Fouth of July and Hiking in the "Mountains"

It has been sometime since I wrote last. I usually don't wait more than a month to write a new articles, but I've been a little busy. I'm still doing some experiments for a group in Japan (which is putting my research a little behind), and trying to do my research. Although I don't mind doing the experiments for the group in Japan...

Anyways, I guess a lot of stuff has happend since last time (but I'm only going to talk about a few things). It was the fourth of July here the other day, and my ex-roommate/friend (Abram) came down from LSU to visit. Abram, Jake (one of his other friends), and myself all went to the Wichita mountains in Oklahoma to go camping for a couple nights. Originally we were going to Colorado, but since Jake had a wedding to go to and needed to study for the MCAT exam he couldn't go to Colorado (so we had to go to OKlahoma). I don't think I would call the Wichita Mountains actual Mountains. I thought of them like hills, but they were tall hills and had a lot of interesting features. I'm posting and explaining some pictures below:

(Above: Random scenery as we were hiking. This hike lasted about 3 or 4 hours. We had to go through several valleys to get to the place we were trying to go.)



(Above: OF COURSE, anywhere I go I always have to get in a fight with someone using the crane kick. "If done right, no defend.")


(Above: Me climbing up the side of a vertical rock wall with my bare hands and no rope...actually the wall isn't verticle, we turned the camera to make it look that way.)


(Above: This bison kept showing up at our campsite. The one's that you see alone are the older males who have been ousted from the pack by the younger males. They are kind of dangerous. You should mess with them as much as you should mess with Texas...and everyone knows you don't mess with Texas. Anyways, it scratched it's butt on this pole for about 5 minutes before it left. I'm glad I didn't touch the pole. It became the butt of a lot of jokes while we were there. At one point, Jake actually went over to the pole and smelled it...although I still don't know why...?)

Also, there was some firework showing at the university football field. It was rather nice...In other words, not too crowded. I basically just talked to Abram most of the time. (Pictures Below)
It was nice having a friend stop by again. It's a little dull around here with everyone gone.
I had a lot more pictures, but I left them on other peoples cameras...which is unfortunate because most of them were a lot funnier than mine! O well. Maybe I will get them next time.





Anyways, that's all for now.
Adios