The Coldest Night of My Life

Day 284

When I was in college I had a great set of friends, many of them which I have blogged about before. One of my fondest memories with these guys was when we went up to Tony Grove (a rugged place up the mountains) and did some winter camping. That had to be the coldest night of my life. I have never been that cold even when our furnace went out a few years ago. I mean it was just unbelievable cold during the night.

There was a ton of snow that we had to hike up on snowshoes. We had a large sled (one that dogs pull in the Iditarod) which had all of our gear and wood. We tied ourselves to the sled and hiked up. What a minute... that makes US dogs!

I am the second one from the right looking at the camera. I am not sure how far we hiked but I am sure it was at least a couple of miles.

My artist friend Joel chronicled all the fun moments in his cartoon strip. Most of these cartoon are actual moments from the trip.

This is Joel and Maren. The funny thing about this was that Joel and I were really ill-prepared for the trip. I don't think I packed any food at all. At least I cannot remember packing any.

True story. There was hardly any snow in the canyon until we finally got up to Tony Grove. And it was deep. I remember that after we got to camp we took off our snowshoes and sunk right into the snow past our knees.

Some people had difficulty in wearing and walking in snowshoes. Luckily my Canadian training came in handy. And I am being serious. Our Elementary School and a full classroom set in case it snows really bad. We took them out and practiced on them once or twice a winter.

We worked like dogs to get our camping gear up the mountain! Get it? Dogs? It was quite the haul. We found a place to camp and I remember just sucking it up and driving with everything I had to get up the mountain. The rope that was tied around my waist left welts. It was hard work!

 

Most of the cartoons were of Joel and I. We slept in the same tent and it was night out and setting up a tent in snowshoes is quite an adventure. That is me being the sarcastic one in the first panel. And that was all true, even the last part. But we flipped it back when we went to sleep.

Lared was the one that was uber-prepared. If is wasn't for Lared, Joel and I would have frozen or starved to death. Whichever horrible death that came first. Lared cooked a mean steak. This was a true conversation. Again, that is me with the sarcastic remark at the end of the strip.

 

The temperature plunged when the sun went down. I was amazed that my glove was frozen solid. Seriously, you couldn't bend the fingers on my glove. The same glove that I was wearing just an hour before. Then it hit Joel and I. What about our sleeping bags?

This was one of the strips that was made up. But those snowshoes were not easy to get on and off. It might have been easier to sleep with them on. And the sleeping bags were solid.

 

One of my biggest pet peeves is stepping in melted ice. So I demanded that Eric and Joel leave their boots outside. I didn't want to take the chance. I must have mentioned it a few times since Joel made a strip out of it. The funny thing is that it got real hot in that small tent. So we all took off our coats and just a few short hours later we were awake and freezing looking for our coats. When we woke up that morning both Eric and I were on top of Joel. And our breathing froze and formed ice/snow all over the inside of our tent like a horrible nightmare.

Even though we are freezing to death we didn't want to get out of sleeping bags and tents. We owe Jim our lives that he started a fire. Lared (as always) slept in for hours. So Joel and I ate the S'mores leftovers. That chocolate was soooo hard!

 

This is my favorite strip. Joel captured Lared perfectly. He woke up hours later. The one thing both Joel, Eric and I could have used was some sort of cushion. We slept right on the snow which turned to ice. When we packed up the tent you could see Joel's body outline in the snow. He melted it down about six inches and Eric and I used Joel as a mattress. Then Lared offered for us to use his EXTRA mattress. We could have used that bit of info YESTERDAY!

Joel's jeans were totally frozen stiff and it was funny to watch him try to warm them up by the fire. I honestly did have a good time even with all the snarky comments I made during this trip. Yeah, that is me again in the last panel.

 

We went sledding down the mountain side in the back country and it was a blast. We went down and we were going to fast and we hit this large snow-covered rock and went flying. When we finally hit the Earth, Joel was buried up to his chest (he was in front) and Lared and I were up to our waists in snow. It took a few minutes to dig ourselves out and then we did it again. That was me again with the sarcastic comment!

We totally watched Jim do this as he snowboarded down the mountain. He flipped over and dragged his head into this snowbank and miraculously flipped back in his feet and continued down the slope.

 

The trip home was quiet and sad. We were all extremely tired and sad that the trip was so short.

I am so glad that Joel made these cartoons and gave me a copy. Even though I froze, I had a great time and wouldn't trade it for anything. But I would bring a mattress of some kind next time.

