104] do the valley a favor and find the best hot dog stand: Contestant #4

J dawgs will always have a place in my heart. The first time I went... oh maybe 2 years or so ago... I immediately fell in love with the special sauce. With this love... eh hem, bias... I knew entering J Dawgs into our competition was probably unfair... but why not have another reason to eat a J Dawg?? And so we threw it on the list!

dang shadows.

So last weekend we felt the need for a cheap meal (tuition, books, rent, deposits, etc. are adding up) and so we called up Marysa for extra company and walked on over to the corner of 9th & 8th for a delicious dinner. Marysa hadn't been before (a felony considering she lives at Campus Plaza!) so she got a polish dog. Todd and I also got polish dogs since they are significantly tastier than anything around. We each got a variety of different toppings including pickles, onions, jalapenos, banana peppers, sauerkraut, mustard (spicy brown), ketchup, and of course... special sauce. I got the usual (special sauce, sauerkraut, jalapenos, banana peppers, and a little bit of onions) but I decided that next time I'll go for a cooler option and cut out one of the peppers. Nonetheless the dog was beyond delicious and I'm already looking forward to going again. Cons: too much heat... but that's always preventable; and it's pretty messy... but that doesn't matter too much either since it's almost attractive in Provo to have special sauce all over your face. Pros: it only costs $3... they could totally charge more for the taste their pumpin' out; the buns are baked fresh daily at a local bakery... definitely noticeable; the dog is nothing short than premium... also made locally; and again, the sauce is to die for.


I may be a stereotypical J Dawg worshiping BYU student... and I generally don't like being labelled for doing the things I do... but I'll take it for this one.


Overall I'd say J Dawgs is in a three-way tie for first place. I'll have to give it more thought when the actual final judging takes place. Until then we have a couple more hot dog joints to check out so stay tuned! (:

102] bike to Utah Lake and have a picnic.

A few weeks ago for f.h.e. I got to be in charge of the activity. It was July 11th (7/11) and 7-Eleven was giving out free Slurpees... each 7.11 ounces of course. So I decided that for our activity we would get Slurpees and have a picnic... at the lake! We hopped on our bikes and decided that a refreshing Slurpee on the way back from our 10 mile ride would be more appetizing so we headed down 800 N, avoided the detour, and eventually jumped on the Provo River Trail. We had run the trail a week or so earlier and it was much nicer cruising down it on a bike... except for maybe not the big crack parts that we tried to pop wheelys over... those were a little unfriendly to my posterior. We also learned that unless you have a mud guard thing on your bike you get totally soaked from all of the flooding on the trail. So we took it slow through those parts and got there is about 20 minutes.

Once we arrived the nice young lady at the gate let us in for free since we didn't bring any cash. We decided that she is probably a recreational management major or something and supports healthy stuff like bike rides. (: 

We biked around and came to find out that everything was totally flooded! I mean it makes sense since it's been on the news and everything, but I didn't think it was going to be that bad.  After looking around at the beached fish carcasses we tried to find a place to eat that wasn't infested with lake bugs. Lucky for us there was a little pavilion right by the water that was significantly low in bug count. So we downed our PB&H before the bugs downed us and headed on our way.

On the way back we opted out of getting Slurpee because turns out everyone knew about the national event and decided to go for f.h.e. just like us. If I remember correctly Todd made me a yummy smoothie later on anyways. He's awesome, huh.

The view of the approaching thunderstorm
across the lake was lovely.

104] do the valley a favor and find the best hot dog stand: Contestant #3

If you saw the article in the DU about Hotdog King then you already know that this place is a hit... that is if you read the DU. I read it... sorta... I look at the pictures.

When I saw the picture of this wiener joint I knew it'd end up on our list. Hotdog King can be found on State Street in Orem... right after you come up the hill from Provo (it's on the right). They... well he... specializes in fun and creative dogs that have all sorts of crazy toppings. Charlie Mendes is the owner and creator of all these tasty dogs and to be honest he probably has thee best customer service and salesman skills around. As soon as we walked in the door he was there to help us, ready with every detail about every dog offered. After hearing about the specials for the day we asked about a few others that looked appetizing. Todd ended up getting the Utah Dog and I got the Brazillian Panini Dog.

When Charlie told us about the Utah Dog he basically said he wanted to make something that included everything that the locals love. According to him, the locals (two universities full of foreigners haha) love potatoes, fry sauce, and bacon... and that's basically what was on the dog. The Brazillian Panani Dog, on the other hand, was indeed foreign. Pretty much he cuts the hot dog hot-dog-style (haha) and puts it, along with the toppings, on the bun and grills the whole thing into a flat bread panini! I don't remember all of the toppings but there was definitely bacon, onions, ketchup & sweet relish added by me, and cream cheese... oh the cream cheese! It was definitely the best part! Whatever else on there must have been delicious because the whole thing went together very well. As for the bun and the dog... I wasn't entirely impressed with the dog. It seemed very Oscar Meyer-esque (contradictory to the DU review). And the bun was totally grilled... so I didn't get that fresh bun taste but it was still a fun twist.

Unfortunately, I might have put the dog in 4th place (we've been to another joint since). However, Charlie is tied for first for excellent customer service and for providing a fun dining atmosphere.

This was out back behind the actual joint. We didn't get too close
 'cause there was a cop looking around.

2] run 'Barry's Drive-In Supa Mega Half-Marathon' on July 9th.

Before I tell you about the grueling 13.1 miles that Todd and I ran last month, I'd like to apologize for being so extremely M.I.A. You see... this summer term I took English 312- Persuasive Writing. This class fulfilled my very last GE of advanced writing. I can't even explain how relieved I am to have every single GE completed... it makes graduation in April seem so much more realistic! 

