Thursday, November 29, 2007

Thanksgiving in Southern Utah

This year we decided to take a trip for the Thanksgiving holiday. We decided to pack up and head to Southern Utah for some places we haven't been to. We went Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef National Parks.

We had both been to Bryce when we were younger, but didn't remember much of it, and neither of us had ever been to Capitol Reef. The original plan was to get a hotel for Thanksgiving night and then camp. After checking the weather and seeing that the nightly lows were supposed to be in the mid-teens, we opted for a hotel every night. It actually work out quite nicely.

We were able to find Thanksgiving dinner at the Ruby's Restaurant, inside the Ruby's Best Western. We were also able to find a nice indoor pool and hot tub as well. The place we stayed had closed theirs for the season.

We spent Friday driving the scenic drive, hitting up the lookouts, and then hiking down through the bottom of Bryce Canyon. I was absolutely amazed by the formations. It definitely ranks highly in my favorite national parks list. The hike through the bottom of the canyon was the best. Even though we passed quite a few people at the start and at the end, we were able to find solitude through the middle section. The perspective from being down in the canyon was amazing.

Saturday we drove "scenic" Highway 12 to Capitol Reef. This was the most amazing section of road I have ever been on in my life. As you're heading north you are on top of a plateau (maybe it's a mesa) and then all of a sudden you drop down into the bottom and your amidst slick rock, canyons, and huge walls. As you climb out the other side you quickly find yourself on top of a spine is wide enough to fit a two-lane highway and a couple feet of dirt on each side before the drop into the canyon, on each side. Unfortunately the camera was packed away in the trunk so we didn't get any pictures. I will make a trip just to drive that section of road again.

By the time we got to Capitol Reef we had just enough time to get in one hike down a side canyon that gave some great views of the main section of the park. The huge sandstone walls (and splitters) were awe inspiring. We saw absolutely no one else on the trail and enjoyed complete solitude the whole time. I have a feeling that a trip will be in the works in the springtime to make it down to climb some of the cracks we saw.

We spent Sunday driving home. The nice part of the drive was we spent most of the time driving on Highways and little time on the freeway. We actually drove on a lot of roads that neither of us had been on and we saw lots of places that neither of us had seen. While on the back roads we were able to pass a guy in his jacked-up truck, with his four-wheeler in the bed, and a sticker that said "Shut up hippy". It made me laugh.

Here's an album of our trip (I went back to Bubbleshare because Flickr is lame.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Safe Toys

Monday, November 26, 2007

The Big 1 Triple 0

I'm sure all of you didn't notice, but this blog just rolled over 1,000 visits since I added the counter earlier this year. It isn't a momentous occasion but one I wanted to mention anyway.

Okay, I'll admit, it was easy fodder for a quick blog post.

A full blog post report on our Thanksgiving Southern Utah trip will be coming later this week.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Grandeur Peak

This past Saturday we decided to hike Grandeur Peak here in Salt Lake. Grandeur is the first peak between Parleys Canyon and Millcreek Canyon. I had previously run up the Millcreek side earlier this year so we opted to tackle the West Ridge. It has been a little while since we last hiked and thought it would be a good test run before this weekend.

The trail starts right at the mouth of Parleys and ascends 3100 vertical feet in 1 3/4 miles. STEEP! Needless to say Jessica and I both got worked. It was fairly grueling on the way because the trail is so steep. It had been a long time since either of us had put in any kind of vert.

It was a great day for hiking. The temps were a little low, but once we got moving it felt very nice. There was hardly any wind until we reached the ridge just below the summit, but we only had to endure the chilly wind for a few minutes.

Once we reached the summit we were rewarded with outstanding panoramas of the Salt Lake Valley, the Wasatch Range, Parley's Canyon, and beyond.

It was a beautiful day to out hiking. It is by far one our most favorite things to do together. Unfortunately we didn't get out as much as we should have this summer, but sometimes that happens. We will definitely be taking advantage of this weekend and the remaining days until the winter arrives (which I am praying will be sooner rather than later.).

You can see the rest of the pictures from our hike here. (I can't remember how to post the Flickr slideshow in my blog...I know there is a way, or at least there used to be a way. If anyone knows please tell me.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Do you know why I pulled you over?

"Well no sir" (okay...I knew).
"You were going 44 in a 30."

As it turns out I didn't know I was going 44 (didn't look) and didn't know it was 30 (didn't see the sign).

That was the glorious event that transpired driving home from the Buchanan's two Fridays ago. I completely forgot to blog about it, but then as I was paying my fine online just now I remembered I needed to post about it.

The most ironic part of the whole thing is we just renewed our auto insurance in October and for the first time since Jess and I have known each other we both had completely clean driving records and were bumped up to the "highest" level of insurance.

So I just paid 132 bills my speeding mistake. 82 of them go to pay the fine and 50 of it goes to traffic school so the ticket doesn't go on my record. So we're out 132 clams but at least we get to keep the good standing with the insurance.

All that is left is going to traffic school.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Good thing the sewer got fix...

...because I got really sick last night.

Penelope got sick Thursday night, had her first throwing up incident. I think whatever she has she gave to me because last night I had my first throwing up experience in about 10 years. Definitely didn't enjoy it, but it did actually make me feel better. My day has been spent trying to catch up on sleep and getting better.

Did I mention that being sick sucks?

Friday, November 09, 2007

Sorry sir, you can't use your own bathroom

Wednesday late afternoon we get a paper put on our front door. It is from a company saying they have be contracted by Salt Lake City Sanitation to install a new pipe in the public sewer. The paper then continued to say the installation would be happening on Friday at 8:00 am and that we shouldn't use the sewer at all during that time (washer, sink, toilet, shower, etc) because our private service line will be blocked and any water usage will flood our structure.

It is now 10:00 pm Friday night and we still can't use anything. The paper said the process would take 10-18 hours to complete! The good news is I was at work most the day and Jess was watching some kids from the ward for half the day.

The bad news is something the workers did caused a bunch of sewage to come up in our toilet (like the toilet overflowed) and it got all over the floor. The worst part is we haven't been able to clean it up because we can't flush the toilet.

Gross...and lame.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

No Posts

I was called out in the comments of my last post (thanks Honey!) for not posting very often. Here's how my days have gone for the past week or so:

Wake up, go to work, work all day, come home, eat dinner, play with Jess and Penelope for a few, work until bedtime. LAME! Work has been super-extra-wicked busy lately and it is spilling over into my home life. I'm not very stoked on it but hopefully after this weekend it won't happen anymore for awhile.

Halloween was fun. Penelope was a spider, she was cute. Jess and I dressed up as Jim and Pam from "The Office" Check us out on Jessica's blog.