Time for another post? Sure, why not.
Story time!
So this past week, my family and I went down to Moab for a few days. Just to get out of town, celebrate the advent of summer vacation, that sort of thing. We were planning on going to Hawaii, but that didn't work out, so...4 hour drive, and there we were! Moab. It's an exciting little place.
If you've never heard of Moab, it's basically a desert tourist town in southeastern Utah, surrounded on all sides by red-rock cliffs, the kind that Utah is famous for, and right next to the Colorado River. Oh, and it has a uranium mine.
What do you do in Moab, you ask? Well. Pretty much a lot of outdoors-y stuff. There's a lot of good hiking/biking/4 wheeling/climbing terrain, it's really close to Arches National Park/Canyonlands National Park/Dead Horse Point State Park, and a lot of river to do river things in. Like kayaking.
What did WE do in Moab, you ask? I'll tell you, you curious hypothetical person, you.
The first day, in the morning, we went and did some horseback riding. Nothing too serious, just walking a trail for like 3 hours. Though if you tend to not ride horses all that often, like me, it sure does get pretty hard to walk right when you're finished. Involuntary waddling is grrreat.
My horse's name was Pillsbury. He was probably the laziest horse there, I swear. I just called him doughboy. And he was probably constipated, because he kept making these weird groaning noises and perfuming the air with his natural essence every few minutes. Otherwise though, not a bad time. Beautiful scenery.
And we saw a lot of lizards like this one.
And this heroic little ant. Go ant, go!
And then that evening, we did this Hummer adventure trip thingy. Basically, you get in a Hummer, and you drive over large rocks, often at precarious angles, and slide through sand and slickrock, often at questionable speeds.
If you ever get the chance to do this, do it.
This should kind of give you the gist of it. It was pretty crazy stuff. And the only way to actually feel how crazy it is would be to experience it. Because looking at pictures, you might think "that's not steep at all!". But when you're in the vehicle, looking over the edge, going up impossible angles, you realize, if this wasn't a hummer, we would be insane. And probably dead.
Pretty great sunset on top of the cliff, too.
Aren't we beautiful?
And then, the next day, we did some rafting. We took most of those pictures on a disposable water-proof camera, and the film hasn't been developed yet. So you're just gonna have to miss out on them. Although they had some guy on shore taking pictures, and we got one from him. We got in a raft and went down a part of the Colorado river. And this year, on account of the record snow and rain and late melt, the river is probably going to reach the highest it's ever been on record. I think it was flowing something like 40,000 cubic feet per second where we were at, which is about 8 times normal flow. And in some places, like Cataract Canyon, it was something around 75,000. And it's expected to go over 100,000 pretty soon. Pretty crazy stuff.
This was a boring part of the river, but still. Loads of fun.
Anyway, we were in the raft with some interesting people. Someone from Australia, someone from Germany, someone from England (from the same town in which I have some relatives living, incidentally), someone from South Korea, and a kind of quiet man who's origin I don't remember, probably because I never learned it due to his accent and quietness. And it's when you're going through whitewater with a bunch of foreign strangers that you realize that they're not so different from you. It was cool. Oh, and then the other rafts in our group declared war on us and we splashed them with our paddles, and I suggested we all pick up some pieces of driftwood (clubs) and board their vessals (enemy assailants), but we just stuck with the splashing. Probably a good thing, too, because we probably would've maybe inevitably failed at the beat-them-to-death-and-take-their-lands-and-women thing.
Moving on!
The last day, we did some hiking and rappelling. We hiked in for only like half a mile or so, and then attached ourselves to ropes and walked backwards down a cliffside. Two cliffsides, actually. First was only about 80 feet, and the second was about 130, give or take a few. And then we hiked out for about three miles. You know, pansy stuff. Though it WAS pretty hot out there.
But that's another thing that you should do if you get the chance.
This is us again, in front of a dead...desert...tree...thing
That's me, coming down. It's hard to get a sense of proportion, but I still had a long way to go.
Behind us is "Morning Glory Arch". And behind that are the cliffs we came down.
This is a cactus flower of sorts. Lots of these things in the Utah desert.
We found a lot of other cool plants too, like poison ivy (my sisters walked through it), wild onions (smelled very onion-y), and silver sage (a natural deoderant and mild decongestant). Oh, and we learned that there is such a thing as endangered dirt. Kind of. It has something to do with the existence of all desert plant life through the storage of water and formation of microhabitats or something like that. And if you step in this dirt it takes many years to regenerate. But it's not the dirt itself, it's more just the stuff that's in it. I dunno.
And then, on our way back, we stopped in Goblin Valley. And it's one of my favorite places in Utah during the summer, probably only second to Zions or Lake Powell. Ever heard of it? It's a really cool geological marvel.
Check it.
It's an awesome place for wandering around in, getting lost, climbing over things, playing a little hide-n'-seek. Just a very unique location.
If you look really closely, you can see me waving.
Oh, Utah. Gotta love it.
And...then we went home. Not a bad trip.
That about wraps it up. There were a whole lot more pictures we took of course, some of them pretty cool, but it takes too long to upload them for me to want to upload them.
I suppose I'll be seeing you around then. Bye-a :)
