Random Hiking - Love it!

On Saturday I participated with my coworkers in the Breast Cancer walk in Tempe, Arizona. It was good to visit with coworkers and their families during this walk. It was a huge event. Thousands participated. After doing a pioneer trek a couple months ago; walking three miles on paved road in pants was a cinch. Certainly the walk was for a good cause: to promote awareness of the importance of early detection of breast cancer through regular check-ups.

My adventure, was trying to get to the starting line... I had left with plenty of time to get there and maneuver around the closed roads. Having charted my way to a parking lot from which I could hoof it to the starting line. I, however, hadn’t accounted for the fact that the lot I had selected was closed, nor that the street had become the parking lot. I spent a good forty minutes puttering around with my fellow motorists. I had enough of this parking lot and drove away from the event and pulled into the first parking garage I came to. I tightened my shoe laces and began to run. It was time for the walk to begin and who knows how far away I was. I ran through the midst of ASU campus; which was ridiculously empty. (This was weird for me as I am used to BYU campus which is full of people all of the time.) I was grateful the campus was empty as I really didn’t want an audience as I ran. I came to the light rail station and ran out of sidewalk. I had a couple options: I could run along the tracks (not a good option as a train was loading up to pull out at that time) or cross the tracks and hike up the mountain in front of me and hope that it does come down on the other side. Obviously I chose to go hiking. I went up and over the glorified pile of dirt and made it to the starting line. It was a good little hike which ended up putting me right at the starting line. Whoo!

Gila Valley Temple Trip

This weekend Jogie and I went on a temple trip to the Gila Valley Temple. After receiving my endowment two years ago I decided I would like to attend a temple I had not been to before close to the anniversary of my first temple trip. Last year we went to the Las Vegas Temple. This year we chose to go to the Gila Valley Arizona Temple.

Since Jogie is in medical school right now, studying to be a Podiatrist, he often has a lot of studying that he needs to do. So he brought along his notes for his upcoming Pharmacology test that he needed to learn. I drove while he told me all about Pharmacology; and I helped him come up with ways to remember things.

After three and half hours of driving though some beautiful country we made it to the Gila Valley Temple. I drove our car around the entire temple. It was noon, on a Saturday and our Saturn was the only car in the lot. A phone call confirmed that the temple was closed for cleaning. If only we had made the phone call before we left! Since we were at the Gila Valley Temple we were going to make sure we got our picture in front of the temple to prove we were there - even if we couldn’t do a session. Luckily a van pulled into the lot full of young women and leaders who just finished a pioneer trek. This was perfect because we were able to have a pioneer take our picture in front of the temple. We then did our walk around the fence of the temple noticing the horticulture, locating the cornerstone, and touching the pillars of the fence. On the other end of parking lot we heard an animal. We turned to see a very tall barrier probably 8 feet or so tall and over it the ears, eyes and nose of a horse! I really liked getting to see the horse. Especially as the horse was clearly on his back legs trying to see us!

We got back in the car with the decision to make of where to go now. We decided to go to the Mesa Temple. So after another three hours of driving we made it to an open temple! (It took us about seven hours to make it to a temple that was hardly one hour away.) In case anyone is wondering; we took the shorter way back home.