So, tonight we went through the piles in our living room that continue to grow as we start sorting and packing for the Grand Canyon.  Each day something else comes up that we feel would be nice to have along.  We are pretty close to having everything ready…just a few more shopping items and then we will see if it all fits in the dry bags.  Its been quite a little shopping spree to make sure that we have everything we need.

For those of you who don’t know, it turns out that I’ll be the primary oarsmen on one of the boats.  Although I’ve been on many a river trip and have some great experience on the river in general, I’m not so versed in oarboats.  So, why not jump right into the Grand Canyon right?  You’ll see in the photos a few images of my “cheat” sheet for the larger rapids.  If you look closely, you’ll actually see that one of them says “good luck”!  I’ve been doing my research between first hand experiences, online logs, river guidebooks and even YouTube videos.  At first I was questioning if this was something I really wanted to take on…yet now, as each day approaches I’m getting more and more excited for the challenge.  I’ll have a great backup crew of Lisa and our friend Scott Steen to help out along the way!  Funny to think that Lisa and I were talking about getting a bit more into the river lifestyle this past year…and BAM…why not start off at the top!  Its just one of those opportunities that you can’t pass up when it arises…so here we go…

I’m hoping we can get another blog entry in place before we go…but, if not…we will be keeping a journal on the river and will post it word for word when we return.

We started off the day as if it were any other Monday…straight into the computers! However, after a few hours of catching up on emails and organizing projects…it was off to Grand Targhee for a few hours of sunshine and snow. As it was the completion of a three day weekend, there were plenty of folks out there from the region soaking in the fun! We found some good snow on the North facing aspects and then decided to take the short hike up Mary’s Nipple (hey…I didn’t name it). It was a gorgeous day and we spent some time up there looking around and planning out a few adventures that we hope to share with you in the next few months. There are some great, and little known, stashes back there.

We then came home and have both been spending yet more time in front of the laptops. However, I did feel that it would be good if a few of you actually saw where we lived as we start this blogging thing. So, I snuck out of the house as the sun was going down just now and snapped a few pics. Yes, that is our back deck…piled up past the windows and no hope of getting out our back doors.

Now, please don’t think that this trend is going to continue. Although Tim and Mary Lynn have been a big part of the inspiration to get this thing going, we are in no way committing ourselves to the “everyday” theme. If you want to take a look into their lives on a daily basis…here it is. Many times you’ll likely catch us in their daily posts as we spend quite a bit of time with them.

We fell asleep pretty early that night as I think we were all exhausted, both physically and emotionally. The next morning, we headed “downtown” after some eggs and bacon! This was the first time that I have actually seen living, breathing, moving people in town. There were probably about 300-400 folks down there and about 150 sled dogs. This was the 91st running of the annual event and it brought out a pretty good crowd.

We spent our time meandering through the crowd, with my mother introducing us to all of the “locs”. Let me tell you, there are quite some characters up there in little old Ashton…and this was an event to get out to for all of them! We then found ourselves down by the first turn after the start and ran into a TV Reporter who cornered my mom and had her deliver an interview for the weekend news.

We then headed back to her cabin and spent a few hours planning a trip that we hope to take this Fall to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. My mother is booking her flights for October 2 into Cancun, of which we hope to get straight out of and into the historic Mayan peninsula. With all three of us diligently “googling” the region, we found some great little areas that we are excited to visit and spend some time in when we get down there.

We had then planned to head over to Grand Targhee in the early afternoon for a bit of skiing. Yet, it was simply too comfortable and we ended up lounging around all day long. After multiple re-runs of Sex in the City and Seinfeld…dinner was ready…What! Whoa, how the time flies by. So, after sitting down and enjoying some homemade chicken noodles and rolls, we loaded up the rig and pointed South…back to Victor. Time to rest up for another day at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort tomorrow.