This blog has been silent over the last month because I've been all over the place. As soon as I handed in my last assignments a month ago, I headed to Kelowna for a planning conference. It was fantastic and a good career move and all that, but I don't exactly have any blog worthy stories from it.I do, however, have many bloggable tidbits from the road trip I went on with Melissa and Christine the day after I got back from the conference (things have been busy here for sure!)
We drove for two and a half days to Arches National Park in Utah. It may have only been two days if it hadn't been for the L-O-N-G wait to cross the border. FePo was getting bored, as many kids do on road trips, so we bought him a girlfriend (if only it was that easy for us humans).
I can't well enough describe in words how stunned we were by the beauty of the landscape in Arches National Park. After a couple of days we became more used to seeing all the red rocks and strange formations, but driving into it and gradually seeing the rocks appear and the trees disappear was a very memorable experience. We couldn't stop taking photos as it seemed there was an amazing sight around every corner.
Our group morale hit an all-time low the next morning when at 7:30am we were too late to get a spot in the campground in the park. A couple of hours later, however, we were high on rocks, arches and fins. After a full day of hiking and dodging hail pellets we kicked back in the Moab brewery and talked about how we didn't want to be in the stupid national park campsite anyway. It was probably full of huge trailers and boring people. That's what we told ourselves anyway.
Next stop, Zion National Park. Although I no longer had that awe of seeing something for the first time, the Zion Canyon is pretty darn amazing. We camped in the park this time, and for the rest of our stay there we didn't have to drive anywhere, just hopped on the shuttle to various trail heads and points of interest.We hiked to Angel's Landing, which was not nearly as scary as it was made out to be. Sheer drop offs on either side of a three foot wide trail sounds scary. Well, it's wasn't that bad with the chain handrail and all. It was still a great hike with a fantastic view.
The highlight for me was the rainstorm we were caught in later that day on a hike to the Emerald Pools, and the subsequent waterfalls that sprouted up (or down?) in various places. Since I read about the risk of flash floods in the canyon I was secretly (well, actually quite openly) hoping for one. If everyone was okay, wouldn't that be cool to see? So when it began to rain/thunder/lighting/totally downpour, I was thinking this may be the time for a flash flood. We didn't see one, but did see some cool waterfalls after emerging from our sad little rocky covers from the rain.
We had many other great times and experiences including a visit to an old Mormon fort on our way back towards Salt Lake City, whacking some balls at the driving range at one of our campsites, cooking oysters over the campfire (back at the coast of course), and visiting Mt. St. Helens (a bit of a hidden gem I think).
I have lots more pictures to show (too many because I go crazy with digital) and will post just a few more on the blog here before saying goodbye.
