, trust me I didn't do that and ended up walking out of the mountains in sandals. When the day finally arrives you're pretty stoked, you're going off into the wilderness with a bunch of people that you barely know and two of the coolest adults that are pretty much kids themselves. On the way up to Idaho is a two day trip in a fifteen passanger van with about twelve hours in there each day. Day one is is probably the worst becuase you still don't know everybody and nobody really wants to talk, but it gets better as the day goes on as we all start to get bored. This means Egyptian time, it's a eally fun card game that we played for about five hours straight. The nights on the road we sleep in cabins, girls in one room boys in the other, we don't get much sleep. After days of traveling we finally arive at the hot springs in Idaho.
The hot srings are really fun, especially the nude guy walking down the trial informing us about the moose up ahead, I am totally kidding about the fun nude guy because that wasn't very fun at all it was actually really gross. We did end uo seeing that moose, which was really cool because most years the coolest thing that they see are deer so to see a moose was absolutely amazing. The hot springs are really nice. It's fun to be sitting in hot water one minute and swimming in the freezing creek the next. This is when we met Connie, she knows more than you will ever know so respect her, she is also the coolest person you might ever meet. We spent a whole afternoon there, it wass great.
The next two nights we slept outside on a helicopter pad. Then after those two nights we set out on our journey. Ths part is alway exciting because you have no idea what is up ahead. Once you start though you find out that this place is amazing. The smell in the mountains is so pure and then the veiws are just magnificent. You would be surprised to find that it actually gets really hot up there even when you're in the trees. We did a lot of clearing on our way to our camp. That year there were a lot of trees that had been uprooted and that had just fallen down. We also replanted a lot of trees into an area that some other hickers had kept their horses. We stayed in two camp sites. The first on had a huge waterfall that we jumped off of, again the water up there was really really cold but we did it anyway. That site was very beautiful but it wasn't our final destination. Our second camp site had an even beter veiw of everything. This one was very buggy though. If you don't like to be bitten by bugs then i suggest bringing a lot of bug spray, I think we had run out by the end of the trek. This is one trip that you will remember for a lifetime.
If you are interested in this then come to the meeting that will be held sometime in Feburary, just check the announcements. Talk to anyone that went on this trip and they will pretty much tell you the same thing, one of the best trips I have ever gone on. Remember it's not what you take in with you, it's what you take out.

Chicago

The Windy City, I'm guessing everyone knows what city I'm talking about. If you don't, I'm talking about Chicago. In my blogs I will be telling you about some of the places that I've gone and some places that I wish to travel to.
The first place that I'm going to write about is my favorite city Chicago. The first time that I went there was my freshman year on our every four year band trip. That trip was the best trip that I have been on. I loved that trip so much that I took my family there two years later.
The best part about Chicago is the museums. My favorite one was the Museum of Science and Industry. you might think that it sounds boring but it's not. They have so much stuff in there, if you go visit this one make sure you take a whole day to visit it. They have so many different things in this museum from old tracktors to electric cars. They even have an olden town with a movie theatre. Chicks hatching to out of this universe technology, this place has it all.
The other museum that I went to was the Field museum. There you can see dinosaurs and ancient Americans. the famous Sue (a T rex), she is the worlds laregest and most complete rex in the world. they also have diamonds and other types of rare rocks out on display, thought there was only a few different kinds of rocks, think agian. If you love all of those things then the Field museum is for you.
Love animals? You'll love the Shed Aquarium. From the smallest of sea animals to the whales you get it all. Every day they have a dolphin show. These dolphins are amazing, they do all sorts of tricks. They have great interaction programs at this aquarium.
Navy Pier is one place that you must stop on this trip. This long stretch of fun artifacts and shops will make your day a little more fun. When you go, go on the boat tours, you can choose to go on a the slow one or on the fastest tour boat ever. I would recomend the fast one, it feels like you're flying you're going so fast.
If you haven't seen The Blue Man Group I would recomend it. Not only is it entertaining but it's super cool. The drumming is amazing and the paint is awesome. They take people from the audience and use them in the show and there is a suprise at the end.
The city is awesome and the atmosphere is magical. This is one of the best places in the U.S. (my opinion). If you like big cities and want to have a great time doing pretty much anything this is defenatly the place for you. If you can't find something to do there then you just don't know how to have fun and should probably get out more often.