Summer Trip 2017 - Zion National Park

Dear Readers,

Celeste and I got up early and headed out, not quite as early as we intended, but you know it is alway harder to get away than you think it will be.  We were making a second attempt at being at the Great Salt Lake at sunrise.  We ended up getting there about 6:45 or so which was a few minutes after sunrise.

You can barely see the kayakers moving away from the shore.

That is Celeste out on that point of land

Loved the reflection of the rocks in this one.

It was beautiful out there, but very still.  The only movements was some kayakers that were putting in for a paddle.  I don't remember seeing any birds or anything else.

After we took our photos we decided to get the car washed and head out toward Zion National Park.  Got to use that park pass again! At this point we had changed our itinerary to go to Zion and Antelope Canyon.  So we had found a studio airbnb on the far side of Zion for our accommodation for that night.  We know that is not the best arrangement for us due to my noisy sleeping and Celeste being such a light sleeper.  But it is what we could find on short notice.

The hike at Zion was rated an easy hike that was good for families.  I think they lied.  Well they didn't lie for the beginning. The hike to the first pool was steep in places, but overall an easier hike...after that it got interesting.  We were climbing over borders, and had tricky footing.  Thank goodness I had my hiking poles or I might not have been able to get up or down.  There were so many people on this hike and the trail was really crowded.  It was by far the busiest hike we had seen so far.  That adds to the difficulty as the trails are narrow in parts and hard to stay out of each others way.  There were a number of folks in my age group that looked equally as challenged by the course as I was.  This was an up and back hike so on the way down, Celeste and I were stopped by a couple going up,  that wanted to know how long since my knee replacement.  I told her almost a year.  She said she was a PT and was going to go tell her patients about me...I was so tired at this point and discouraged over my slowness and lack of fitness, that I almost cried.  It was an encouragement that I really needed at that point.

After we left Zion we drove to Page to spend the night.  Somehow we got turned around and came out the wrong entrance to the park which ended up routing us a long way to Page.  We saw some more spectacular scenes along the way.

I know I said I would keep it to ten or so a day, but if you could see all the photos, you would say how could she not post them all.  Trying so hard just to give you enough without overwhelming you.

Tomorrow I will post about antelope canyon.  That is going to be super hard!!

Terry

Summer Trip 2017 - Salt Lake City

Dear Readers,

We intended to get up early and see the sun rise over the Great Salt Lake, but we didn't get going fast enough.

So we had a leisurely breakfast then headed out.  We went to a couple of quilt shops on the hop list and had a nice time.  We found another one of those roadside attractions and took photos.  The fun thing about those are they are super fast stops, and fun things to see.

Then we headed to the Tracy Aviary and walked around to see the birds.  I love birds and it was fun.  They had a nice place there where a lot of the larger birds were ones that had been injured so would no longer be able to survive in the wild.  It was a nice walk there.

After the Tracy Aviary we got a late lunch and then we went to the Mormon family history center.  We went upstairs to do some family history searches and were each assigned an elder to teach us their system.  I had the cutest old guy and he and I were having a great time do research on my family tree.  Celeste got an older guy who was struggling.  We were only going to stay there an hour or two, but ended up being there about 4 hours.  So when we left we were ready to get outside and do some hiking.

We headed out the Great Salt Lake to do a hike Celeste had found for us,  she is a master at finding cool things for us to do.  I am not sure of the name of this hike, I wish I had taken a photo of each trail head.  I am going to try to remember to do that from now on.   We started up this hike and my blisters started bothering me too much for me to continue.  Celeste still wanted to see the view from the top of the ridge, so she went off trail and scampered up the mountain in no time.   These were taken between 6:30 and 7:40 PM.  Wish we had been just a little later, but it was still beautiful.
We stopped on the way back and got different blister pads for my toes and ate our leftovers for supper.

We ran a load of laundry as we knew we might not have those facilities at the next airbnb.  So it would be nice to have everything clean again.

Next stop Zion National Park

Terry

Summer Trip 2017 - Drive to Salt Lake City

Dear Readers,

When we got up the next morning we were on our way to Salt Lake City.  We were going to spend a few nights there.  On our way we stopped to do a hike at the Snake River Trial...I am not sure what the closest city was as I was having trouble finding this hike on my app.  This was more a walk on a gravel road, along the Snake River.  We had treated my blisters but they were still somewhat painful.  So when we got the 3.6 miles, it got too much and I asked Celeste if she would go get the car and pick me up.  I kept walking albeit much slower.  This hike was supposed to be great for bird watchers and I love to see birds, but we only saw a few yellow birds and possibly some ospreys but they were too far away for a positive id.  We did see some guys rock climbing and that was pretty neat.

