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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Johnny has passed the Idaho Bar! He only had to wait about 2 months to find out, a piece of cake, right? The funny thing is, he said the night before he was due to find out that he slept very poorly and kept waking up after dreaming he had passed. He told me he almost wished he had been dreaming he failed, so he could have been relieved when he woke up! Wait, I just had a thought; maybe THIS whole thing is a dream…..NAH! Congrats, Johnny. I always knew you could do it, and as always, I was right☺

Ultra fans, what can I say? So much going on, so little time to write! Even now I should be doing so many other things: studying for my current test, cleaning up the kitchen, getting some sleep, but instead I’m using my precious time to catch you up…you’re welcome!
Let me back up to two weekends ago, Labor Day weekend. As you all know, in America we celebrate this day by decidedly NOT working. Lucky us, UltraDad and I got to celebrate by going on an overnight camping trip with the recent-weds Jimbo and Jessica. We loaded our gear in the kids’ new Scion SD and headed for Great Basin National Park, and, more specifically, for the legendary Lehman Caves. We were snug, what with all the gear, but we all fit. On Friday night we pitched a group tent, built a campfire and roasted bratwurst and marshmallows. UltraDad stumbled across a huge, but well disguised hornet’s nest while gathering firewood and got stung on the face, but it didn’t affect him much. I’m not sure about anyone else, but I slept like a rock. The next morning, we had another fire and attempted to roast poptarts before packing up camp and heading off for our pre-booked Lehman Caves tour. The cave was amazing; stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, flowstone, popcorn, and clam-shell shield formations, which, we were told, are pretty rare. Our park ranger guide was pleasant and informative. Well worth the effort and fee. We next took a walking trail to a bristle-cone pine grove, and then to a small glacier; according to our guide Jimbo, the hike was over 6 miles long. This was encouraging to me as I was planning quite a long hike in a week’s time, but more about that later. We had a quick picnic with what was left of the lunchmeat and made the long, long drive back to Carlin.  Jimbo and Jessica spent much of the next day working on my flowerbeds/yard, and they got a pile of work done. It looks amazing! Jessica weeded and transplanted scores of Irises, while Jimbo shored and leveled up the broken down flower/retaining bed outside the back door. Instead of a mass of unruly weeks, it now sports transplanted raspberry bushes and iris. Thanks, kids!
Now, you may remember that UltraMom has been getting up really early nearly every weekday morning to walk with some friends. A month or so ago, Tonya, one of those friends had an idea: “We should do Race to the Angel this year!” She passed out downloaded applications forms, and when the time came, booked us a motel room in Wells, where the race would begin. Your $30 gets you a T-shirt and the opportunity to walk, run, or bike the 13 miles to Angel Lake, gaining 2800 vertical feet as you go. Sponsored by the Wells Chamber of Commerce, there are water and fruit stations along the way, as well as a roving ambulance and police car to pick up the quitters. Tonya, Rachel and I made the walk in just under 5 hours.  We were outpaced by the other walkers, and passed by runners and bikers, but unlike some of the participants, we were NOT quitters. Tonya tried to keep it fun and motivating. Our daily walk is usually just a little over 3 miles, so when we passed the 3.5 mile mark she informed us that ‘Monday’s walk was done and we were starting on Tuesday.” Tuesday wasn’t too bad and soon we were on Wednesday. The road got steeper and steeper as we got nearer the end. Finally Tonya informed us we were starting on Thursday. The good news was that we were taking Friday off. “Thursday,” said Rachel with feeling, “is a bitch!” As we had planned, we linked arms and crossed the finish line together; what a great feeling! We were very glad that we had a ride back down. Soon we were joining the others at the post-race picnic.
In between all of this, UltraMom has been busy with the first few ‘fun-packed’ weeks of Nursing school, as well as working.  VERY reluctantly, notice has been given at the job, but I get to keep working a couple of days a week until my replacement has been interviewed and hired, which is probably a couple more weeks. School is every day, and is intense. One of my classmates is Kim, who attended high school in Carlin and learned Calculus from my smart sister-in-law, Pat. After attending college in Reno, Kim is again living at home a few miles outside of Carlin so she can attend nursing school at Great Basin College, and we have been doing some carpooling, which has been very nice. Today, all 22 of us first-year nursing students loaded up in cars and vans and headed to Twin Falls, ID for some team building activities. At the CSI Challenge Course, we were led in activities by a young man and a young woman, whose names I have forgotten, or perhaps never knew. We took turns being blindfolded and trusting a partner to walk us around. We played partner-tag. We planned our best strategy to quickly complete a number challenge; we lined up on a log and sorted ourselves from shortest to tallest without stepping off the log. But the most fun was the ‘flying squirrel’, where we strapped into a harness and got to fly into the air with the aid of our teammates pulling on a rope. I was nervous about that one, but ended up loving it. Next week it’s back to crazy, can’t get it all done, but for this one day, school was really quite fun! See you next time I come up for air.

UltraMom, still not sure about all this, but determined to do the thing!