The Dragon's Tail

Wow!

I haven't posted anything new here in quite a while. Due to my incredibly busy life/schedule/constant state of being, I've neglected this blog once again... I have lots of exciting things to update you on. Just to give you a glimpse of what is to come, some topics we'll cover in class soon are:
-Epic road trip from Boulder, CO to Tucson, AZ
-Observing on Mt. Lemmon
-Start of new semester and Things
-My completely intimidating future (or lack thereof)

But for now... another crazy adventure of mine! Last semester me and some friends took an Ice Climbing class through IU's Outdoor Adventures (OA) program. It was ridiculously fun, so this year I looked for another class along the same vein and found... whitewater rafting!

For this class, we took a weekend trip to the Nantahala River in North Carolina. It was very close to the border of Tennessee so was only about an ~8 hour drive. We left Friday afternoon and arrived by about 11pm at our bunkhouse/cabin. The next morning we woke up bright and early, and after a quick breakfast, we headed the short 5 minutes to the river put-in (where you put rafts/boats in!). We had 18 students and 4 instructors, so we split into 4 groups and headed out!

We were barely down the river at all when before you knew it, we had a swimmer! Aka someone who falls out of the boat :P The river was lots of fun- it was mostly class 2 rapids (class 1 is easiest, like a still lake, while class 6 is absolutely insane and probably impossible) with one class 3 at the end. The class 2 was mostly pretty easy, but the real challenge was having to dodge all the rocks! The Nantahala River is regulated each day by being emptied at night, and then refilled in the morning the next day. They do this to use the water for hydroelectricity so there's no way around it. As a result, the water is low in the morning and it's much easier to get stuck on a rock since the water is shallower. Later in the day the river fills up and you get much more exciting rapids and faster water!

Anyway, it was a ton of fun! All the students got to guide the boat, which means you sit in the back and steer with a longer oar (like a rudder) while the others in the front paddle and do the hard work! :P It was a bit challenging but easy once you got the hang of it.

I never even fell out of the boat too! Woohoo! None of the boats I was in ever had any swimmers. For once I'm a good luck charm.

So we ran the river twice on Saturday- one run was an 8.5 mile stretch that took us about 2 hours (plus lunch, and stopping on the river to wait for other boats stuck on rocks, water fights, etc...). We headed back to the cabin, made lunch, played cards, and made a fire and smores. Woke up early again the next morning and did one run down the river (this time with no instructors! eek!) and packed up for the long ride back home.

All in all- an incredibly fun weekend and a much-needed break from academia (even though I am far behind now...) Now some pictures! :)

In our awesome wetsuits and splashjackets!

The rapids at Lesser Wesser, the class 3 rapid at the end of the river.

The view for most of the trip- pretty NC hills during the sunrise!

Lesser Wesser rapids! Woohoo rocks!

Life in Arizona

I just stumbled across this old post I never published... a bit old news, but here :P This blog serves just as much as a journal for me as it does for you, so I'm still going to post it!
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Some random happenings in my life recently...

Went and saw Rush in Phoenix with two of the other REU students, Vivienne and Phil. This was the same tour/show that I saw last August in St. Louis, but it was just as freakin' amazing as it was then.

Had a pool party at NOAO astronomer Katie's house. She and her husband (I'm blanking on his name, but he works at NOAO as well) are wonderful, nice people. They have a pool party every year for the REU students. It was a nice escape from the Tucson heat.

After the pool party, that evening we all piled into the NOAO van and headed to the Desert Museum. Even though I had already been there with Jenny, this was also exciting because we went in the evening. Animals Jenny and I didn't see before were out, and we also got to find scorpions with UV flashlights!!! It was great, and I even saw a momma scorpion with dozens of babies on her back.

Me and 3 other REU's, Vivienne, Phil and Morgan (can you tell who the dweebs are in the group?) saw all 3 Lord of the Rings extended edition movies in the local theater. IT. WAS. EPIC. (and long)

I feel like I've done more things, but I guess not... but in the meantime, get ready for a booty-licious post in the future...

