It is official! I passed all of my classes for spring semester 2013! I made it through the first year of veterinary school!!! One down, three more to go! This marks the halfway point for my time here in Logan at USU. A year from now, my class and I will be moving up to Pullman for the remainder of our veterinary school careers.Yippee!
Just prior to exams at the end of the semester, I put an application in and was accepted and invited to attend the Veterinary Leadership Experience (VLE) at Ross Point, ID. It is similar to the orientation camp I attended just before starting first year (COLE) and is hosted by WSU as well. However, this is opened up to all veterinary schools in the U.S. and is geared not only toward leadership in school, but during our practicing careers as well. I'm thrilled for this type of networking opportunity as well as to represent our brand new school! I leave for WA (and then to ID) this coming Monday!
I also had a chance to go up to Pullman for a weekend during the semester for a leadership training for this years COLE. I've started to network and socialize with our fellow classmates in Pullman, and have made it a personal goal to more closely unite our two campuses. The weekend I got to spend with others in our class was an absolute blast and makes me even more excited to move up to WA in a year.
The remainder of the semester absolutely flew right by! Exams were stressful, but went very well. I've never experienced such an intense exam schedule (five exams in five days...), but we were well prepared by our professors and that type of intensity will no doubt prepare us for NAVLE.
The semester here at USU ended earlier than I've been used to at UNR for the past six years, so I've had the majority of May so far to play for my summer vacation! I landed a pretty sweet and awesomely flexible little job as a pet sitter for a woman who runs a pet sitting business here in Cache Valley. I've been able to work a number of jobs for her this month to make a little money on the side, but it's given me a lot of time to explore the region, make some travel plans and spend some much needed time with Burton.
The weekend after finals, I drove down to Las Vegas with my girlfriends Ryann and Kristen where we met up with my family and Kristen's brother Tim and their friend Jeff from Connecticut. Originally, we set out to hike down and camp in Supai in the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately the first night we stayed in Las Vegas, Kristen got sicky and took a trip to the hospital to discover she had a UTI. In the midst of the craziness of dealing with Kristen's hospital visit, I discovered that my car door had been unlocked and someone had helped themselves to stealing my car charger, iPod player, laptop, Ryann's CamelBak, and our bag of snacks (???). Apparently stealing makes thieves hungry? I didn't lose a whole lot with my laptop because I back it up externally, but still a very frustrating blow. We regrouped during the day, and decided that even though Kristen had been cleared for the hike, that it was smarter to stick to places we could get help fast if she needed it. We decided to go to Lone Rock Beach at Lake Powell to camp and hike around in the area. When we arrived at Lake Powell, it was a little cloudy and was sprinkling, but we decided to go for it and headed down to the beach to set up camp. After less than five minutes of driving on the sand, I checked my rearview mirror to discover the boys' rental car was stopped and stuck in the sand. Fortunately, my 4Runner Champ has 4WD, so Ryann, Kristen and I headed down to the beach to set up camp while the boys worked on their car. It didn't take long for it to get more stuck in the sand, and since Murphy's Law was clearly at work, of course a huge windstorm swept up and sandblasted us. Oh, and add in a little rain to that as well... Ryann and I drove back down to break down camp and we agreed to stay in a hotel in Page, AZ that night. We gathered everything up and headed into town, got a room and managed to get a hold of someone willing to pull the car out (by then it was 10pm). The next day turned out to be gorgeous. We checked out and drove out to Pariah Canyon and hiked down into the slot canyons in Buckskin Gulch. It ended up being an awesome day (minus some pretty gnarly blisters on my heels). The evening was shaping up to be just as beautiful as the day had been, so we decided to go for round two of camping on the beach at Lake Powell. We set up our tents, Tim got our campfire going and we had brats and s'mores for dinner (mmmm...). When we woke up the next morning, the weather was starting to turn again, so we packed up and headed out. Once we had left the Lake Powell area, we threw out some ideas for places we could go for the day and agreed to drive over to Zion National Park. On the road to Zion, I got a phone call from Hayley who was watching Burton for me back in Logan that he had decided to dig himself a hole to get out of her backyard. It took a few hours, but he ended up coming back to her house. Naughty dog! When we got to Zion, it was raining off and on. We drove through and located a place to camp for free right outside of the park, then went back in to hike around for a few hours. After hiking we went back into town for dinner. As we were eating, the temperature dropped. It was pretty uncomfortable, and none of us were prepared for really cold weather camping, so we all agreed to just go down to Hurricane, UT and stay in a hotel again that night. The next morning turned out to be gorgeous, so we headed back up to the park for our last few hours together and hiked up to the Emerald Pools. Around mid-day, we left Zion and went back down to Mesquite, NV to meet up with my dad (I had to get my new license plates for Champ!). We had a quick lunch together, then said our super sad goodbyes to Tim and Jeff and us girls drove back up to Logan. Despite all of the horrible things that went wrong that week, we still had a phenomenal time together! (Rosie retrospective as Kristen calls it...)
