Marsha called me last week and asked if I would like to go hiking with her.  I love hiking!  Marsha runs all the time though, so I was worried about keeping up with her.  She assured me she doesn't like to go fast though so I was good to go!

We have been having a lovely fall...exceptionally warm, so I was bummed when it rained a couple of days before we were going to go...  Which meant snow in the mountains.  The weather was supposed to be nice and warming though, so we decided to go for it. 

We decided to go up to desolation lake.  I've been to dog lake which is quite close to desolation before and remembered it being a fun hike.

We got an early start so it was kind of cool, but in just a few minutes, we had taken off our jackets. It was a really nice sunny day, and the trails had dried out to where they were just perfect to hike on.  Not dry and dusty, just damp so you wouldn't slip. 

The mountains were just breathtaking.  These pictures do not do them justice.  The colors of the quakies went from bring yellow to orange to red.  It was really beautiful.   

 We were just going along and heard some movement in the trees real close.  When we came around this tree, there was this moose right there.  We were pretty close and kind of nervous of what he would do, so I snapped a picture and we hurried on our way.

 It was so nice to have this time to just walk along and visit with Marsha.  She has always been one of my dearest friends.  She was one of the first people I met when we moved into this neighborhood.  We hit it off right away and became fast friends.  We had kids the same ages and just had the best time raising them together.  We had all kinds of adventures with our kids together....shopping ( we were awesome bargain shoppers!..would hit the sales at Mervyns and come home with some great deals!)  We'd load up KC and Kassidy and go shopping at the boutiques and they would go around collecting all the business cards  from the booths and thought that was about the best thing ever.  We spent the summers swimming at Raging waters, or just playing in the sprinklers or slip and slide in the back yard. When I was called to be Primary president, she was my first counselor.  We would take the kids up to the library at the church and spend hours making copies and fun things for primary.  We played racquetball together and went out with our husbands together. We both liked to sew and craft so we did lots of fun projects together.  We went on several vacations with their family too.  To St. George and to Zion's, Lake Powell and always went to Newport together..  We'd  have birthday parties and Halloween parties and Christmas parties.  We'd go to school functions together and church things together. Anyway, we did just about everything together, so it was pretty devastating to me the day she called me and told me they were going to move. They weren't going far...just out to Sandy, and we would see each other occasionally, and talk on the phone, but it wasn't the same.   I missed her terribly. 
We have stayed in touch over the years since she's moved, there's always, showers...(wedding and baby) and weddings, funerals and we still get together for birthday lunch with our friends, but don't get to see each other much other wise.  She is one of those people who you can talk to after not seeing them for months and be able to start up right where we left off.  We have a genuine love for each other and each other's family.

This is the little lake we hiked to.  It was beautiful, but cold for some reason around this lake.  We ate our lunch, then hiked a little bit farther to the top of this crest.  It was pretty amazing to look over the other side!  You could see clear out over the valley and into Park City.

 This was pretty cool to look down into that valley and see all these sheep. 

 We certainly have been given a magnificent world to live in...times like these, my heart is just full to over flowing with gratitude and awe at it's beauty.

Squirrel

We had a perfectly lovely day together...(trying to take our own picture we both about wet our pants)
It was a good hard hike...coming down my legs were really tired.  After we were down and rested I felt really good though.  I thought....Hey I'm in pretty good shape...I don't hurt at all!  Wait for it....about 30 hours later...then it hit me and I could hardly walk!  HA!  That's how good of shape I'm in!