Dumb Pheasant Road

Day 227

You learn something new every day. Last week as I was helping a lady move I learned something that I didn't know.

If you plan on raising turkeys, make sure that you raise them with chickens. A friend of mine told me that and that intrigued me. I had to know why so I asked him. Apparently, turkeys bred in captivity are so stupid that they need chickens around them to teach them how to eat and drink. Turkeys in the wild, while still stupid, can survive but tame turkeys are just that stupid. He then told me of stories of how turkeys have died and I was surprised about how dumb they really are.

That shouldn't have surprised me all that much. I know some wild birds are not that smart at all. It reminded me of a time my friend Lared and I were driving to his house. Lared lives in North Logan and at the time it was pretty sparse. Not a lot of neighbors and houses, just a lot of open fields. As we were driving we looked over to the right and saw this big beautiful pheasant take flight. It was awesome, it crossed over the car just a foot above us and soared across the street.

Right into the brown door of this house. 

Yes, it crashed head first into a large brown front door of the only house across the street.

At first it was like something out a nature show. You could almost hear the beautiful classical music playing in the background as this colorful and majestic bird made its way across the road. Then you could hear the record player scratch itself and stop as that dumb bird hit a house. How the heck did it not see the house? It was the only house on the street! And why did it hit in right in the front door? It was not like the door was open either. It was a solid brown oak door and it hit the door hard. It collapsed on the porch on its back and shook its legs to get upright. Lared and I looked at each other and laughed.

From that point on we named the road, Dumb Pheasant Road.

Movie Night!

Day 117

Watching movies with my family and friends must be some of my favorite memories because I certainly remember them crystal clear. So here are a collection of some of my favorite memories while watching movies.

My first movie experience was in 1977 with Star Wars. My dad took my sister to it first and came home and took me when they went a second time. I don't remember much about it but from what my dad said, I couldn't take my eyes off it.

Now when the sequel The Empire Strikes Back came out that was another story. I was so excited to see it. I sat in my chair taking it all in until the Wampa hit. And suddenly I was on my dad's lap.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was the next one I saw in the theatres and I am glad that my parents took me. I think parents nowadays try to hard to shield their kids too much from enjoying things. In order for you to enjoy the good, you have to experience the bad. Raiders was a dark film but even though I was young, I enjoyed it and it didn't make me into a serial killer or anything. The one thing that I remember about going to see Raiders of the Lost Ark was my dad. My sister and I were sitting together apart from my parents. Suddenly during the film my dad bolts up and leaves the theatre. About ten minutes later he came back but sat by me and my sister. At first I thought he was mad at mom for something but it turned out that he thought he had peed his pants. He was holding his Coke between his legs and the moisture collected from all the ice melting and he thought he had an accident. He didn't obviously but was so embarrassed that he sat by us instead of mom.


That was not the end to embarrassing moments in the movie theatre. My dad and I decided to see Arachnophobia (even though we both HATE spiders). We saw it at a dollar theatre and there was only a few of us in there. During the movie, I thought it would be funny to reach around and flick my dad's ear. It was a great idea, I flicked his ear and popcorn went a flying! I thought my dad was going to kill me.

Back in the day, you could rent a VCR and some movies from the local Mac's store (which is like a 7/11) and my dad and I decided to get Aliens. That has got to be one of my all-time favorite movies and it left me breathless. At the end of the movie my dad was turning off the TV and he put his hand up his shirt. He turned to me and said, "That was a pretty intense movie eh?" And then suddenly he thrusted his hand out from his shirt like a chestburster! I about hit the roof. And my dad wonders why I like to scare him all the time! I got it from him.

You wanna know what awkward is? Try watching Predator 2 with your mom. She loved the first one but that second one had some scenes that no kid (no matter how old they are) should watch with his parents.

That was a cool thing about my mom, she liked action movies. You know what one of her favorites is? She called me one day and said she wanted to go see Face Off that weekend. My mom was way into it, partly because of John Travolta. Luckily for me, there wasn't any Predator 2-type scenes.

My sister on the other hand is very "hands on" when you watch movies with her. My arm was bruised for days after watching Con Air with her. Every explosion and gunshot, my arm was swatted by my sister. She shouldn't watch intense movies like that. Con Air was not even that good!

I took Kristy to go see Jurassic Park II. During the scene where all the raptors were chasing the people, one popped out from under the fence. I knew it was coming and everyone screamed when it happened. Well, their scream scared the snot out of me. So right after the audience screamed, I screamed. The girls in front of me turned there heads back to look at me and I pointed to Kristy sheepishly.

