My home in Durham!

My house as you walk in the front door.

My Room as you walk in.

The house

Looking down one direction of the street

Looking down the other direction of the street

The Back Yard

The Move to Duke!

Here I am in Durham, NC. I have moved into my house where I am currently living with Jeremy, who owns the house, and two girls that are summer interns. The girls are moving out this weekend. I will be getting three new roommates by the time fall semester starts; two girls and a boy. Of course, Jeremy will still be here. Stay tuned for a post with pictures of my new place.

Here I am starting out in Logan, UT.

The drive was long but fun. I got to see a lot of places that I had not seen before. I loaded my stuff in Logan then my friend, Clark, and I drove to St. George where we loaded Dallin (Clark’s brother) who will be attending the University of Georgia. We stayed the night there. The next day we headed to Albuquerque, NM. I drove the U-haul from Marble Canyon to Flagstaff.

Here I am ‘standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona.’ Probably the ‘dump’ city of Arizona.

The next day we went to Oklahoma City. Not much to tell about this day. It changed from desert to grass lands. I drove the U-haul the length of northern Texas.

The next morning we went to the Oklahoma City Memorial. It was a very sacred place; very beautiful.

Here is the reflecting pool.

Here are 168 chairs to honor each victim of the tragic event.

We then drove to Memphis, TN. This is where we started to see the trees. In Memphis we went downtown. It was Saturday night so they had the streets blocked off. There were tons of people! We tried to eat at the Hard Rock Café but there was so many people we couldn’t be seated. We ended up eating al Wendy’s.

Here I am in Front of The Hard Rock Café in Memphis.

The next day we drove to Athens, GA. This drive was pretty much solid trees. We stayed the night in Athens and in the morning we moved Dallin into his new apartment. Clark and I the drove to Durham, NC. After we moves my stuff in we returned the U-haul.

Here I am at Duke!! YAY!

There you have my road trip in a nutshell.

Bells Canyon Backpacking Trip

I have been very busy getting ready to move to NC an wrapping up things in my lab. Besides that I have no excuse for not posting anything. :) I start the long drive this Wednesday!

I have been at my parent’s for the past couple weeks and have been doing a lot of hiking. This past Monday I started a backpacking trip up Bells Canyon here in Utah. Bells Canyon is probably the most beautiful canyon along the Wasatch, but I am not biased at all:). There is abundant amount of water year round. There are even bogs up there. It is so green that those not acquainted with the Wasatch would hardly believe that they were in Utah.

I went up with three young friends; Christopher Davis, Austin Duncan, and Bryan Miners. We started hiking at 6 AM Monday morning. We had packs ranging from 35 to 45 lbs. The trail is said to be 4 miles (it feels longer though). There is a 4400 foot elevation gain; so the trail is rather steep. We made great time; we were at Upper Bells Reservoir (were we camped) just after 11 AM. We spent three days swimming, hiking, and just goofing off. We came back Thursday. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Upper Bells Fall

This is a meadow above the Upper Reservoir

This is The same meadow as above

This is a stream in the meadow

This is looking down on the Upper Bells Reservoir

Me in a meadow further up from the first meadow

Christopher In the upper meadow

A stream near the upper meadow

A stream near the upper meadow

The upper meadow

Decending from the upper meadow

This was a solo hike I did (the boys were pansies and didn't want to climb the extra 1,750 vertical feet to the top). This is on top of South Thunder Mountain.

Looking at the back side of Lone Peak from South Thunder Mountain.

Looking south from South Thunder Mountain. Box Elder peak is in the foreground and Mount Timpanogos is in the background.

Bear Lake & Dystonia

Last Wednesday I went up to Bear Lake again, this time with my family. We stayed until Saturday, My parents, Grandma Jensen, Becky’s family and Jonna’s family were all there. We stayed in a condo on the west side of the lake, Unfortunately, this has been an unseasonably wet June and it rained everyday except Friday. Friday was a beautiful mostly sunny day but it was too chilly to have an enjoyable day on the beach. Luckily there was an indoor pool where we spent a lot of time. The kids had a blast swimming; even the two babies (Kenedie and McKinley) enjoyed it!

Random tidbit: I have started ‘The Fellowship of the Ring…again. This time, though, I really believe that I will finish it.

I have to share a link that was sent to me about dystonia:

Tyler's Hope

This family is dealing with primary dystonia; I was diagnosed with secondary dystonia. I have contacted the father, Rick, about helping the Tyler’s Hope organization. He replied and expressed interest in having me be a science advisor for Tyler’s Hope, as well as promoting the organization. If you have a desire to give money to someone other than the IRS Tyler’s Hope is an excellent option. 100% of funds raised goes to research! Visit: www.tylershope.org

Update

So here is my update since getting home from D.C. Work in the lab, hiking, dating, and seeing Star Trek. Thats it. I've been hiking multiple times with a co-worker, Anna (see below). I took two girls out. With Clarissa, we played catch, gotta love a girl who owns a baseball mitt, and went out for ice cream. With Sam, we went to dinner and then to Logan's little zoo, Willow Park. I saw Star Trek a few more times; I have now seen it three times! Oh ya!  I also biked 51.1 miles around Bear Lake.

Anna and I went hiking Saturday on the Crimson Trail. See pictures below.

Looking down Logan Canyon.

Anna.

Me.

An extention of 'The China Wall,' upon which is the Crimson Trail.

Washington DC

On Sunday I flew out to Washington DC to present my research, with 59 other undergraduates, for the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR). The purpose of this trip, and CUR, was to promote undergraduate research especially to those who bring most of the funds to basic research, the US congress. I went to DC with my research mentor Sean Johnson. We met with both Utah senators, Bennett and Hatch, and Utah Representative Jim Matheson. We only had two minutes, if that, with Senator Hatch, enough for a picture. We sat down, separately, with Senator Bennett and Representative Matheson, for about five minutes and discussed the importance that research plays in undergraduate work. All and all I believe it was a very good trip. I hope we were able to convey our message.

Sean Johnson, Representative Matheson and Me

Sean Johnson, Senator Hatch and Me

Sean Johnson, Senator Bennett and Me

I then went to spend time with Shane's (my brother) family. I plan to post anther message about that as soon as I get back to Utah. I'm posting this from Shane's home in Round Hill, VA.

This last weekend was a very nice weekend. There is a new graduate student in our lab (at least new this school year) from Minnesota. She loves the outdoors but is obviously unfamiliar with the area. So last weekend we took our first of many hikes together. We went to the Wind Caves up Logan Canyon. She loved it. The caves are always fun to see but the view from the caves is great too (see picture above).

I hope to get a few more pictures from her so stay tuned. Below is a picture from the trip I took with me friend Clark during spring break (I just got them).