A Full Weekend

Happy Memorial Day! It has been quite the weekend for me. By some miracle, I had both Saturday and Monday off. When I caught wind of a plot to go to Lake Powell this weekend, you better believe I did everything in my power to get work off on Sunday. And I did! So here's how it went down.

Friday afternoon, Mike and Brian rolled into Moab. They picked me and my stuff up and then we drove the four and a half hours to Page, Arizona. Another car of people was supposed to be at our campsite before us but turns out we actually beat them. It was already 9 pm by the time we got there but the other car had dinner. So, we passed the time, in the torrential wind and inches of very soft sand, trying to light some charcoal (which don't tell the park service--we technically weren't supposed to have on the beach). It was a pretty frustrating process but finally, the boy scouts got the fire started.

When the rest of our friends showed up, we got literally everything covered in sand trying to put the tents up in gale force winds and finally, at about 11pm, finally ate tinfoil dinners.

Thankfully, the wind had died down by morning and we went to pick up our rental boat. I am so sorry to tell you all that we didn't get a picture of the truck they lent us to tow the boat. It was a 1988 Ford Lariat whose maximum speed was 50 mph and the driver door was brown instead of blue like the rest of the truck. The radio didn't work, neither did the AC and there was a Travis Tritt CD from the 80s and a brand new straw hat sitting on the seat when we got in. Brian and I decided that everything about our rental experience can be described in one word--quality. Anyway, the boat worked fine and we had a great day of boating. And here's what our "campsite" looked like. It was great minus the wind the first night and drunk people everywhere, all the time.

By the way, the credit for all of these pictures goes to Brian and his snazzy new camera.

Sunday morning, we got up nice and early and drove to Cortez, CO. On our way there we stopped at Four Corners. This is what we found.

It was under construction! Who does that?

After attending a very unique sacrament meeting, we drove to Mesa Verde National Park. It was a cool place. There are literally hundreds of ancient cliff dwellings all over the mesa. It's pretty neat. Here's me just hanging out in one.

We spent all day in the park and didn't get to our campsite until dark--again. We were supposed to have dutch oven pot roast for dinner but nobody wanted to wait until 2 am for it to be done so we made pancakes at about 11 for dinner instead. Yum.

Today, after changing a flat tire on Mike's Xterra in Colorado, Brian and Mike dropped me off in Moab and headed back to Provo. What a weekend! It was fun, eventful and exhausting. I hope we do it again sometime!

Moab

I don't know why this is underlined. I can't make it go away and it's frustrating. So let's just try to ignore it. So... I've heard from a few people that I'm due for a blog post. Consequently, I feel like there's a lot of pressure to make this one quality. My reason for delaying postage is the same as it always is--lack of pictures. I have been doing awesome things here but most of them have involved lots of water and therefore not involved my camera. Thus--a lack of pictures. But, I'll try to do my best with internet fill-ins so you can at least get the idea.

Since I've been in Moab I've been sent on three whitewater trips. The first was down Westwater Canyon. Here's a map of it.

This map probably doesn't mean a whole lot to many people, but there you go anyway. Skull rapid is the gnarly one. I've actually been down Westwater three times now and one boat flipped in skull our second time through. Everyone was just fine, of course. Just a little cold.

I've also been down what is known here as "the daily". Every rafting company in Moab runs this stretch of the river everyday. Hence--the daily. It's a fairly simple stretch of river and this time of year especially is advertised as a "scenic float" with only class I and II rapids. But I enjoyed it a lot. One day this summer when I'm able to start guiding, this is the trip I will be doing. The best part of the daily is that it's beautiful. It goes through an area called Castle Valley and it seriously looks like this:

Pretty, right? Anyway, every guide here just talks about getting daily burnout, which I can definitely imagine. But for now, we're friends.

The third trip I went on was just last week. It was a three day trip through Cataract Canyon. And it was so fun. Cataract Canyon is kind of the trip down here. The rapids are huge and here's the map.

This 100 mile section of the Colorado runs through Canyonlands National Park and ends at Hite Marina in Lake Powell! The worst part of this trip was being in Lake Powell and turning around instead of going waterskiing. So painful. Our company (Western River Expeditions) is the only company that uses a raft called a J-rig to run Cat (as Cataract Canyon is affectionately known around these parts). Here's a picture.

And no I'm not on there. But you can sure pretend. These boats are 37 feet long and 18 feet wide. Just the rubber for each boat weighs over a ton and is lifted out of a semi using a crane. These things are legit. And a good time.

So there you have it. Well, most of it anyway. Brian and some Provo friends were down here last weekend so once I get some pictures from them I'll throw them up here. I've also done some rock climbing and hikes and such but again...no pictures. My bad. Sorry if that was boring--but there's the update!

News

Ok, sorry for the lack of postage as of late. Life has been pretty nuts! First and foremost (the news is a little late sorry...)--I'm an aunt!!! Here is a picture of beautiful Hailey Marie Giles. She was born on April 26th. Poor girl, she was born the day of my GRE test...which went off as well as can be expected, thanks for asking.

She's adorable, right?

In other news, I'm in Moab! I have officially taken up permanent summer residence here. And it's been pretty good so far. I've been to a few days of work at the MAC (Moab Adventure Center) and I like it. There's a ton to learn and know but I think I'll get the hang of it soon. So at the MAC mostly what we do is book trips; river trips, mountain biking trips, hummer trips, jetboat trips, climbing trips, hiking trips... So in order to be a good salesman/woman, they occasionally send us on these trips. Yesterday I went on an Arches hike at sunset which was beautiful and today I went rafting through westwater canyon. Which was of course, amazing. And tons of fun. Brian and Jen drove me down here which I really appreciate. Thanks guys! Here's some proof that they were here.

You can't really see us...but there we are. In Arches. It was a great time. They even let me stay in their awesome little cabin and eat tin foil dinners with them. Aren't siblings just the best?

And....I think that's about it for the news. I guess that's not too much. It just feels like life has been crazy lately but I suppose that's the way it's meant to be right? So...if you're in Moab this summer, give me a call! Or just stop on by the MAC--your one-stop adventure store. :)