Since then, I've done a few jobs and spent some time with friends around Logan. I have still managed to stay super busy (mostly with just fun stuff) and have not had a single boring day yet!
For Memorial Weekend, Kristen and I decided to check some hikes in the area off our list. Saturday, we hiked Jardine Juniper trail. Jardine is a tree that is estimated to be around 3,200 years old. The trail is one of the more popular hikes in the Logan Canyon and is pretty common to mountain bikers as well. Sunday, we drove out to City of Rocks National Reserve just outside of Malta, ID (I'm sure everyone knows where that is...). We hiked around a few trails and spent most of the day there. On our return at the summit, we got caught in some rain (which we were completely unprepared for...wouldn't be an adventure without some misadventure, right?!). Even with the freezing cold rain, the rainbows we saw after the clouds passed over were well worth the discomfort. The third hike on Monday of our adventure weekend was Grandeur Peak. We switchbacked up more than 2,000 feet in elevation to the top of the peak which has a stunning view of Salt Lake City and the Great Salt Lake. Even more exciting was that we had cell service and 4G at the summit. We were able to Skype Tim back in CT and show him our view! In total, we estimated that we hiked at least 27 miles this weekend. Burton got to come on all three of our hikes. For the first time in his life, I think he actually got tired! He is an awesome adventure dog and is a great hiking buddy, so he had a ball!
Yesterday, Kristen and I had arranged to travel out to Rich County, UT to grade bulls for the ranchers in the valley with one of our professors, Dr. Rood. The concept is fairly simple, though it takes a practiced eye to pick up on the details we were looking for. We traveled around the valley with a group of cowboys and stopped at a number of ranches to inspect their bulls for lameness, eye problems, herd uniformity, body condition and any other health concerns. After the inspection, the bulls will be turned out on shared BLM land to breed cows. Venereal disease testing and breeding soundness had already been performed, so we kept a distance. However, it's still intimidating being in a pen with a group of massive Angus (and some Hereford) bulls while they fight each other. The ranchers were an entertaining group of men. They were pretty thrilled to have two young girls along for the ride and took every opportunity to give us a hard time. They took to calling me Vegas after Dr. Rood informed them that I grew up there. Kristen and I are hoping they'll let us tag along with them in June for a cattle drive!
The rest of the summer is still in the works! I've got a lot of travel plans, and I'm lucky that I have the means that I do to get there. Next week is VLE, and then two weeks after that Kristen and I are heading to Reno for one of my favorite events--the Reno Rodeo! I don't have solid 4th of July plans yet, but wherever I'll be, it'll be with Burton (he has a rough time with fireworks :( poor guy!). Kristen has invited me to go out to CT with her in July. And this year, I'd like to see what Pioneer Day here in UT is like. For my birthday, I'll be spending the weekend in good ol' hicktown Yerington, NV for Night in the Country again! The line up is awesome: Billy Currington, Randy Houser, Eli Young Band and Casey James! Happy Quarter Century to me! And at the end of the summer, I'll be at COLE to mentor the incoming first years! I have to work another trip down to Las Vegas in there somewhere too, and I'm hoping I can do that just after my birthday so I can see my family! In the midst of all that, there will be more hiking, hopefully some camping, bonfires, biking, and beach activities!
It's been an amazing summer so far! I hope everyone's has been just as awesome!!!
xoxox
C
Me, Kristen and Ryann aka Triple Threat hiking Buckskin Gulch, UT
Jeff, Tim, Me, Kristen and Ryann in Zion National Park
Burton, Kristen, Dippy and me at Jardine Juniper trail
The Jardine Juniper tree
Kristen and me hiking in the City of Rocks National Reserve
Full rainbow in City of Rocks
Kristen, Burton and me at the summit of Grandeur Peak
Me and Kristen out in Rich County for bull grading
Angus bulls
Cache Valley sunset