Surprisingly though, the class really wasn't that bad. I mean... ya we were scheduled to me three times a week for two hours each, and maybe there was a paper due almost every time, and maybe I spent like days and days on my final project... but we always got out of class 30 minutes to an hour early, and my professor cancelled about 9 of the 22 class periods, and I got to write that forever long final paper about whatever I wanted! So all in all it was a great class and I learned a lot... there was just lots of writing meaning I certainly didn't have time to blog. Sorry! I mean, it's not like you're heart broken or anything, haha. Anyways... I turned in my final project yesterday (a 30 page pamphlet about promoting healthy advertising in schools) and it barely fit under the door! I haven't decided if that's a good thing yet but I'll find out soon enough.

So now that I have time for you people again there is a lot to catch up on! Especially since July was definitely our party month... minus the half-marathon part 'cause that's not nearly as fun as a good raisin'n'rice pudding party.

I've been wanting to run a half-marathon for years now. Ever since I started cross country my sophomore year of high school I have developed a love for running. [I've also developed a hate... no... dislike for running depending on the time of day, temperature outside, and what I had for dinner. But we won't go into that.] Gaining this appreciation for running wasn't easy though. I remember my first day of practice. It was a summer morning before school started and I had a friend or two on the team. We practiced [or at least started practice] at one of my rival junior highs and basically the coach, Belcher, would put us in groups and assign us times. He sent me on a run with the "slow group" and we ran 12 out. Basically that means we ran in one direction for 12 minutes then turned around and ran back. The faster varsity runners were sent on "30" and "40" runs... I barely made it the first 12 minutes. I seriously thought my calves were going to rip off my legs. After that practice I continued to run with the slow group and I never made it to varsity... heck I never even broke my 24 minute PR. But I didn't care, I had friends, I was in shape, and I developed endurance like I didn't know was possible. After the first season or so my calves stopped hurting for the first couple miles and I was able to really run... and keep running until my body was out of those important energy building nutrients. With this endurance I realized I could run much more than a 5k. So every summer since I have made training schedules for myself and I've planned on running a half-marathon. It wasn't until this summer that I finally did it! ... and I dragged Todd along in the process. 

Pretty much we had a date in mind that we wanted to be ready by [July 16th which changed to the 9th when we somehow got ahead of schedule] and so we started running more and more each Saturday morning. Not the most professional approach but I'm sure it was just fine for our first attempt. Basically we would get up Saturday morning and Todd would go volunteer at the MTC while I did homework... or slept in... and when he got back we'd get our running stuff on, plan out a run on mapmyrun.com, and head out. At the beginning our "shorter run" [6ish miles] was out towards Springville and back... not my favorite 'cause the road was pretty busy... and maybe I tripped and fell on my face. Oh well. The runs gradually got longer and we started to get farther and farther away from home. For two Saturdays we ran out to the Timpanogos High School area and back. For the longest runs, though, we had to get pretty creative. The Provo River Trail proved very useful for the longer these. The longest run we did was a weekend or so before the 13.1 miles. We jumped onto said trail off of 800 N and ran all the way to Utah Lake! I was pretty excited about that one... especially since we had to hop a few fences and cross a railroad track or two to make it back. Don't tell my mother. But even more impressive was the actual half-marathon, the run of all runs, the big kahuna... at least in my sphere. We made a big loop and ran all the way to the mouth of Provo Canyon! We came back on the Provo River Trail and got off continuing down town past Pioneer Park and the Tabernacle. Woah... what a run! I definitely had to use all the endurance that I could to get through the whole thing. I found out that at about 12.5 miles is when those energy building nutrients really start to give up... I'll have to do some more serious training if I want to ever get significantly past 13.1.

At the end we didn't get any cool shirts, or breakfast, or massages... but we did hit up McDonald's! Haha don't worry, I got a Powerade [and Todd got a chocolate shake]. Classy, huh? I also retired my running shoes... they were giving me too many blisters and there were a few holes that my little toes liked to get caught in. Luckily Big5 was having a sale so I got these lovelies for a good $50. They should last me a year or two... at least they better!

Did you notice I have a thing for Saucony's?

Since the big run we have taken it pretty easy and have gone on a number of fun vacations with family. Don't worry, we went on hikes and stuff so we wouldn't get too lazy. 

And now we have about 2.5 weeks until fall semester starts. Todd still has his internship but I am home[work] free so we'll be able to run as much as we want!

p.s. I should explain why we named the marathon "Barry's Drive-In Supa Mega Half-Marathon." To be honest I don't remember the humor behind it... but last summer when Todd and I started dating [woah so like 16ish months ago] we went out to Spanish Fork to get lunch. It was in the middle of finals and Todd had just finished his cleaning check 'cause he was moving up the mountain. We pretty much got the greasiest burgers we could order at Barry's Drive-In and ate them on the grass across the street. It was lots of fun and I'm sure we decided it would take a half-marathon to burn off what we had just eaten... or something like that. So we decided to run one. And surprise surprise we didn't end up doing it until this summer, over a year later. It would have been even classier to skip McDonald's and go back for another greasy burger... but our day was packed and a trip to Spanish Fork didn't quite fit in the agenda. Aaaaand that's roughly the story. (:

It's moments like these that make me wish I had a home with a beautiful garden.

After buying yet another sickly bag of baby carrots I can't help but ask, "Who invented these things?!" Then I pause... give thanks... and reword my question to, "Why did you invent these things??!"

Here's to all of those who are trying to be healthy and are suffering through the process.

Do not be deceived by its baby-of-a-baby-like size... it tasted like death.