uinta adventure v1.0

well, we're way behind in blogging! the next few posts will be about our july adventures. we've had tons of fun! and we have more adventures planned.

for the 4th of july weekend, dal had work off, so i took friday off as well. i'm sure ya'll remember dallin's little featurette about the adventure tent. well, we decided that it was time to test it's strength and character. see if it really belonged in the barker family. on july 2nd, after work dallin and headed out, USGS maps in hand, to conquer the unknown wilderness! little did we know how our camping trip would turn out. it was really INTENSE! but seriously, it was IN TENTS! (or tent. one. singular. we only took one. laugh fades...)

we drove up above kamas in the uintas to the mirror lake recreation area. we parked the car a little ways from Washington Lake and packed in. we planned to hike until it got dark and set up camp in a flat spot off the trail. i'd forgotten about dallin's superhero powers (ask my mom about those) until he pushed a tree down to make room for a campspot! we set up the tent that night, blew up our thermarest mattresses, and boiled water for hot chocolate over a whisperlite stove.

the next morning, we woke up early (that's the only way you can wake up camping, since it gets light before 6 a.m.), made breakfast and headed out to go fishing. the night before as we were walking, we thought that we'd made it down to the end of washington lake and planned to hike further down to tail lake and some others to fish, but once we got to the trail by the lake, we realized that we'd actually camped by tail lake the night before. the weather was a little chilly, so we kept our jackets on as we fished for a few hours. dallin caught 2 fish, but i didn't have much luck.

(i know this is getting a little long, so if you can't take it anymore, just scroll down to the bottom for pictures... we know that's all you want anyway!)

after a while, we headed back to the tent for lunch when it looked like it was going to rain. we cooked lunch on the whisperlite again and made it inside just as it started to rain. of course sitting in the tent made me sleepy and so i took a little nap. dallin was bored after about 10 minutes of course, so he just went back out fishing. i woke up an hour or two later and walked down to the lake to fish with him. he'd found a really clear spot that was pretty shady and the fish were jumping like crazy. dal caught another fish without me and then caught fish #4 right after i got there. after a few casts and moving around a bit to find a better spot, i finally caught a fish! and i'm proud to say it was bigger than all of the fish he caught! it still wasn't really that big, only about 8 inches long, i think. well... maybe it was a little bigger, like 2 feet long. yeah, i'm pretty sure i caught a 15 pound, 2 foot long fish. and we named it theodore. and then theodora.

well, to cut the story short, after we fished, we sat in the tent for about 2 hours because we couldn't think of anything else to do. we hadn't brought cards, or books, and we couldn't't go outside because we would have gotten eaten alive by the worlds most vicious mosquitoes. seriously, the were vicious. they bit through our clothes and left our bodies riddled with their deadly mark. (it looked like the chicken pocks on my back.) we decided to pack up and go home that night so we could celebrate the 4th of july with friends and family.

we think our trip was a success! the tent handled the rain beautifully and it is excited for our next trip.

we'd like to give a special thanks our sponsor dad/David Ellis Barker for all the gear he let us borrow and making this adventure possible! (i'm pretty sure the only thing we took that actually belonged to us was the tent...) someday, we'll actually own all the gear it takes to go camping, but until then, we thank the dad/the dave.

2 months today!

i just wanted to say thanks to Dal for an awesome first 2 months! we've had tons of fun and we laugh all the time! baby, you're the best!
we're headed out this weekend to try our tent for the first time, so stay posted for pics.

adventure headquarters

dal and i decided that if we were going to tell you about all our adventures, we'd better show you our adventure headquarters, where ALL ADVENTURES BEGIN! (yessssssh!)

first is the entrance to the bat cave, i mean prison, i mean ADVENTURE HEADQUARTERS!

we'll zoom in now for a close up of our pet...
... flowers. you didn't think i was going to say dog did you? this is my baby pet. flowers are my favorite kinds of pets because they don't make noise, they don't poop or run around, you don't have to babysit them, and all you have to do is water them once a day and feed them flower food once a week and they grow like crazy!

as you walk in the door and turn to your left, we have the living room:
now, let's take a second look at that, shall we?


turn to your right at the door and you'll see our favorite spot. the kitchen. with dallin as the cook, we eat REALLY well in this house! thanks for always cooking me great food!


continue back and to the left we have our bedroom. thanks mom and dad for the pillow-top mattress. becuase of its supreme comfort, we chose that over sleeping in our tent on the living room floor!


the bedroom on the left is our computer/storage room. to avoid embarrassing ourselves, i'm not posting the picture of the storage part of the room... here is Dallin watching "The Secret of Nihm" on Hulu. okay, i watched it too...

and that concludes the grand tour of our even grander (and larger) apartment. i mean 2 room mansion. well, there is a bathroom too, but who wants to see pictures of that?

