Water You Doing?!

  For some reason, I've been doing more outdoors-y stuff in the last two months than I've probably ever done in my life. It started when our ward had a weekend campout near Payson, and Saturday morning a few of us decided to drive out to a place called Water Wheel (Waterwheel? I don't even know) for some hiking and...cliff jumping. I am a little bit terrified of heights, but I was game to try jumping anyway....that is, until we actually got in the water and it was freezing. Like,  'it's hard to breathe and everything gets numb and you struggle to swim just five feet' cold.  I have never felt so cold in my life. I quickly decided against cliff jumping and just sat with my friend Michelle on the sidelines to cheer on those brave/dumb enough to jump in and climb back out repeatedly.

Becca, Clint, and Michelle (They'll probably be featured on my blog a lot. Clint hadn't slept well in his tent so I offered to let him nap in the truck while we had breakfast, but then we stayed to bug him anyway)

Later, we hiked a little farther to a shallower pool with a mini waterfall that wasn't quite so cold, and hung around there for a while before a storm started moving in and we all drove back home.

That next week for Labor Day weekend, Becca, Clint, Benworth and I went to Canyon Lake to cliff jump again, and this time the water was far less cold and I actually cliff jumped this time! Unfortunately, no pictures, as the cliff we jumped from was really just a tall rock in the middle of the lake, and we had to swim out there to reach it. Not really ideal for bringing a camera....

Anyway, the 'cliff' was just about twenty feet tall, and it was pretty fun to jump off of, except for when I unexpectedly touched the bottom with my feet and it was incredibly squishy. We went again on Monday, this time with Benworth's younger brother Brandon and their sailboat!

Clint, Brandon, my disembodied legs, Benworth

Benworth and Becca! Everybody was stylin' bandannas that day

We did a little cliff jumping again, but, more importantly, I learned how to sail! It was kind of intimidating and difficult to do with very little wind (and I accidentally tipped the boat over at one point) but it was fun! Jury's still out on whether I'll ever do it again, though. After thoroughly exhausting ourselves, we decided it would be a great idea to go tubing on the Salt River. Becca had borrowed a huge raft for us all, since we had been debating about going, but by the time we got going it was nearly six and we quickly decided we had better get out before it got too dark. So Benworth and Brandon hitched a ride back to the parking lot, while Becca, Clint, and I waited by the side of the road, trying to deflate the raft. Luckily, we didn't run into any trouble, and we got back into our car just as it was getting too dark.

The four of us (plus Michelle and our other friend Bryce) are planning to go camping at some property Becca's family has near the White Mountains next weekend, so I'm pretty excited for that! :)