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(I wonder what booty-licious post I was referring to....?)

Fun with Jo and Jen (Dick and Jane?)

So, after the exciting Kitt Peak Adventures, Jenny came back to Tucson with me to stay a few days (this was planned before I even knew about Kitt Peak). She rented a car (YESSSS), so we could actually do things around Tucson, which was indescribably nice.

Can I take a moment to rant about Tucson real quick? Yes? You look forward to it gleefully? Ok.

Besides being as hot as an O star (ha, get it?...), Tucson is the most sparsely populated city I've ever seen. Ok, maybe not sparse. The population is very diffuse here. Wow, can you tell I've been doing science all day? Especially when I try to edit this like vi, and press $ to get to the end of a line. Ok, I PROMISE, I'm done with dumb astronomy jokes. The point is, Tucson is very spread out and feels very empty, even though it's not. There are more than half a million people here (Indy has ~million) but the population density is very low. So to do anything in this city, you need to have a form of transportation. While a bus pass will get many places, the buses here, for lack of a better word, SUCK. They are late, run infrequently, and stop running early in the night. Also, while I'm insulting the city of Tucson, can I also just say that the majority of people who ride the public bus look like:

1) Terrifying gangsters
2) Mentally insane people talking to themselves/hobos
3) Wary redheads trying to look as intimidating as possible

Anyways... I was talking about something before I started taking a crap on Tucson... Oh right, Jenny's stay here. She had a rental car, so we COULD actually do things in this city and the area. One thing we did was go to the Titan Missile Museum, located a bit south of Tucson. This was really cool, and very interesting to see the old missile site. They have the disarmed missile still in the underground facility. There were something like 30 of these underground facilities in the '60s but they disassembled all missiles but this one. We went on a tour of the site above ground, and also underground.

The 2 foot door to protect from nuclear attacks.

Everything was set on springs (including the floor!) to protect from the shock of any nuclear attacks.

Jenny got to simulate a missile launch! Here she is receiving a call from the president.

The missile!

We also went to Colossal Cave, which was pretty lame, and completely overpriced.

Cave bacon on the right! That was the only cool thing about this cave.

We went to the other REU students' apartments one night to have a little shindig as well. Lastly, we went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. So, everyone and their mom has told me to visit this place while in Tucson. Since it's a bit of a drive, Jenny and I left early in the morning to beat the heat. Well, when I heard the words 'Desert Museum' I figured this would be, you know, a museum, which I really don't think is unreasonable given it's in the name. It turns out it's not a museum at all. It's more like a zoo and wildlife center. It's practically all outdoors. You walk around to all the exhibits where they have animals/plants that are for the most part native to AZ. Amongst some of the things we saw...

Mineral collection... such vibrant colors!

Awww, coyote. Even though they're common, still cute! 

Hmmm, one of these is not like the other... :)

Javelina! They are a wild pig/rodent thing out here. I'm gifted with words.

AWWWWWW. Praire dog! :)

Rattlesnake!

A wild Jo on Tortoise.

The real thing.

Jenny as a tortoise.

It's Jojo! (not jojoba of course...)

I thought this was cute (besides the bees). 

The gila monster! 

There were lots more exciting animals that I'm too lazy to put pictures of/we didn't see. There was a neat walk-in aviary with birds and another one just for hummingbirds. There were 2 mountain lions, but when we went they were sleeping just out of view. We also saw Mexican wolves and lots and lots of cacti species. There was also an indoor reptile and bug room with lots of nasty crawly things like tarantulas, spiders, and scorpions.

It was also great to see Jenny! She is off to grad school at University of Colorado-Boulder soon to study astronomy, so that was probably the last time I see her for a while :( But the best of luck to you Jenny! Ho! Ho! A boojum!