Kristy's brother-in-law Aaron and I went and saw The Blair Witch Project together. We must have been hyped to see it because we got scared even before the movie started. We were in the theatre just chatting when suddenly this girl pops her head in between us and asks us for the time. Aaron jumped back and that made me jump back even further! The girl laughed at us, I am positive that she did it to us on purpose.

But I think my all-time favorite movie experience was with my friend Lared. Joel and I took him to see The Phantom Menace. Now Lared has always been one of my most expressive friends and he was a Star Wars fan and he was really hyped up. Toward the end, when Darth Maul killed Qui-Gon it really hit the fan. Out of nowhere we heard this hair-raising "NOOOOOOOOO!" followed up with this heart-wrenching "ARRRGHHHH!" It was Lared. Joel and I sat back in our seats trying to contain our laughter.

I cannot wait for Logan and I to watch more movies together. From past experiences I should be in for a good time.

When Kristy met Matt: The Big Blue Special

Day 108

When I first started this blog this was the first story that came to mind. It was also the first one that I wrote and I have been waiting and waiting to finally debut it.

Residents of Cache Valley may know what I am talking about but for those unfamiliar with the term, let me explain.

At the local A&W's there is a burger combo called the Big Blue Special. It is named after Big Blue, the mascot for our college (Utah State University) here in Logan. This burger is HUGE. It has three burger patties, tons of lettuce and sauce. It comes with a ton of curly fries and 2 large glasses of fresh A&W Root Beer.

This is where it all happened!

My friends in college would frequent this place to eat and we would all get the Big Blue Special and it was our challenge to eat it all. This also includes the free refill of Root Beer. This would leave us full, so very full. Oftentimes we would sit at A&W's for hours because we were so full. This was our Man Test. You cannot be a man if you could not finish this amount of food. My friends and I conquered it and we would be quite cocky about it, boasting to every one that we were men.

At the time I was dating my wife (obviously before she became my wife) and my friend Lared and I were over at her apartment visiting Kristy (my wife) and her roommates. Lared asked if Kristy would be worthy of me and said that she should partake of the Man Test at A&W's. Kristy is not one to back from a challenge. Her roommates overheard this and they wanted to prove that they could easily pass this "simple" Man Test so we set a date. Tomorrow we would all come over and pick up the girls and head to A&W's for lunch. It was me, Lared, Bear and one of his friends and Kristy's roommates Heather, Emily, Nicole and Stacey.

We told them the test and off we ate. My strategy is to take small sips of the first root beer and have it down the hatch BEFORE you finish your burger. The hardest part is getting all that root beer down. One of Kristy's roommates ordered her root beer with ice cream. I couldn't believe it. Was she just trying to act all macho? Lared and I contemplated that this was mere bravado, she didn't know what she was getting into.

Some of the guys were finishing up and there were just a few girls left over. One girl still had her fries while Heather (this cute little girl who ordered the Root Beer Float) was struggling to finish the rest of her drink. Surprisingly, many of the girls were able to finish the whole meal. I was very impressed that Kristy was able to finish it off, especially since carbonation was something she didn't consume at all. Heather was complaining that her tummy was really hurting so someone suggested that she lean forward on her hands and get on all fours to help take the pressure off her belly. She leaned forward and suddenly, without warning she barfed! It was all ice cream and root beer, it was like someone just tipped a glass. Everyone scattered laughing. I about died.

One of the girl's that worked at A&W's saw the mess on the table and thought she must have spilt her drink (I told you it was only a Root Beer Float) and she grabbed a thin paper towel and started sopping it up. That was too much, feeling like I was going to barf, I went to the counter and grabbed a paper and started to read it aloud. My friend Bear came over to me and put his arm around me and read it with me. Anything to get our minds off of her barfing and off of the girl wiping it up!

One of her roommates stayed right in her chair and continued to eat her fries during the whole barfing incident. She just left the table with her fries and kept pounding them down. Officially everyone finished and passed the Man Test. Heather should have been disqualified since she really didn't eat all her food but we decided she should pass since our rules were ambiguous when it came to if the food should remain in her tummy.


Every time I pass by the old A&W's, I think of this time. For my wedding present, Lared gave me a set of four large official A&W mugs to remember this occasion. When Kristy and I were married we used to visit Lared and his roomies to have Root Beer Float parties too. Those were some good times.

I still use those glasses but only at special times.

When Kristy Met Matt Part II

DAY 4

The story continues...

