The Weekend

What a weekend it is going to be... Well, first off let me say this, it is 8:00 am on a Saturday morning, I have been up since 7:15 and I feel like I slept in too. I usually think sleeping in is getting up at 9:00 but I guess when I am getting up at 6:30 all week then 7:15 seems like a late start. But about the weekend, here in Missoula it is graduation weekend. The University graduates this morning and there will, no doubt, be beer, beer, and more beer to celebrate. There is only one graduation per school year so anyone who graduated at Christmas can come back to walk across the stage for graduation.

Don't forget that it is Mother's Day weekend so the resturants will be packed most of the weekend and since we are in Missoula I am sure beer will be needed to celebrate the occasion as well. *sigh* Yeah, that's how things are around here, beer is needed for everything. I have a small collection of beer accumulating in the fridge because people pass it around after Ultimate and I always end up with one in hand somehow. So I bring them home incase someone wants it - like anyone other than Laura and I will be around though. ha ha! Actually, on Monday we are going to have some visitors. My aunt and uncle from Casper will be in town and said they would give us a call while they were here.

Laura and I recieved a phone call last night to go hiking with some friends from the chemistry department. We will be hiking into the Mill Creek Falls which is near where we hiked last weekend. It is only three miles to the falls so we won't be doing any major hiking, maybe more of a walk - like last week - most of the trails are used extensively so have taken a lot of the 'work' out of the hike and made wide trails. We are taking along a girl who has never been hiking before so it will be interesting to see how she does. Actually it will be interesting to see how everyone does. When Laura and I hike we like to clip along around 3 miles an hour - that is with our pack gear on and going down the trail, not just out for a stroll down the sidewalk. I have a feeling this hike will be more like 1.5-2 miles an hour and there won't be much exercise recieved. We blame our experience of running in college as the resulting factor for a need to sweat and breath hard to get somewhere when we are going anywhere via foot. During our workouts, if we we not sweating, breathing hard, and close to exhaustion after every run then we were not getting in shape, and thus we were not getting any better for competition. Well, when that gets ingrained into your head then everything you do must be the same way. I find myself the same way during Ultimate Frisbee. So needless to say, Laura and I will be in the back of the group so we don't set a pace that will be too fast.

Here's some stats about our hike today. This is taken from the book Day Hikes Around Missoula.
Hiking Distance: 6 miles round trip
Hiking Time: 3 hours
Elevation Gain: 650 feet

Summary of hike: Mill Creek is a continuous display of cascades, falls and pools. The creek's headwaters are at Mill Lake at an elevation of 6,550 feet, eleven miles from the trailhead. The Mill Creek Trail follows the rushing creek all the way to the lake. Soaring canyon walls tower above the trail. This hike takes in the first three miles of the trail to a magnificent 60-foot waterfall and a swimming hole at the base of the falls. The large boulders make perfect seats for viewing the falls and relaxing.

I will be taking the camera along on the hike this morning. We are leaving at 10:00 so I am sure will be most of the afternoon before we arrive back in Missoula...but we are looking at a great day. Near 75 and partly cloudy. Tomorrow the high is set for 82 and then on Monday 88! The trails will be packed this weekend for sure.

And as always, here is a picture. This is from last week - Laura decided she needed something to do so she kicked a pine cone for awhile. I will try to get some pictures from the hike up on Sunday or Monday. Until again

-=Nolan=-