Ubughuuu Blargehnguhhh

3 hours of sleep in preparation for my 10:15 final... I'll let you know how it goes (at least the reason I was up late was studying for said final).

Can you OD on coffee?

I Need A Caffeine IV

My apartment is a war zone littered with the remnants of my Christmas tree, brutally slaughtered by the vicious mercenary Moka.

On an unrelated note, I will be happy when finals week is finally over. Sleep- what is this you speak of? I have a potentially brutal final in less than 8 hours. Sometime between studying and waking up I hope I sleep. Did that make sense?

Homogeneity

I have 3 exams tomorrow and 1 Tuesday, but yet here I sit in the AURA (Astronomy Undergrad Research Area), aka, The Lab, updating my blog.

My life has been OH SO busy recently. I have only myself to blame, to be honest. Turns out trying to be VP of physics club, be in astro club, do intramural flag football, have a job, be on a newsletter committee, and take upper-level physics classes isn't as easy as it sounds. Sheesh. If I just sit around and chug out problem sets and study physics and math, though, I go a little crazy. Speaking of all these things, I have a lot of things I'd love to say, but it would be the longest post in history. So, a brief recounting of my life recently:

A couple weeks ago I went and saw California Guitar Trio at the Bishop, a bar/music place. I'd never heard of this band, but had been told they were really great. I went with two friends and it turned out to be REALLY great. It was 3 guys playing guitar (as you could have guessed, although none of them are from CA...). They were really talented, and it was a great show. Somehow after the show, myself and the 2 others ended up talking with the band for a while, helped them take the guitars/equipment to their cars, and then took them out for drinks and dinner (don't worry Mom, I didn't didn't partake in the drinks part). I have NO idea how it happened, but somehow I became a roadie for an awesome band I hadn't heard of until a few hours just before. It was really great, and the guys in the band were really cool.

Even further back than this, though, I hosted the first Friday Dinner at my apartment! The theme was based off the rainbow, and everyone brought food of a different color of the rainbow. It was pretty spectacular, and unfortunately I didn't take any photos... sorry. If I remember correctly, the foods were:

Red- red wine & red jello...

Orange- butternut squash

Yellow- lemon and chicken pasta

Green- amazing salad

Blue- blueberry muffins

Violet- eggplant and blackberry cobbler

Brown- chocolate cake

White- rice

Jumping forward in time, my first official task as physics club VP was to make liquid nitrogen ice cream for the callout meeting. I had never actually made it myself, but it was a ton of fun. Plus it was really dramatic. And delicious. My next task as VP was to organize a group to build a boat for IU's annual Cardboard Boat Regatta. The physics club has repeatedly gotten owned at this event, so this year was the time to get first place. After 'borrowing' a lot of cardboard from a recycling dumpster (hey, I'm recycling it in a way) and buying a lot of duct tape, myself and a small group of wannabe engineers put together Schroedinger's Boat, a masterful design in buoyancy. This past Friday was the day of the big race, and with our Physicists at C, we set sail against other student organizations, my coworkers, and even my bosses. Our boat performed admirably, floating much better than everyone else's (if I do say so myself), but unfortunately, physicists are not experienced rowers... After failing to row together and straight we made it across the pool far behind... Oh well! It was fun anyway! NEXT YEAR!

The day before the regatta was the astro club's first flag football game, against Chemology. Our team, the Galactic Cannibals, lost, but it was still a ton of fun. I now have war wounds from a so-called NON-contact sport... Psh, yeah, non-contact...

Oh! Last thing- after the regatta, I went to dinner with some friends, then we went to the opera to see Il Barbiere di Siviglia. I'd never seen this opera, but it was funny and entertaining. I really enjoyed it, and it actually ended happily! I generally leave operas depressed, but for once nobody committed suicide or lost their true love.

Woo. I like that all these things are out of order. Lots of things. And homework. Lather, rinse, repeat. I like to be busy, though.
And when your life is filled with stupid boys, or rather, one really stupid boy, busy-ness is nice.