After leaving that hike we went to go see the Golden Spike...it was one of those hikes that was listed as .1 miles.  I was amazed that they would list that as a hike!  The Golden Spike is another National Park, so that pass came in handy again.  It was really cool.  We got there just in time to see the last run of the day.  They start the engine up and move it down the tracks about a quarter of a mile or so...but since it was the last run of the day, after they showed the run down the tracks they took it to there storage building behind a bluff.

On our way into Salt Lake City we stopped at a quilt store and happened upon a Greater Salt Lake City shop hop.  They gave us a list of quilt shops that were participating in the hop.  Unfortunately the Row by Row experience had not started so we did not get to get those patterns, but some of the shops had license plates available so we got those.

We stopped at the Red Iguana for supper.  It was really good...took lots of left overs to our airbnb.

Tomorrow hiking near the great Salt Lake and Salt Lake City!

Terry

Summer Trip 2017 - Jackson Hole and Horse back riding

Dear Readers,

So for our last day, we kind of did not plan as well as before.  We tried a hike near Jackson Hole, but it turned out to be a really straight road through a field, without much to look at.  We decided we didn't want to do that, so we drove the road, and there really was not much to see but a few prairie dogs.

So we made reservations to go horse back riding.  Since we had some time to kill, we did a little shopping in Jackson Hole.  Neither of us are big shoppers.  So we walked around and we bought a few souvenirs.  Then headed to the horseback riding near the Grand Tetons.

Let me say that I do not normally ride, and neither does Celeste.  We were put on horses and they adjusted the stirrups for us, and off we went.

 We headed up a mountain to get good view of the area and take some pictures.  When we got to the top a small front came along and with the thundering and some rain,  the horses started to get nervous and were kind of skittish.  The lady who was stopped next me horse started to back up, so my horse started to back up too. Her horse looked like it might go over the edge of the ridge and mine was headed that way too...I kicked mine as hard as I could and she got away from the edge.  The other ladies started over and the guide rode over and grabbed the lead and pulled them back up.  It was a little scary.  I thought for a bit that she and her horse might fall as the drop off was pretty steep.  They decided picture time was over and we headed back down.   Since mine was still very nervous, the other guide grabbed my lead too and lead my horse till she calmed down.

After we rode, we went to a barbecue place for supper.  It was good, but I think I like Southern barbecue better.  Headed home a little early so we could do laundry and get things organized to leave in the morning.

Summer Trip 2017 Yellowstone Day 2

Hey Readers,

We started this day by going to see Old Faithful!  We walked around the path by the geysers and then took a seat to wait for Old Faithful to blow.  It took quite a wait...probably with the walk around the path and the wait on the horseshoe shaped benches, about 40 minutes, but we were rewarded with a dramatic show, after a few false alarms.

We stopped for another short walk around the paint pots.  Boy are they stinky.  Smells like sulfur. We did not tarry there!

After we left Old Faithful we went to do our hike.  Today Celeste had found a hike for us that was rated moderate.  Canyon Rim North Trail.  The All Trails app lists this as an 8.3 mile hike but I don't think we went 8.3 miles.  My fit bit had 8.3 miles that day, but it showed about 75 floors for elevation changes.   This trail, did not have any snow, thankfully!  It did have a lot of stairs and was pretty crowded.  It was by far the most crowded hike of the trip.  Again I was thankful to have my hiking poles.  Very few people use them but I don't think I would be able to do those hikes without them.  Most of the elevation changes were on this first hike.  You walk down a canyon and then end on a platform where you can photograph the waterfalls.  Then it is back up.  We figured out I do best if we do about 20 stairs then stop to breath then 20 more, etc.

After that we happened upon another hike that sounded good to go to Ribbon Lake or Lily Pad Lake. We chose not to do the longer Ribbon Lake as I don't hike fast enough for us to finish it by dark...We hiked till the trail got really muddy and messy.  Then we turned around.  On this hike we saw some of the most amazing colors of rocky cliffs.  Really evident why the park is called Yellowstone!  It was truly a feast of colors between the blue sky, the yellow stone, the green trees, white clouds.  God's amazing handiwork was certainly on display.

On the way out of the park we stopped to see some more hot springs and ended up seeing a herd of bison...so cool!

Tomorrow....Horse back riding near the Grand Tetons...