It's been about four months since Lily and I went on our last adventure to Utah. Sadly, I never got around to writing a post about it, but it was a phenomenal trip. We flew into Salt Lake City, rented a car, and drove all over. Our first stop was Capitol Reef National Park, where we camped and hiked around for the evening. We walked along the river and caught an evening ranger program. From there, we headed south towards Bryce Canyon. We hiked the Navajo Loop Trail, which was gorgeous and took us into the amphitheater. This night of camping proved to be one of the coldest, if not THE coldest, of our trip. It got down to about 26 degrees, which in a tent was a little frigid but luckily we had good sleeping bags! From Bryce Canyon, we headed further south to Zion to see Shauna & Aven (and Eve, of course). We spent two nights with them in Apple Valley & ventured to Zion for a day trip. I don't want to talk about the Zion visit (Lily was a nightmare). But it's okay, we'll go back sometime and make up for it. From there, we went for a night at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. This was probably our best night of camping - one of the best campsites and tolerable weather. The views of the canyon were stunning and the campground was quiet and peaceful. From the Grand Canyon, we headed to Page, AZ for our first night in a hotel. We saw Horseshoe Bend and did a tour of Antelope Canyon. The next day was a long haul to Moab, so we stopped in Monument Valley to stretch our legs for a bit. Moab was probably my favorite spot of the trip - specifically Arches National Park. We spent two nights in Arches with Crystal & Aaron and had many laughs sitting around the campfire, drinking beer and playing Heads Up. The next night we decided to venture out of Arches and hit Canyonlands National Park & Dead Horse Point State Park. We got a campsite in the state park and headed to Canyonlands for a sunset hike to Mesa Arch. Hands down the most magical fucking moment of the trip. The pictures don't even do it justice. That night at the campsite it was frigid and windy so we decided to call it an early night instead of staying up by the campfire and risking burning our damn tents down. Our last night in Utah was spent in a hotel in SLC, anticipating an early flight the following day.
Ugh, I am getting antsy just reminiscing about it. I need more travel in my life. I get so bogged down by the day to day bullshit of work and life and parenting and keeping up the house and STUFF. I need to get back into my groove of hiking and camping frequently. We have another big trip planned for the Spring. We'll be driving through West Texas and into New Mexico and back. It will likely be the last trip we are able to take before Lily starts school & we're forced to travel during peak times when EVERYONE else is traveling. I'm not looking forward to that. The flexibility of traveling in quieter times has been so, so lovely. I think we have more than capitalized on it, though. I think back to all of the adventures we've had... Massachusetts, Vermont, Colorado, Utah, Arizona... Lily sure has seen a lot in her five short years. We need to do more local, weekend trips, though. Y'know, just to keep us satiated in between the big ones. I've been looking at travel trailers (old vintage Shastas or Shasta-esque, mainly) and I'm planning on getting one in the near future.
I redid some of the design on here a couple of weekends ago. I'm hoping a fresh, new look will help inspire me to write more and to TRAVEL more so I have things to write about. But, we all know that I've said many times before on here that I will write more often and it hasn't happened, so for now I will be content with the few spare moments that I have once in a blue moon to share our adventures here.
And, until next time, I'll just be over here fantasizing about Mesa Arch at sunset...
