10.16.2007

Set your eyes to Zion

I actually wrote this post yesterday but Blogger was being silly so I couldn't post it.

We got back from Zion yesterday and I have to tell ya, we had a great time. I have wanted to go for a long time, ever since I got an Ansel Adams photography book and saw all his amazing pictures of it. It was amazingly beautiful.

The weather could not have been better. It was just cold enough that it was nice to sit next to a fire and dinner and breakfast but not cold during the day, but there was only one time when we were kinda hot and that was during the middle of the day during the middle of a long hike. And the campsite was full but early in the morning when we did our two big hikes, there was no one around most of the time - yah! Nothing spoils my enjoyment of nature like having to listen to some guy talk about his kidney stones. We did have to listen to a couple of annoying people on the bus but overall, my level of annoyance with others humans was pretty low. And I ended up really liking the bus system they have there. I was afraid it would be a hassle and waste a lot of my time but it was such a time saver. No traffic, it took us right to where we wanted to go, and pointed out some interesting features on the way.

It was also the perfect opportunity to really try out my camera since I don't really count taking pictures of onion soup mix as a good test run. I just installed my new Photoshop today so I haven't really worked with many of the pictures yet. I will post a few now but they will probably start popping up throughout the next week or two. Unless I get too frustrated with my lack of ability to do exactly what I want and break the computer.

Here is Craig at the beginning of our first hike, demonstrating to me how exactly I should NOT act on the edge of a cliff. Because the sign wasn't good enough.

This is me in front of a waterfall at the Lower Emerald pools. Since it was so late, some were more like Puke Green Mud Puddles but the waterfall was still cool and the higher pools were still pretty and emerald-like.

This is the Court of Patriarchs, a set of three mountains named by a Methodist minister. From left to right it is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I thought the informative sign by the lookout was funny, it said an easy way to remember the mountains is that they are in alphabetical order. Note to sign - they are also in genealogical order. In front of them (far right) is another mountain named Moroni, a figure in the B of M.

Here is a little lizard friend we met on our travels.

Here is us in front of checkerboard mesa. It was pretty but neither one of us really saw the checkerboard. It was getting nippy out, hence the rigid postures.

But the main reason we had so much fun - it was because Utah Rocks!

5 comments :

  1. I am impressed you could pick that out. The picture is kinda dark.

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  2. you two are so cute.

    welcome home... does cache valley feel like home to you?

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  3. In some ways it does because this is the first place we have lived as a married couple. But it doesn't feel like home in the way Texas did to me but more like we are strangers in this foreign land called Utah.

    Craig, what about you?

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  4. I suppose it does, in the sense that it's where my stuff is, and where I sleep, and whatnot. Kind of like one's college apartment feels like home, even though you still have a real home.

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