Subject Not Specified...

My wishlist for life at the moment:

-GET MY HOMEWORK DONE. Going to concerts and hanging out with friends is fun, but it makes for some rough long nights... You're only young once I suppose!
-Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack
-DT cover of Pink Floyd (don't even worry about this one)
-Blender
-A cat
-World peace
-8 hours of sleep... ha! This is college, after all.
-My two front teeth
-A hovercraft

Okay, I'm going to bed. I'll have to update sometime with a real post that involves a colorful dinner, the nation's longest covered bridge, inadvertently becoming a band groupie, and sidewalk astronomy (these did not occur at the same time).

It has been a looooong day, and I am just now sitting down and taking a break after running around campus all day. Woo. Goodnight!

Arches Arches Arches

In an attempt to catch up on blogs, here I am (I feel like this is all I ever do- get behind then have a burst of blog posts in a short period).

The week following the weekend of Sedona, Bear Mountain was spent wrapping up research and preparing my talk and presentation. I was enrolled in two classes while at NAU, one was based off research where we were required to write a 5-10 page report over what we had done over the summer. The other was based off the seminars we had twice a week. For that class we had to present our research at the end of the summer to those in charge of the program as well as anyone else who wished to attend. More about how those two things went later!

That week for our Dancing on the Square, we learned the hustle! It was a lot of fun! We got a bit rained out during the night, so Teresa and Eric (whom we managed to convince to come) and I went for some fried okra, chicken wings and apple pie at a nearby restaurant. Good stuff.

Ok, so on the weekend of July 30-August 1st, we ventured back to Utah! This time our destinations were Arches National Park, Mt. Peale, and Monument Valley. To start off our journey, we planned on leaving Flag at about 3-4pm Friday afternoon. Of course, road trips never really start on time. Friday it rained REALLY hard in Flagstaff. Like, two inches in 20 minutes hard. Up at Lowell, one of the building's basements was flooding, and on the first floor water was squirting up through the cracks of tiles. It was pretty intense. There's been a lot of uncharacteristic rain lately in Flagstaff (I blame global warming). This is bad news for people living north of town, because of flooding. After the Schultz fire, there's been a lot of flash flooding and it's been a real mess. Anyways, the main road through town, Milton, was completely flooded and impassable- right near the bottom of Mars Hill (where Lowell is located). We were pretty much stuck at Lowell until 5:30 or 6. Traffic was incredibly awful, and no one could get anywhere. Our ride coming to get us took 45 minutes, when it normally takes 5.

Yikes! Okay, so after packing hurriedly and shoving all of our stuff into Eric's car, Eric, Nicole and myself took off for Utah. We were the only ones on the trip because 2 people were going out of town, and the other two had a lot to do with their projects (presentations and papers were due the following Monday). We ended up leaving town at about 6:45... It takes about 6 hours to get to Moab, UT where Arches is!

A pretty rainy sunset leaving town.

The trip wasn't bad at all! We listened to a lot of good music, and saw some amazingly superb lightning for the majority of the ride actually. I wish we could have seen the ride in the light to see the landscape, but occasionally the lightning would light up structures in the distance. It was fun to imagine what they were, but would have been more fun to actually see them.

Nicole fell asleep with my cat, Gwynavere. :)

We ended up getting to our BLM (Bureau of Land Management) campsite at about 12am I think. There were lots of public, first come-first serve campsites around the park. We set up camp right next to the Colorado River and fell asleep to the sounds of water and bugs and to the sight of a nice clear sky.

The next morning we ate a breakfast of bagels (a baker's dozen for the trip!) and coffee. Then we drove over to the actual entrance to the park.

My first photo of the area! On our way to the park entrance.

There were an endless number of cool things to see in the park, so get ready for an explosion of photos. I'll try and restrain myself as much as possible!

