What Have I Been Up To?

Contrary to what some may think, I am doing more than just sitting here writing cool articles...

Author - Cody Smith

What have I been up to lately? Plenty...

I just finished up the latest TLDTV video: Mountain Biking Chadwick’s Motorcycle and ATV Use Area. It was a great project, and a lot of fun to make, not to mention how much fun it was actually riding the trails and filming it! Be sure to check it out, along with all our other videos found in the “Media: TLDTV” section.

Two days ago I got signed up officially with the BLM/Forest Service fire dispatch in western Colorado, so now I have to keep my phone closer than ever (something I don’t especially enjoy). I’m basically on-call right now, so when the full-time crew needs some help, I’ll be ready. They can call me on duty for as little as a day, or as long as two weeks, with only an hour or two notice.

I just picked up a pair of new firefighting boots yesterday, so I’m excited to give those a try on my first fire. I also got some Obenauf fire-resistant laces and fire-resistant leather oil that should help keep my feet safe, and the boots in good condition. They certainly weren’t as cheap as I was hoping, but with my feet done growing, I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and invest in a pair that will last for a long time.

The campground where we’re at (classified information until we leave – TLD policy) has a nice weight room, so I’ve been trying to exercise about an hour a day since we’ve been here. 10 miles on the bike (at maximum difficulty setting), 300+ reps on the “rowing machine” (something I hear used to be popular), and then some laps in the swimming pool (I can never seem to keep count). Then, jump in the hot tub to finish it all off…

Lately we've been riding at some incredible places - one of which literally took our breath away (it was over 13,000 feet high)!  I have to commend Colorado, since they so far have the largest system of trails and roads open to ATVs. In some places you can ride from town to town over the mountains, or even into neighboring states. I feel like I could probably spend a lifetime exploring the roads and trails here, and still not see everything. More on our recent Colorado riding adventures will come soon!

We’ve also been doing a lot of rock-hounding lately, what with being in one of the biggest gold and gem areas in America and all! So far, no riches beyond comprehension, but we have found some pretty cool stuff. More garnets than we could keep, bags of petrified wood, some cool fossilized sea life, and lots of other awesome rocks that we have yet to identify. We also found a very radioactive rock (something Colorado apparently has quite a bit of to watch out for), that we promptly removed from the collection once I found it in a rock identification book. Supposedly, there’s also gold in them there hills (the ones I’m looking at right now), so we may try some gold panning this weekend. Of course, the location where we found all the stuff mentioned above is top-secret, so don’t even ask. =)

I've been working hard on my fourth Berean School of the Bible course - trying to get it completed by September 1st. I only have 22 more before I'll be an ordained minister! A long way to go, but it'll be worth every minute I'll have spent working on it and more. I'm looking forward to seeing what God does through it in my life (although, personally, I've already learned SO much).

So… what’s next? Hopefully some cooler weather, although I can’t really complain since I’m sitting in about 30% humidity and 85 degrees, while many of my friends are baking in 100 degree heat back in Missouri with unspeakable humidity. And the nice thing about being in the mountains is, if it starts getting too hot down in the valley, ride four or five miles up into the mountains and there may be snow! No… you won’t be hearing any complaining from me…