Counseling Center Staff Retreat/Halloween Party

Every year the Counseling Center holds a staff retreat at the director's house. This year featured a variety of scrumptious quiches, some of the best I've ever had. As you can see, everyone came in costume (I'm Zorro). I had a good time (I can't speak for Betty Crocker, pictured above.).

Old Main Hill

I went to take some pictures today of the tower on the oldest building on campus--"Old Main." I ended up taking some other nice pictures, as well. This area is practically visible from my apartment, only about half a block away. So why haven't I spent a bunch of time here? I don't know. While I was there, leaning up against a tree to take a picture, I felt some little somethings dropping on my head. When I looked up I saw this squirrel right above me, apparently wanting to come down from the tree, but too afraid to go any further with me there.

My Sunday dinner thing went very well today. It was Dan's week to cook dinner, but I made a very yummy pumpkin dessert, not unlike pumpkin pie, but with a crumbly topping.

Diwali

Last night I went to Diwali, the Indian Festival of Lights, at the university. The costumes, music, and dancing were beautiful.

Bear Ridge

Today I hiked up to Bear Ridge on the North end of Logan Canyon, not far from where the Wind Caves are. There was a really cool clearing in some woods at the top of the ridge. It looks like a great place to pitch a tent, actually. I layed on the ground in the clearing for a while and just listened to the rustling leaves and buzzing bees. It was really nice. Wish you were here.

Aggie Spirit!

There's an Aggie Spirit contest the Friday before USU football home games. Offices compete for a little statuette/flask (pictured on my lap) and tickets to the game. Thanks to the enthusiastic leadership of Amy (standing behind me), the Counseling Center won! We plan to continue to win from now on.

A Walk along Logan River

I went for a hike today along Logan River, which is in Logan Canyon. It was one of the most peaceful and enjoyable hikes I've ever been on. Part of the reason for this was that I was alone and, rather than focus on my destination (i.e., getting to the top of a mountain), I allowed myself to simply enjoy my surroundings, stop and interact with various features of the landscape (e.g., little waterfalls), explore off the trail if I saw something that called to me [e.g., I climbed up some steep rocks (and had trouble getting down).], and just generally took my time. Another thing that allowed me to enjoy the trip, I think, was that the trail was just flat and extremely well groomed. Here are a few pictures.

Wellsville Ridge with Snow and Clouds

Another picture of the Wellsville Ridge with snow, this time with cool clouds and sun. Don't forget to click to enlarge!

Snow on the Mountains!

I went outside this morning and there was snow on the mountains!

Map of Logan Area

Here's a map I keep on my wall. Everywhere I've been hiking is on this map. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to mark the map without severely decreasing the resolution. But if you blow the map up big enough, the resolution is good enough to read the map (at least it is on my computer). The big, lighter green splotch is just to the East of where I live. This is where Logan Canyon leads to Bear Lake, both of which are fairly well indicated on the map. The darker green splotch on the left is the Wellsville Ridge, which was featured in a couple of previous entries.

The Wind Caves

I went for another hike today, this time to the Wind Caves in Logan Canyon, about 7 miles from my apartment. It was a spectacular hike (big surprise there). It's a nice, easy hike, one that I could see doing once in a while just to get away for a bit. The caves in these pictures were apparently formed by wind. They should have named them the "wind caves." Oh yeah, they did.