My friend Lared knew that I was attracted to Kristy so he did everything possible to help get me to date her. We had a couple of group activities with a bunch of friends and I made sure Kristy and her roommates were invited. The more I hung out with her, the more I liked. She had a great sense of humor and didn't mind playing with boys by getting physical. So I decided to ask her out. Unfortunately I was struck down twice but for good reasons. Both times I asked her out and she declined, she was out of town running track. I was becoming desperate and I was getting discouraged at being rejected so many times. Lared then offered some great advice. "You need to take Kristy out before school is out and you are running out of time. Kristy needs to choose either you or Eric but you have to take her out!" So I tried again. She was studying at the library one afternoon and I went and asked her out. She said "yes" this time and I was on cloud nine. Let the best man win!

Lared and I knew that we had to have a special date. Something so cool and exciting and memorable. And we had the perfect plan!

After picking up our dates (we were with another couple of couples) we first went to Subway and picked up some sandwiches. We then took them up Logan Canyon and we hiked up to the Wind Caves. These caves are awesome looking and it was a nice hike. We ate the sandwiches up there and played around for a little bit. Then we hiked down and drove to Adam's Park in Smithfield. We got into Lared's trunk and we pulled out a ton of camouflage clothing and some Lazer Tag guns and told the girls to dress up. They looked confused so Lared and I threw some of the clothes on and Lared looks right at them and says, "It's War!" The girls complied and we headed into the park to play some Lazer Tag. It was getting dark after about an hour of playing. I suggested to Kristy that we should climb up this tree and act like a sniper. Lared and his date Marcie came across and didn't see us. Suddenly Lared was getting hit. And he knew from experience that it was me that was hitting him. Lared jumped into some bushes for cover.

It was then that Kristy and I noticed that there were a couple of cop cars looking at Lared's car. It is against the law to be in the park after dusk. Then we saw that they were coming closer and closer with flashlights. They were after us! We were in camo and up the tree so I didn't think that Kristy and I were in danger. Lared saw the cops and he yells out to run. I told Kristy to hold still but then I noticed that she was gone running! I jumped down the tree and my foot got caught in the branch and the cops were getting closer and closer. I got lose and the cops saw me and yelled for me to stop. Kristy was running so fast that she was literally kicking dirt in my face. Lared was leading us the couple of miles to our friend Joey's house. The cops flashlights were on me, I could see my shadow from the flashlights they were so close. We climbed through a ton of bushes and made it into a guy's backyard. We travelled silently in the night from backyard to backyard escaping the cops. We crossed into a horse pasture and crossed over some barb wire fences. Lared was leading and I was last, making sure that no one saw us. Both Kristy and I were startled when we saw this horse just looking at us when we got to the fence. Suddenly we looked up again and it was right beside us! We finally made it to Joey's house. He was having a party inside and we thought it would be fun for us to crash into his house with our Lazer Tags and camo. Not everyone thought that was funny, we certainly scared them! We took off our camo and laughed about the experience but we had a problem. We needed to go back to the park to pick up Lared's car.

So Marcie and Lared (now back dressed in their civilian clothing) and Joey got into Joey's car and they drove over to get Lared's car. He got back safely so we all thought it would be fun to climb into Lared's car and go back to the park. We wanted to see really how far we went. That was not a bright idea. There was six of us all crammed in Lared's car and we passed a cop at the park. Lared quickly hit the gas when he saw the cop turn around. Lared's quick and rash thinking saved us. We sped into another neighborhood and parked his car in one of the house's driveway and shut off the car and we all ducked. We were lucky, we lost the cop car. We should have waited a bit but instead we thought it would be best if we got back to Joey's house and end the night. On the way back we got to a 4-way stop sign and sure enough there was the cop on the other side. It passed us and I looked at the cop and he looked right back at us. Lared hit the gas again and the cop turned around. Joey's house was located right in the middle of the block so we took off down his driveway extremely fast and shut off the car and ran into Joey's. We got lucky once again.

I knew at that moment that Kristy was worth fighting for. She had a real good time on that date and she was not mad or disappointed or anything. I found a keeper. After we dropped off our dates, Lared and I met after to talk and we made Certificates of Bravery to award them (with a plate of cookies) when we saw them next.


Front of the card. Notice how I spelled her name wrong.


Inside of the card with the certificate. Right when I finished I realized that I may have spelt her name wrong. So I took some toilet paper and wrote an apology.




After I also heard that Eric was quite mad that I got to Kristy that weekend before he did. He was the one that wanted this war, and I was not about to let up either. I mean really, could he top my first date with Kristy?