We took just about every scenic view stop we saw. The first was just inside the park and had a nice view of the La Sal mountain range. It is named La Sal ('salt' in spanish) because when first discovered in the middle of a desert region, people couldn't believe it was snow on the peaks. Of course it makes sense that instead it is actually salt...?

The La Sal mountain range

The Three Gossips

The Organ. I have a hard time seeing it...

Balanced Rock! Name is self-explanatory I hope.

The Fiery Furnace.

That last photo is of the Fiery Furnace- a really cool place to hike, but you have to buy permits and it's incredibly easy to lost without a guide. Maybe next time! Our hike was the Devil's Garden primitive trail loop. About ~7 miles round trip. It was hike with the most amount of arches to see, so why not? First on the trail was Landscape Arch.

Landscape Arch

It was really cool! Back in the 90's some huge chunks fell off and since then they have deemed it too dangerous to walk under, so you can only get as close as this photo was taken. Next was Partition Arch.

Me standing under Partition Arch!

We had a lunch of, you guessed it, bagels under Partition Arch. Not a bad view at all! We stopped briefly at Navajo Arch next.

Nicole and Eric under Navajo Arch.

We went on to Double-O Arch. It was pretty neat!

Double-O Arch.

Next to the Dark Angel. It only looks like an angel from about this distance.

The bizarre landscape at the park.

We were starting to run out of water on the way back so we were quiet and didn't really take any more photos. We were pretty happy to finally get back. After getting hydrated and taking off our pretty smelly shoes we headed to Moab for some info and ice cream. While hiking in the park, we had seen rain in the distance and wondered if it was still possible for us to hike Mt. Peale, let alone get up to the trailhead. After stopping by the information center, the outcome seemed pretty bleak. The road to the trail was unpaved and after flooding in the area would be impossible to traverse in Eric's Malibu... We decided to wait until the next morning to make the final decision about climbing a mountain. Mt. Peale is the highest peak in the La Sal range at 12,726 feet.

In the meantime, we got some ice cream and espresso at a local shop, then drove to our new campsite at the foot of the mountains, near some lake. It was pretty nice because there wasn't hardly anyone there (bad weather has its advantages!). We washed off in a creek (so classy) and made a dinner of quinoa (leftover from the Zion/Bryce trip...) and veggies. We slept outside on our sleeping bags for a bit, but it started raining in the night, so into the tent we went. It continued raining through the night and stopped sometime in the morning Sunday. Definitely not climbing any mountains. Not only would it be pretty stupid and dangerous, but there's no way we could've driven to any trails.

After coffee, breakfast, and packing up camp, we went back to the park and took a short hike around the North and South Windows (also known as the 'Spectacles'), Turret Arch, and finally went to Double Arch. These were all short, 1 mile or less hikes so it was more crowded than I liked, but oh well.

North and South Windows aka The Spectacles.

Under an arch- maybe Turret?

Double Arch- it was really big and awesome to climb under/around.

Finally, it was time to head back to Arizona. The drive back was fine and dandy. We drove through Monument Valley, which was on the border of Arizona. It was incredibly weird but also cool.

Looks like somebody tilted the land...

Some of Monument Valley.

I drove us back home (so nice to drive for the first time that summer!), and we arrived home about 8pm I think. (We also tried stopping at a dinosaur museum and a coffee shop but both were closed for Sunday).

Woo! An action-packed weekend. I'm a little bummed we didn't get to climb a mountain (sometimes you just want to climb a mountain, you know?), but I had a ton of fun at Arches. It was a unique experience I'll never get again, and the landscape in Utah is incredible!

