Mammoth Adventures

After an extremely active trip to Mammoth this past weekend, I rested and just hung out with friends today.
I've been excited to recap the amazing trip I had this weekend. In my "about" section, I talk about how I am trying to live a healthy lifestyle. This weekend I felt like I achieved that healthy lifestyle. From the moment we got to Ali's cabin on Friday, we were up and moving.
The road trip took place in my beloved car! I'm proud to say I drove 4.5 out of the 6 hours. Luckily, I had my traditional Egg Mcmuffin for breakfast to fuel my drive. 


Once we finally got to Mammoth, we immediatley decided to go for an easy bike ride around the neighborhood. The ride was really fun until my clumsiness got the best of me. It's been awhile since I last went bike riding, and I braked too hard/paniced a little and fell. Luckily, I didn't get hurt besides a few scratches and bruises. Don't worry the story we told was there was a big rock in the way ;)

All bandaged up...and being Spock.

Sadly my bike drama did not end with the fall. After 10 more minutes of biking, the bike broke when I was switching gears. The four of us ended walking the bikes to the nearest bike shop to get the bike (and my hand) all fixed up.
It ended up being a funny story, and we spent the rest of the night swimming at the pool and jacuzzi.

Saturday was spent hiking to Rainbow falls. Scott, Ali, Grant, and I took the tram down to the hiking area, and started our hike at Devil's Postpile.

We walked the next 2.5 miles to the beautiful Rainbow falls. We had originally planned to go swimming in the falls (which my family did a few years ago), but with so much snow this winter the falls were much stronger and did not look safe to swim.

Luckily, Scott suggested that we hike an extra half mile to Lower falls to go swimming there since we were already wearing our bathing suits. Once we got there and ate our picnic of pb&j's, we took off our tennis shoes and made a quick discovery: the water was freezing. The second we put our feet in the water, it was like pins and needles until our feet became numb. Some onlookers were definitely laughing at our shock ;)
Ali was the first one to brave diving in and I jumped in after. The boys were the last ones to get wet, so I think we showed up them this time! While the water was shockingly cold and the rock bottom uncomfortably sharp, it felt so amazing to cool down and warm back up on the rocks before heading back.

The overall hike was 6 pleasant miles. We spent the rest of the night watching the new Jersey Shore episode. My love for Jersey Shore is no secret. I am SO EXCITED for this season. It was such a good episode.


Sunday started off with a quick (but very painful) hike up to the base of Mammoth rock and climb to the top with our group and Ali's brother and cousins. The views were incredible, but the hike was super painful for me. I don't always do extraordinarily well in high altitudes so I was panting a little heavier than was comfortable.

Mammoth rock is the boulder sticking out there

After getting back from the hike and grabbing lunch, the four of us headed over to June Lake where my grandpa has a cabin. We hung out on the lake and went canoeing over to the boulders on the side of the lake. There we jumped off the boulders, tanned, and swam in the lake. We canoed around the lake for a little bit longer before heading back home.

This was definitely my favorite part of the trip!

That night we went out to eat at Whiskey Creek (I got fish tacos and sweet potato fries), and Scott and I took a quick detour from the cabin to go visit some of his family friends who live in the area.

Even though we were planning on leaving Monday at noon, Ali's parents invited us to go on a morning bike ride with them. I was super nervous about the bike ride because I was warned that it was a difficult uphill ride. I'm proud to say that I completed the 6 miles of pure uphill. I had to motivate myself to just keep pedaling and telling myself I could do it on the last part of the ride. The views from the trail was absolutely beautiful and seeing the lakes brought a bit of relief too. The downhill ride was super easy since I didn't have to pedal once. 

I was really proud of myself for completing the ride, and it felt good to have my legs a little tired once I got in the car for the 6 hour drive ride back (Scott took the wheel for the four of us this time).

This weekend was amazing, and I'm so happy that I was invited to experience a fun weekend vacation!

Out of the Closet

Not me, my clothes ;)

I got up nice and early this morning to get to Spectrum gym and take my first cycling class. First of all, can I just say how nice that gym is?

Last summer, I was a member of the local 24 Hour Fitness gym because it was the cheapest one, and I was just a high school student. Now, that I'm a college student and have even less money so joining a gym this summer didn't seem worth it...especially when I have such beautiful places to run.

But, if I didn't have to think about the cost of things like gym memberships, I would love Spectrum. Even though I was just there using a 3 day coupon, they were so, so nice. I got a full tour of the place (hmm...maybe I should take advantage of their sauna?), and when I went to wait for the cycling class to start the teacher saw that I was new and introduced herself. I should probably stop clutching the copy of the class schedules. It makes me look like the new kid. She was super sweet, and helped me set everything up when I told her it was my first class.

So I liked the class, but didn't love it. A quarter way through the class (aka 15 minutes in), I started getting all huffy because I thought I preferred running. Is it a tad self destructive that I feel like I worked out more when I run because I put more energy into dreading it? Halfway through I realized that these "hills" are hard and that this workout was intense, and my legs were really tired. After the work, I felt happy and accomplished. I would definitely do a spin class again or several more times, but I'm not head over heels in love.
I finished by quickly playing around with 5 pound dumbbells. I did 40 bicep curls, 10 raising arms to the front and then side (I don't have a name for these), 10 tricep extensions, and 30 seconds of sit ups 3 times. I don't really know any strength exercises (which I need to work on), so I just worked with what I knew.

I did get started on something, I've been putting off: clearing out my closet. I have so many clothes that have been hanging in there for literally years, and I really need to donate what I don't want and hopefully rediscover some new clothes.

Our overwhelming enthusiasm to get started on the project!

With the help of my own little Stacey London (read: tough love and hilarious betchy commentary from my best friend), I managed to go through my entire closet and shorts/skirts/leggings drawer. And it feels so so good. Now all I have left is to try on all my "maybe" shirts tomorrow.

All the contents of my closet before they were sorted!

And because I like to end on an even happier note, I had a smoothie almost the size of my head.

Really, it's hard to beat a strawberry-banana smoothie on a hot day (the trick is it has to be served in mug or it won't taste as good ;).