Hiking and Hangin' etc.

Last weekend we headed up to New Fork Lake, about 20 miles from Pinedale, for a church campout.  We had lots of fun grubbing out with the folks there, and touring around the lake area.  It was really cool for me (Allie) to meet some new people, especially people from church.  We climbed down into this flowing stream, formed by the damn at the lake, and bouldered on the rocks there, testing the waters a little.  We worshiped around the campfire and ate some smores along the way.  Saturday night, Chris, Ben, and I slept in a HUGE tent (made for about ten people!)......and we forgot to close up the tent that night.  No critters came in, but we would have been a little warmer (probably hot, though) if we had zipped it up!!  Sunday morning we woke up and had a service around the campfire again.  After the service, we all walked down to the lake for the baptism of 3 children and 3 adults.  It was an amazing thing to witness this natural baptism in the glorious creation that the Lord has made!!!  It was really awesome!  After we had a cook-out of hamburgers/hot dogs/steaks/etc (which they call a Bar-B-Que here, they are seriously confused-there was no "b-b-q" around!), Chris, Ben, Janice and I drove up into the Wind River Mountains to the Green River Lakes.  We hiked about 4 miles into the mountains to this natural bridge (which is pictured below).  It formed a cave under this huge rock structure, and had a small opening that the stream rushed through.  It was really hot and dry up there....and we were running low on/out of water.  Needless to say, we were ready to get back to the truck after the 4 miles back out of the mountains.  We saw a coyote on the way back, he walked right in front of us!!  We splashed ourselves off in the (freezing cold) lake, before getting back into the truck to drive 45 miles back into town.  Once we made it back into Pinedale, Christopher decided he wanted to get some SWEET tea, from the Cajun Rendevous, the only restaurant in town which has SWEET tea (because the owner is from Louisianna, which by the way was one of the adults to get baptized at the lake on Sunday---in his Wranglers and long sleeve jean shirt too).  Well they were closed, so we headed to the Chinese restaurant here.  We were watching the Olympics and our Chinese waiter loved Ping Pong...imagine that!  Chris was trying to speak what little Chinese we know to him, and of course he thought we were fluent or something!  We were talking to him about China, and he wanted Chris to go there to get lessons in Chinese...haha.  He said he was planning on going back to China in about 4 years to get a girlfriend.  I asked him what was wrong with American girls....and he said "ahh no.......not cute enough".  Well on my fortune cookie, the Chinese word to learn was "girlfriend".  I showed it to him (because he was talking about getting a Chinese girl), and he thought I was saying I would be his girlfriend!  He lit up and Chris was like "No no...MY girlfriend", and pointed to my ring....it was hilarious!  The waiter kept talking about me being his girlfriend until we payed and walked out the door!!  It was a really funny ending to a great weekend!!!  The 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th pictures are from this weekend:

Hiking near New Fork Lake about 20 miles north of Pinedale.

You can see some effects of the fire (from our last post) in the burned trees on the right of the picture.

Allie testing out the "warm" water from New Fork Lake.

Allie in front of the JC Penny Motherstore in Kemmerer, WY.  

Kemmerer is a town of about 2500 people but is really where JC Penny started in 1902; we drove through there 2 weekends ago when Chris had to go to Evanston for a WY hunter safety course.

Hiking near Green River Lakes with two of our friends out here Ben (Virgina) and Janice (Pennsylvania).  Lots of east coasters out here.  What are you guys waiting on...Come on OUT!

Standing under the natural bridge with the Green River running under it.

A mother moose and her calf up near Jackson Hole.  We took this when my (Allie) parents were here!!  A really rare photo op!

Allie's apartment kitchen.  Pretty nice for little ole' Pinedale huh...

A lone buffalo with the Tetons in the background, also taken when my parents were here.  Man he sure does look tasty!!!

A buffalo burger is really hard to beat.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

~Chris and Allie