L'estasi Dell'oro

Hmmm... I am actually back in Indiana right now (more about that later), but have not posted anything for the past two weeks and thought I would finally update the blog again. Doing it late is better than not doing it at all, right? Do to some unforeseen circumstances, I left my cache of photos in Arizona, and my flash drive has now traveled to Idaho, and may be moving on to Canada soon... Until I get them back, you'll have to use your imagination for what things looked like! BREAKING UPDATE: I've gotten my photos and inspiration to post them! :)

Well, two weekends ago, on the 23rd, our dear Christine Chan left us for her own field work. She was the geologist that somehow finagled her way into the physics/astronomy REU program... hmm. Anyways, she gave us her research presentation, and then that night we decided to have a little shindig to send her off. To celebrate, we decided to go to Altitudes, a brewery/restaurant in Flagstaff. We headed over and got a table outside the restaurant. After ordering our food, the sky got progressively darker and darker... Eventually it started raining and we ran to the restaurant. The place was packed, though, so we just hung out for a while. Finally we got some seats inside! As we did, a train passed by (the place is right next to the tracks). Okay, so to say there are a lot trains passing through Flag is the understatement of the day. On average, something like 80 trains pass through in a day. Recently, they passed a law saying the trains were not allowed to honk, so that's nice. At Altitudes, they have 'train shots', which you take every time a train passes through (you can see how this can get to be crazy as more time passes...) Some of our 21 and older crowd joined the tradition.

Finally our food comes, much later. We had a fun time sitting around and talking though. I think the best part of the evening may have been the prank Nicole played on Eric. Eric is notorious for liking an obscenely excessive amount (to me) of pepper on his food. As he went to put pepper on his soup, Nicole removed the top of the shaker and a huge amount of pepper came out. Yes, we are so mature.

ALL of us at Altitudes! Finally a group shot! From left: Nicole, Eric, Sarah, Cailah, Nick, Christine, Myself and Teresa.

Finally we returned back to the apartments, where we helped Christine pack a bit. We then hung out in my apartment, playing cards, etc. and then watched 40 year-old Virgin on TV for a bit. One by one we fell asleep in various strange places/positions. The next morning, I slept in for once. It was glorious. I woke up, made some coffee, and sat in bed drinking it while listening to 'Wait Wait Don't Tell Me' on NPR. Don't even call me a nerd, my mom already did.

We decided to 'take the day off' that Saturday. We do something every weekend, and it was nice to just relax for once. I made some pancakes and the boys and Nicole came over for lunch/breakfast. We sat around the apartment all day. For dinner, we all went to Lowell for a picnic. Afterward, Teresa and I managed to bribe Eric into coming to the Galaxy Diner for some swing dancing (we had to buy him some coffee afterward...) We learned the balboa, which was pretty fun. The Galaxy Diner was a cute little old-fashioned place.

SWING! Paul and Maria, two people from Lowell, dancing

When we returned home, we watched The Orphanage, a horror movie that wasn't too scary, but pretty well made. The next day (Sunday), we went to Sedona again. We had already been there, to Oak Creek Canyon. This time our destination was a place called Secret Canyon, which had been recommended to us by someone I can't remember- maybe Kathy. Well, after getting lost for quite a while, we finally found the way to Secret Canyon. Unfortunately the road was very rugged and definitely meant for Eric's Chevy Malibu... A little bit into the drive, we decided to take our losses and turn around. We came to a point where it was literally impassible with the car we were in.

Instead, we went to Bear Mountain to hike. It was pretty fun, but nothing too special. We didn't really know where else to go, though. We got some nice views after hiking to the top of a plateau, also. Not too much to say about the hike. I led the group for a bit, but led us around in circles so they decided not to let me be in the front after that...

Our short hike to Bear Mountain.

After our hike, we drove around a bit, looking for a nice place to eat lunch, but all the cool places/recreation areas required a fee. Sedona is an extremely tourist-y place. To the point where it makes you not want to go at all. In our anti-touristing anger we just stopped on the side of the road and ate our lunch. Take that, Sedona.

We got back and I had a nice run. Had some dinner, then we watched the Blues Brothers. Good stuff. All in all, it was a pretty chill weekend. Nice to have a little downtime. Although it's really fun to go places/do things every weekend, every so often a break is nice!

Ciao Utah!

