I killed a caterpillar...

...and I feel bad about it. But that's only one of the many things that went on this weekend.

Friday night I helped my mom put on a spook alley for the primary kids coming to her trunk-or-treat. Because the spook alley was inside the church, we had to walk the line between mildly eerie and downright evil, and sometimes it was a tricky line not to cross. For instance, we had a gypsy telling fortunes, but her fortunes were along the lines of "If you eat all of your candy tonight, you will get very ill," or "If you decide to serve a mission, you will learn many things." We had the usual boxes of gross things to touch, spider webbing, fog machine, and a skeleton with Groucho Marx glasses-and-nose on so it wouldn't be too frightening. We only made one girl cry, and it was because she was frightened that she was glowing under the black light. I don't have any pictures of this evening, but just envision me dressed as a viking leading groups of kids through the silliest excuse for a spook alley ever.

You heard me, a viking. Simmer down, I'll show you in a minute.

Saturday morning my roommate Jenny and I joined a handful of other young single adults in the surrounding stakes to go mountain biking on the Rail Trail between Park City and Coalville. Considering I have barely touched my bike since my mission it was pretty bold of me to think I could ride 19 miles all at once, but I was guaranteed that the trail was all downhill or flat, so I figured I'd give it a whirl.

We were told it was a 19 mile trek, and there were convenient mile markers along the trail to help us keep track. There were also two pit-stops along the way where young adult leaders were waiting with water and snacks. Like this:

The first two-thirds of the trail were a lot of fun... mostly downhill, beautiful rural scenery. The last 8 miles or so was less fun because it was all flat and the trail was a lot rougher. Actually, as I wearily rode past the 19 mile marker and saw that there was still quite a ways to go I began cursing the adult leaders under my breath for being liars, and hoping that this wasn't some kind of faith-building "appreciate your pioneer heritage because THEY didn't know how far it was to the end either" kind of activity. It was actually 22 miles total; the leader had just miscalculated the number of miles.

At the end Jenny and I celebrated by drinking four CapriSun sport drink pouches each, two at a time. We were thirsty.
I would recommend the Rail Trail to anyone. Well, the first 14 miles or so of it anyway. Start in Park City, end in Wanship, and you have yourself a pleasant fall Saturday afternoon. Keep going to Coalville, and you have a good workout as well.

Oh, this is where the caterpillar comes in. Somewhere between Park City and Promontory (our first stop) I accidentally ran over a furry orange-and-black caterpillar, who was just trying to innocently cross the trail. It looked like this:
Which means, one less of these will be around. I apologize.

Okay, this went longer than I thought. I'll blog about the halloween party (with pictures of Haley the Viking) later when I have more time.