"montana is all i hoped it would be"

well, just when i thought nothing could surprise me, i was told by my natural disasters teacher that we would be going on a field trip. yes. a field trip. in college. i won't lie, i thought field trips ended in middle school. i am pretty sure that is the last time i went on one. but alas, apparently college likes to bless your life with field trips as well. so today i went on a field trip. yes. a saturday field trip. i was gone from my apt from 740am to 525pm. yes. a long field trip. luckily for me two of my fhe brothers are also in my natural disasters class so they accompanied me on the field trip. plus, when we were waiting for the buses a friend from my first semester up here, patrick, showed up. apparently he is in the earlier class and so he also had to go on the field trip. so i knew a good number of people. first we went up to the teton dam. saw the remains. talked about how it failed. so enlightening. then we headed over to the something something caldera. (a caldera is where there used to be a volcano but when it exploded it fell in on itself so now its mostly just flat land.) here brother clayton did a demonstration with diet coke and mentos to show what a volcano may have been like. it was pretty cool. i have done it before though, so i don't think i was as impressed as some. next we went to henry lake then hebgen lake.  as you go from henry lake to hebgen lake you cross over into montana for a while. as soon as we crossed over i looked at spencer and said, "where are all the horses?" he was a little confused, so i explained to him that i always felt that montana was the land of horses. about 45 seconds later what should we see? a bunch of horses on the side of the road. and then, no more than a minute later we see about a dozen cowboys, on horses, herding cows across the highway. spencer looked at me, expecting a comment i am sure, so i said, "montana is all i hoped it would be." we had a laugh, and left it at that. all day we talked about fault scarps and schist. i really had no clue what my teacher was saying all day. my favorite moment was when my teacher said, "look down at the ground. all of the stuff you are standing on is schist." and spencer mumbled, "i knew it!" haha, i don't know why, i think it was probably one of those 'you had to be there' moments. after the lakes we headed over to west yellowstone, didn't really see anything there, just stopped for lunch. next we went to big springs where we saw, some springs, they weren't very big, at least not that i could tell, but there was a cute little house (as in a tiny, troll sized house) off on one side and i told spencer he should live there, i think he was considering it. after the springs we were off to our final stop of the day ... mesa falls. i was kind of excited about this, because i had heard it was really cool, but, not excited because i knew there would be many stairs involved. and stairs aren't my favorite. ;) but, we got there and headed down towards the falls. let me tell you ... AMAZING!

mesa falls, it was so pretty.

it was so cool. i absolutely love nature, i really do, i just don't like having someone standing there telling me all of the geological features of how nature was created. overall, mesa falls was definitely my favorite, and the stairs really weren't that bad. it was an interesting field trip. it was long, and sometimes boring, but it was also fun. i enjoyed getting to talk to patrick again. i think spencer is hilarious. and i got to learn some new stuff about my fhe brother cole. it was a good time. i tried to get some good pictures on the drive of the leaves changing colors just for my mom. i didn't do too great, but these are a few of the pictures i ended up with on the drive.

good one of the colors.

who knew trees could do this? not people from arizona!

nice close up, not as many colors though.

i love the clouds in this picture.

scripture of the day:
Moses 1:33 And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.

today i am thankful for:
* spencer and cole. i have really enjoyed having a class with these two and getting to know them better.
* the wonders and mysteries of God. sometimes i like knowing how things happened and how they work, and sometimes, i just like knowing that God created a world that i find so beautiful.
* canada dry. ginger ale has become one of my new favorite things.
* friends and family who text you for 8 hours so you don't get too bored on a bus while your fhe boys are sleeping.
* music. it is fantastic and wonderful and i love it!

<3.