Cotopaxi Questival

After learning about Cotopaxi's "Questival" last year I knew it was something I had to this year; I just had to find the right team on board. So I asked my roommate Caitlin and we got two of our friends Scott and Emilio, then we recruited Collin a few days before the big race. If you aren't familiar with the Questival it is a giant 24 hour scavenger hunt type race where you take pictures doing different tasks. The list consisted of about 300 challenges spanning all of Utah and even in California.

Here's how we did it.

Thursday night the challenge list was released so Caitlin and I began color coordinating our list location specific tasks, object specific tasks, and tasks that could be done anywhere. I also created a google map that showed had a pin at every location that list required so we wouldn't miss anything. Later that night Scott and Collin came over to help us strategize and tie up all the loose ends. Friday we went on our day as normal then around five we met up and began our journey to the kick off party.

Here's some of the pictures we took during those 24 hours.

Team photo of The Canadian Border Patrol

This is my favorite picture we took

When the race ended at 7:00 we were in first place! However, with all the outside judging after the race ended we finished in 16th. We were stilled thrilled because 500 teams competed and we were in it for the fun. Being it first just made it extremely exciting.

This was the very last picture of the day that pretty much summed up what we were ready for.

Spring Break 2015 - Philadelphia

Our last stop on the spring break journey was Philadelphia. We flew from Salt Lake to DC, then rented a car and drove to Philadelphia stopping in Maryland to site see on the way. Philly is a place I have been to many times. With my dad working there I have had a chance to go out and visit quite frequently, but I still look forward to going every time and I always manage to see something new. 

We got to Philadelphia around eight on Monday night, then picked my dad up to go get steak sandwiches while we still had a car. We went and ate them in his office that overlooked and walked around downtown a little bit.

Saturday we spent the morning walking around outside where he lives which is across the street from the new temple. His apartment overlooks it, so you get a great view of the entire thing. Then my dad met up with us for lunch at our favorite little diner type place there called Sabrina's and then we headed to look at the down town historical monuments for the 153rd time. 

This time visiting the monuments was unique because we had a chance to go upstairs in City Hall. The tour guide said they usually only pick one week out of the year to open the upstairs and that it was basically a once in a lifetime experience. So that pretty much made it worth it to go take the tour again. 

This is the blue staircase that leads to upstairs, also seen in National Treasure

 The room where they signed the Declaration of Independence

This is from the ballroom upstairs

The Liberty Bell

After touring the Liberty Bell my dad left us to go back to work so we walked around down town again and stopped into Reading Terminal to pick up some cookies. By that point we were so exhausted and didn't want to make the 10 minute walk it would take to get back to the apartment to come back an hour later so we walked into a Marriott and found a sitting area and took a nap in there, which at that point was incredible. Then we moved on to wait outside the theater so we could get tickets to Annie, which we greatly enjoyed that night. I had seen it before in New York but my dad hadn't so it was fun to watch it with him. After that we got back to his apartment late that night and woke back up at four in the morning to return home to the great Salt Lake City. Overall I would say it was a pretty great spring break trip. 

Spring Break 2015 Baltimore - Maryland

A few months ago a few friends told me about this podcast series called Serial and insisted I listen. I was instantly hooked and listened non stop for two days until I was finished. If you have never heard of Serial it's about a murder case that took place in Baltimore in 1999. Adnan Syed was arrested for his girl friend's murder but the whole case was was proving whether or not he was the murderer proving he was wrongfully arrested. Anyway, when we decided to go back east for spring break, we figured why not stop in Baltimore and look at some of the famous sites from the case. You hear these places described in detail so frequently in the podcast so it was really cool to see them in person.

We first went and saw the high school that the students went to to see the memorial tree they planted for Hae.

Then we went to Leakin Park, which is also a common place they talk about often in the podcast. We only journeyed a little ways in, but it's supposedly known as a creepy park with a lot of dead bodies. 

Spring Break 2015 - Washington DC

So I started this blog to keep track of all my random advenutres and one thing that most people learn about me is I love to travel. My sister and I are both really into travel hacking so we tend to plan these pretty elaborate vacations for almost nothing. The latest one was our spring break trip back east. I have been back East to Philadelphia and New York quite a few times in the past couple years, but I hadn't been to Washington DC since I was 14, so it was one place that was on the top of my list to visit.

We flew out extremely early Friday morning from Salt Lake, then stopped in Denver for a layover, and made it into DC by the late afternoon. We took the train from the airport and voyaged towards our hotel. While we were on the train we sat next to a guy that had flown from Salt Lake as well and lived downtown working at Goldman Sachs, so we spent the 45 minute train ride talking to him. After we got to our hotel we set out to see some of the monuments. We also went to the outside of the white house where everyone there was freaking out because somewhere was there walking the "white house dog" but it turned out to be someone pulling a suitcase. After that we went and saw the Vietnam Memorial where one of Meghan's typical moments came into play. I was being dumb and I looked at Emily and said, "So why are we here again what does all this mean?" to my question a teenage boy immediately jumped in and gave me the low down of what the Memorial was in a very serious tone.

Our next day in DC was spent touring all of the different museums. We started the day going to the American History museum then after that we went to the top of the Washington Monument, where you could look out and see DC from a high view, despite the rain and the fog it was still an amazing view.

After that we went to the holocaust museum, which was my first ever time visiting, because when I was little my parents didn't think I was old enough and when I was 14 it was closed. The museum was awesome and really gave me a sense of appreciation for the county I live in, and that we don't have to physically see war in our country. The last museum we saw was my absolute favorite, which is the Air and Space Museum. 

One of Amelia Earhart's airplanes'

The very first ever made airplane

Following the museum's we met up with my brother-in-law's cousin and her husband and went back to their apartment with them to stay with them that night. The next morning we woke up and went to church with them, then came home and went to the Arlington National Cemetery and watched the changing of the guard. 

After the cemetery we ate dinner with them then they took us to our hotel that we were staying in that night. The next morning we woke up to finish up our site seeing for our last day in DC. We began the day touring Ford's Theater and the house where Abraham Lincoln died. Then we went and saw the National Archives before heading back to the airport to pick up our rental car to head on to Maryland and DC. 

Overall DC was such an amazing trip. We picked a perfect time to go, since we were able to do basically everything we wanted to without having to wait. On top of that David's cousins were amazing and were extremely hospitable and treated us like royals.