Okay, almost caught up on blog posting... remind me to never get behind again... A long post for a long story is in the future I feel.

Various news: Teresa and I learned east and west-coast swing last week at our weekly dancing. Lots of fun!!!

So, you might be asking yourself: what did Jo get herself into last weekend?

Utah!!! Seriously, I got myself into Utah. Another epic camping trip took place last weekend. This time we ventured a bit further than the Canyon, into Utah! Our first stop: Zion National Park. The plan was to drive Thursday to Zion (about 5 hours away), camp there for two nights, then camp one night in Bryce Canyon (~1.5 hours from Zion). We all left work early Thursday and left Flagstaff at about 3:30 after shoving an inordinate amount of junk into two cars. Off to Utah we go! We took the 89, which took us through Page, AZ which is right on the border with UT. Well, no road trip is complete with car troubles, eh? Eric and Teresa drove the cars. I was in Eric's. As we stopped at a scenic view near Page at the top of hill, we notice a trail of liquid originating from under his car... hmm.. Turns out the coolant was leaking and making everything smell nasty. I think we're still unsure as to why it started leaking, perhaps the drive was really taking it out on the car, but it seems to be fine now. Anyway, we hurry up to Page and stop at an auto store to pick up more coolant. We had dinner at a Sonics (I'd never been until now). Then we took a side trip to Glenn Canyon where the Glenn Canyon holds back Lake Powell.

Glenn Dam.

Eric had driven through Page on his way to AZ (from his home in Idaho), so he recommended we go look over this very sheer cliff there. It was... sheer. AND REALLY HIGH. I'm pretty scared of heights, but I'll admit that all the climbing/hiking we've done out here have really desensitized me. I'm getting a lot better! We all laid down and stuck our heads out over a nice 500-foot drop.

Heights, anyone?

After stopping to straddle a state line and taking a break to stargaze, we made our way to Hurricane, UT where the road trip gets quite funny. We see a flashing sign up ahead near the turnoff to the road that travels through Zion park. Whatever could it say?!

Nightly closures in Zion National Park. Hm. A bit of a problem. The east entrance to the park was closed. After debating a bit, we decide to drive out of the way and circle around to the west entrance. After a 3 hour detour, losing the other car, not having reception to contact them, having a cop car escort the other car to us because they were lost, and a gas and chip stop, we find Zion National Park! Hooray! It ends there, right? Well, we start driving through the park. There's lots of construction and cones everywhere, and before we know it we encounter a sign that informs us we are exiting Zion park. Somehow we missed our campground! The real kicker of the story is that since we exited out of the east entrance, it must not have really been closed all along… there was a section with only one lane open, but we were the only car in the park at that hour. Sooo, we essentially drove all the way around to the west entrance for no reason! I think it’s really hilarious, but then again it wasn’t me driving. Ok, so we turn around and keep a sharp eye out for our campground and eventually find it. By the time we find our particular campsite, set up and brush teeth, it’s 3AM. Only 7 hours later than we intended… :) The sky was fantastically clear, and we slept outside on a tarp with sleeping pads because it was pretty hot.

This is how we camp in AZ. Nicole and Teresa.

The view from our campsite.

Cliff walls in Zion.

The next morning we wake up bright and early at 7AM to start the day. We had borrowed a white gas stove from our program director Kathy. It was broken though, so we had no means of cooking our food we brought. Instead we ate bagels for breakfast and then headed to the Angels Landing trail.

Taking the shuttle to Angels Landing.

This trail had been recommended to us by someone who had visited Zion before. It was one of the most incredible hikes I’ve ever done. For the first half it was just uphill hiking through a canyon, but then we get to the Angels Landing. I didn’t seem to take a photo of the entire structure, but you can find a photo here (photo by Joe Braun) and here. It was straight uphill hiking pretty much up the side of a rock. They had chains to hold onto while climbing because the trail was so narrow and rocky. The cliff walls were sheer and the heights were dizzying.