The Adventure Tent!

That's right, we got our tent! It arrived Friday afternoon and I was so excited I couldn't wait to set it up...In our living room!Becki and I have been looking for a tent we could take on all our adventures and this one seemed like the best one for our needs.

It's name is 'The Adventure Tent' and this is what it is all about.
This is a Sierra Design model Antares 3 tent is a tough little camper and I'll show you what I mean. It is a 3 man, aluminum poled, light weight champion, no nonsense tent. Yes, all your dreams have come true in this Bangladesh made shelter. Not quite as strong to withstand a nuclear bast but, this little guy can hold it's own.
Becki and I wanted to see how it set up, since we are leaving over the 4th of July weekend for an adventure. We decided to set it up in our living room, which anyone can tell you takes more than a smile. Shown here is a picture of the tent, notice how it squeezes just between our TV and little couch.

The rain fly actually extends 12 square feet on either side to hold gear and other supplies.
After the assembly of 'The Adventure Tent' we decided we needed to check the inside and make sure everything was in order. The gear loft or attic is used for extra storage, along with coffee slings(which I don't think we will use) which are free with the tent.

I called my Dad to come over and check out the new addition we made to our adventure supplies collection. Needless to say he was impressed, and if I hadn't stopped him he might have taken the tent home with him.
That is all for today readers but tune in next time for more adventures!!

Remember, "Adventure is out there!" - Disney/Pixar, UP

the great hot dog adventure

for our date this week, dallin and i packed the car up with all the essential things needed for an adventure up the canyon.

first, we drove up big cottonwood canyon to brighton and walked around silver lake along the boardwalk. it was beautiful. it rained a bit, but not enough to scare us off. then we drove down the canyon to a picnic area, built a fire and roasted hot dogs and starburst. we climbed on the rocks, found a cave, and thought about swimming in the river. since it was overflowing and going very fast though, we decided that our parents would probably think we were more mature if we refrained. so we just took pictures by it instead. we had tons of fun and can't wait to go again!

Being Married to Becki

Just so everyone knows I have never blogged before so don't get all up in my face about it. Being married is the greatest thing I've ever done! Becki is so great and always takes care of me and she is so cute to worry about if I'm eating enough at lunch. I just love being around her all the time it makes my whole day. In those small moments between doing the dishes and putting food away. Or when we sit reading holding hands I can't help but wonder, "how lucky am I". And when I just look at her softly while she is so tired and sleepy I realize how truly beautiful she is. One of my favorite things is how tired she gets and she asks me to tell her a story and with in the first five minutes she is so tired her words slur together and she mumbles in her sleep.
As my wife knows, I am a very light sleeper. And what some people don't know is that Becki will occasionally talk while she is sleeping. So when she talks in her sleep I'll wake up and respond. Little did I know that she doesn't usually wake up when she talks. So one night around two o'clock she rolls over to snuggle close to me. To accommodate her better I put my arm under her head. After about 15 to 20 minutes my arm started to fall asleep. Naturally I moved my arm out form under her head, and as I was doing so she rolls away and says, "Fine, I just wanted to snuggle." At this time I was wondering if she was awake or asleep because I didn't know if she was genuinely upset. That morning I asked her if she was mad at me for last night. She looked at me puzzled, "what are you talking about?" she said. I shook my head and laughed because the whole night I was wondering if she was mad at me for not sleeping close with her, but as it turned out is was just that silly sleep talking syndrome. Yeah, so that is just one of the many adventures we've had so far. And as y'all know Barkers only have adventures. Stay tuned for the next adventure coming soon! Peace!

i promise

well, we're shooting for internet next tuesday (finally), barring there are no catastrophes. i promise i'll get to posting after that. there is so much to catch up on!