« Jack is Back! | Main | How Cold Is Cold? »
January 23, 2007
Winter Hike
Imagine a day with a pretty steady 15-20 mph wind, temperatures in the mid-20s, and occasional flurries mixed with a few peeks of sun. Perfect day for a hike, right? That's what we thought! Aviva, Meaghan, Lindsay, Andrew & I all went on a nice three-hour hike in the Shingletown Gap area of Rothrock State Forest, just outside of State College. 
We would've probably had a few more people join us, but they wussed out, whinging that it was going to be too cold, too windy, too slippery, too boring, any number of lame excuses. At any rate, it was a really good time, and we didn't really get cold at all, since we rugged up in layers and everything. 
That and the trees blocked the wind pretty well most of the time, and it was only windy up on the ridgetop. I didn't even wear my gloves most of the hike, but we managed to pick the coldest, windiest spot along the entire hike to have lunch, but hey, it had a view. 
Aviva didn't have a great map, so most of the hike we didn't know exactly where we were, but that was okay. We still knew the general way we wanted to go, along Roaring Run for awhile, then turn straight up the ridge (ugh), come back along the ridge for a bit on the Mid-State Trail, 
then come back straight back down the ridge (ugh). And whaddya know, we wound up right back where we started with no difficulties. Not bad, I'd say. :-) It was a really pretty hike though (Rothrock always is), with a little bit of snow dusting the ground in most places. It was the first time I'd ever taken a hike in the winter like that, and I really enjoyed it! I really ought to take more hikes in Rothrock, it's a great area. And maybe drive a little further away from town to some of the other great spots I've heard about. But I guess if I'm here another 3-4 years I'll have plenty of chances to do all that.
The hike tuckered me out quite a bit, but I had something else going on Saturday evening as well, the Spring Semester Kickoff for Penn State Christian Grads in the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center. The other officers and I were quite pleased with the turnout, almost 30 people showed up, including 5 or 6 new people! We're all quite encouraged with how healthy and active PSCG seems to be this year, we've got a good-sized nucleus of active members. After quite a bit of free pizza and plenty of cookies, we all hung out and played a bunch of games for awhile, till 10:30 almost. Everyone had fun but I was totally exhausted by the end of the evening!
All this was after a rather entertaining Friday evening. We were in 2nd place entering the final question at trivia, but fell out of placing when we got it wrong after having gone all in. Oh well, you can't win every week I guess. 
After trivia a few of people came back to our place to play a cool game called "Mafia" that Steph, Petters & I know, and were able to teach to everyone else. That and we were just having a bunch of fun in general. What a jovial bunch we are. :-)
This evening I got all excited when practicing the songs for church for this coming Sunday, because we're doing a couple of my favorite favorite songs, including "Prince of Peace" and a wonderful hymn, "Wonderful Grace of Jesus," which I absolutely love belting out on the piano. With the whole worship set it should be a really fun service on Sunday. :-)
Amber, Kerrie, Daniel & Katie all came over tonight to watch episode 5 of "24." Let's just say I almost literally fell out of my chair when they revealed who Jack's brother was. That was most unexpected!
I think I'm semi-addicted to watching the Australian Open. The quality of the tennis has been riveting (Andy Roddick vs Mario Ancic on Saturday night and Serena Williams vs Shahar Peer tonight, in particular), and the many shots of Melbourne and the Victorian countryside during commercials and outros from commercial breaks are making me long to go back there again...
The winter has been slightly less lame here in State College this month, but this is how lame it's been overall: Phoenix had 1.5 inches of snow yesterday (they almost never get snow!), which now gives them more snow for the entire season than State College, which has had .8 or .9 inches, I believe. This is really getting ridiculous.
Posted by Jared at January 23, 2007 12:48 AM
Comments
if that wasn't one of the funniest pictures of all time, i'd be angry...
curses.
Posted by: caren at January 23, 2007 02:54 PM
Oh you know you love that photo, admit it!
Posted by: Jared at January 23, 2007 10:21 PM