Have I Ever Done 2 Posts In One Day???

I think not. Today is an extreme rarity. I have nothing to do at work so I've been looking for things to do. I've made and ordered my mother's Christmas present, ordered our Christmas cards, organized my office, but the most important is the one I'm blogging about. Justin and I got off the phone a while ago and managed to plan our trips for 2010! I know we're crazy for doing it so early, but it involves a lot of traveling and it actually has to be planned ahead of time. Weather affects where we can go and when (especially when hiking is involved), not to mention my schedule at work also affects when I can take a week off work at a time. As most of you know, Justin and I love traveling. There's about a million places we want to go but we managed to narrow it down for 2010 to four trips (well, four for Justin, but five for me).

We begin our travels in April. Obviously we can't travel before then because of my busy season. My firm is awesome enough to give us the Friday after April 15th off for our hard work that we put in during busy season, so most people take that day and go somewhere to wind down from the stress that had been building up for the last 3 months. This won't be a big trip at all, in fact, we don't even fly anywhere. It's just a road trip. We'll be driving to Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas to do the state highpoints. Justin has already done all three of these, but I haven't. Since Justin doesn't know how to turn down a roadtrip, he naturally wanted to go. Like I said, not a big trip at all, just a Friday to Sunday thing.

The next trip is the BIG ONE and it will happen around the end of May, Memorial Day to be exact. We will fly into San Francisco and spend the day enjoying the city. Then we'll drive over to Yosemite National Park and do the hike of Half Dome (17 mile round trip hike that is BRUTAL). To give our bodies a rest before the next hike, we'll spend another day just enjoying the park before driving over to the Nevada highpoint and climbing it. We will then drive to Vegas to spend a little over a day before heading to the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and eventually climbing the highest mountain in Arizona. That is one jam-packed but AMAZING trip! I cannot wait for it! I added three pictures below. The first is of the summit of Half Dome. And yes, we will be going to the top of that very large rock in the middle. Jealous aren't you? They have to put cables up to help you get up because it is essentially rock climbing to get to the top. The second picture is of the cables and "stairs" to get to the top. The last picture is of Yosemite Falls. If you read my blog yesterday, you may be wondering why this trip is now in May instead of its original planned date of September. The answer is Yosemite Falls. We discovered last night that the falls dries up in September and that is NOT acceptable for us. So we switched the trip to May when the falls will certainly be falling. Gorgeous isn't it?




The next trip will be sometime in June. This one isn't planned to the date like the others are. It will depend on when my friend is available and which Friday's I end up having off. Justin and I plan to visit my friends Lauren and her husband Garrett in Seattle in June. Lauren is probably reading this right now with her mouth open because I haven't exactly discussed this with her yet, but something tells me she's not going to mind. Justin and I plan on staying in Seattle for probably 5 days (two of which will be full just flying out there - yes Lauren, Justin has already looked at flights). We plan on renting a car, just in case Lauren can't take off work. The one thing we really want to do when we're out there is do some day hikes in Mount Rainier National Park. And if time allows, I would love to see Multnomah Falls in Oregon. I put pics below of the park and of the falls.

The next trip will be at the end of September, around Labor Day. We're planning on going to the northeastern US and hiking the highpoints for Vermont, New York, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. Technically, Vermont, Massachusetts and New Jersey are drive-ups or relatively easy and short hikes. New York and New Hampshire highpoints are actually mountains to climb, which I am SO excited about. Connecticut isn't really a mountain, it's just a pretty steep and strenuous hike. We were hoping our friends Bonnie and Andrew would accompany us on this one, but they literally did this exact trip already. So basically, Justin and I may change this trips locations around a little closer to time if they are interested in going.

The last and final trip is just for me. Sometime in December I plan on going to New York again. However, I am unsure of who I am going to go with. There's a couple of girls at work that have expressed interest in going. But, my best friends Carina and Ashley Matherson have also expressed interest in going. So I'm not real sure who I will go with yet, but I do know that I will go. I specifically wanted it to be in December because after going with my mother two winters ago, I fell IN LOVE with winter in New York. The city is amazing when it's decorated for Christmas! When me and my mom went right before Christmas in 2007, we were there when New York had its first snow. It was totally unexpected, but was AMAZING. Here's a recap:





Yeah I was pretty excited about it snowing while we were there. You can tell in that last picture :) Ok, I promise this was my last post for the day!

UPDATE: These are all the trips Justin and I were planning on taking during 2010, however, they're being pushed back for the time being. Justin and I have decided to go to Africa a year earlier than we originally planned and since it costs a ton of money to do that, we're having to put these trips on the backburner for now. The only trip listed above that will still occur in 2010 is going to Seattle to visit Lauren and Garrett Kelly.