Sheer crazy!

Shenanigans.

It was really fun, though, and the view at the top was fabulous. We ate a lunch of PBJ’s, then headed back down. It got pretty hot, so we booked it out.

The view at the top of Angels Landing.

We made a trip to town to buy a new stove then went back to the campsite. We made a delicious dinner of quinoa and veggies (classy campers, no?). Afterwards we made a fire and made… you guessed it, s’mores! I brought my harmonica on the trip, and we sat around the fire while I played some pretty low-quality renditions of various songs I learned. Everybody was bone-tired so we crashed at about 9PM. I slept like a rock until about 6:30 when the sun woke me up. On the subject of sleeping, I was thoroughly surprised that I slept so good on the trip. Every night I slept really well, and didn’t toss and turn at all. It could have been that I tired myself out every day, but I feel like I slept better there than in my bed… hm.

The next morning we woke up and made some oatmeal (and Christine made caramelized apples! See, we are truly classy campers). We set out for a short hike to the Emerald Pools. The Pools were pretty puny and pathetic, but there were a few cool waterfalls. It was a nice short and easy hike before we left Zion. We stopped for lunch at a small park and took a ‘bath’ in the creek there. Then it was off to Bryce Canyon.

Waterfall at the Emerald Pools.

We made it to Bryce in the late afternoon… sadly my camera ran out memory for this leg of the trip, but I’ll try and show some photos anyway. Bryce was, without a doubt, one of the strangest places I’ve ever seen. There were these formations called hoodoos that looked like misshapen pillars.

Hoodoos in Bryce Canyon.

The rocks were orange and pink and the landscape was just in general pretty bizarre. When we got there, we went to the Mossy Caves, which was only about a 1 mile hike. The cave was pretty unimpressive (more like Mossy Hole In A Wall), but we found a creek and waterfall to splash around in. After cooling off for a bit, we went on a scenic drive through the park. It was a beautiful drive. Eventually we made our way back to the campsite and set up for the night. We made quesadillas for dinner (gosh! Make yourself a dang quesadilla!) and lit a fire. Bryce was at a higher elevation than Zion (higher even than Flagstaff elevation), so it got cool at night. We slept on the tarp again, under the pristinely clear sky. Side note: every night we camped we set up the tents, but never ended up using them…

The next morning we ate breakfast, drank some coffee, and headed to our main destination: the Fairyland Trail. This was an 8-mile loop through the heart of the Canyon. It was an awesome hike, full of strange hoodoos, arches in the rocks, and the strange Bryce landscape. It took us about 6 hours to hike and then we were finally headed back to Flagstaff!

On the Fairyland Loop.

We decided to take a scenic route home, through the Grand Staircase Escalantes. The Grand Staircase is the order of the formation of rocks in the west. It starts with Grand Canyon, the top layer of the Canyon is the bottom layer of Zion, and the top layer of Zion is the bottom layer of Bryce. We just happened to visit all three locations in sequential order. Well, about 10 miles into the scenic drive, we encounter the unpaved road… Alright, can’t be too bad, right…? Turns out this road is about 45 miles long. At 20-30 MPH. The views were fantastic, but I felt sorry for the two drivers. The road was rocky, uneven, and in general not meant for either a Malibu or an Altima. It was pretty rough, but was a shortcut… mileage-wise! :) Pretty fun with a car whose gas gauge is at empty too. Finally we make it back to Page and eat a Subway dinner then head home! Our car stopped at a scenic view to watch the sunset. Much driving later, we arrive back in Flagstaff at about 10:30PM. Tired. DIRTY. SO DIRTY. Not showering for a few days isn’t the worst thing, but imagine hiking in dusty and hot canyons for 3 days and not showering… I imagine we were not the most pleasant-smelling crew. Not surprisingly, I can say that the shower on Sunday night was by far the most satisfying shower to date. Then… SLEEP! Work the next day was a bit rough.

An awesome and fun trip! :)