lots of sand

The sand dunes were great! So the sand dunes are a national monument. I don't really understand that. They are the biggest sand dunes in North America if I'm not mistaken, and they're about 1000 ft. tall. They look really weird because they're really out of place. There's not supposed to be that much sand right in the middle of the mountains. It was incredibly beautiful though. I felt a little jipped because it was like having sand without the ocean, but climbing them was really rewarding. We also camped overnight in the forest around the dunes. Here's a picture of me and Adam cooking stew. The stew was quality! To get to our campsite, we had to off-road for about 20 minutes. It was exactly like going on a roller coaster, especially with Peter driving, except on roller coasters, they restrain you enough that you don't hit your head as often. This is a picture of Jenni and Ho-Jun on the drive to the sand dunes. I think we were on paved road by then. I just had to put the picture in because it's great. Oh, Peter is the guy that Adam's been living with. He was an intern at eMi 6 years ago, and he's awesome. He hangs out with us quite a bit and I would call him an honorary intern. We hang out at his house at least once a week cuz he's so awesome. Those weird glasses that Jenni is wearing are Peter's safety goggles. I have to say they are the coolest looking safety goggles I have ever seen. I have a picture of every intern wearing them :). Anyway, back to the sand dunes . . . Here's a picture of us starting out, I think it's us but I'm not really sure. Matthew took the picture. Here's a picture of me and Jenni at the beginning of the hike. Then the hike . . . it was really intense. We decided to go straight up instead of trying to find a ridge to walk on so we hiked up dunes and ran down them on the other side and had to hike up another one after that. Matthew said that we took the foolish man's way. Maybe he was right, but I felt really extreme doing it :). Here's us hiking up a dune. More climbing. Here's a picture Matthew took of me from behind. He said that it looked like it would make a good inspirational poster for perseverence or something. Look at that sunset. We hiked it just as the sun was setting, so it was sooooooooo beautiful. I'm thinking I want to move to Colorado every summer. Yeah, I think I should live in Hawaii every winter, and Colorado every summer :). I don't have any pictures from the top because I can only post 10 pictures a day, and the lighting was really bad when we got to the top so the pictures didn't come out that great. Too bad :(.

All in all, it was a great trip. I'm getting used to camping, sleeping on the ground, feeling sticky and gross. I'm not quite used to having to find a good spot to pee. I think I'm getting a lot more rugged though. I've come a long way.

Anyway, I should get back to work. Got lots and lots to do today. It's crazy that I have less than 3 weeks left here. I need to get stuff done for my project before then because I don't know if they'll get another intern to do the work after I leave. There will only be 3 interns here for the fall. My poor project leader, Jason, seems to be getting a little anxious. You can pray that our head architect, Tim, who right now is moving because he just quit his job and is going to start attending seminary in the fall will get back to us soon so that we can start the structural design. It's crazy, it seems that everyone that went on the trip with us is moving or making some crazy change in their lives. We need lots of prayer.

Alright, I'll probably post more pictures tomorrow. Take it easy.