Friday, September 13, 2013

Family Trip to St. George

In May, Natalie, Mom, Dad, and I took a little weekend road trip down to St. George.  We wanted to go to Zion National Park and do some hiking.  In looking for other fun things we might do down there that weekend, we discovered that Brian Regan would also be performing at Tuacahn.  So that was fortuitous.

We drove down Thursday night after work, stopping in Nephi for dinner at Wendy's, and making it down to St. George fairly late.  Turns out there was also an Ironman Triathlon going on that weekend, so lots of folks were in town for that.

We got up relatively early Friday morning, ate some complimentary breakfast, and headed up to Zion.  Getting there reasonably early meant we were on the trail before it got too hot.  Natalie had never done Angel's Landing so I agreed to do that with her.  Mom and Dad surprisingly said they'd like to tag along, and, despite Dad's semi-bad knee, they valiantly made it up to the saddle and even through the first short chain section before deciding they'd gone far enough.

Heading out
Getting started

Mom & Dad
Hiking buddies.  Not messing around.

Angels Landing
Looking up at the finish line

View from the top
View from the top

Angel's Landing - Saddle
This is pretty much as narrow as it ever gets

Natalie and I continued up to the top (it always looks scarier/narrower from the saddle than it does once you're actually climbing).

Coming down from Angel's Landing
Heading back down

After returning back down, we got lunch at the lodge, and then we split up as Natalie and I went up the emerald pools trail while Mom and Dad took the shuttle around the park and saw a few other sites (Weeping Rock and I'm not sure what else).

Waterfall at Lower Emerald Pool
This waterfall appeared to constitute the first emerald pool

Upper Emerald Pool
The third (and final) emerald pool

Zion National Park & Brian Regan 109
Had to stand in the weeds for literally 10 minutes to get a shot of this whole bridge without people walking on it.

We finished up in time to get back to the hotel, clean up, get dinner at Cracker Barrel (my first time!) and off to Tuacahn for the show.  I'm used to going to Tuacahn in the peak of July heat, so it was a bit odd to not have sweat dripping down the back of my knees the whole time, but otherwise it was a fun show. :)  Brian had quite a bit of new material and had a bit of improvisational fun when a grasshopper wouldn't stop landing on him, and some people in the crowd wouldn't stop letting him know about it.

Brian Regan @ Tuacahn
The face that brings Utah to its knees with laughter

Saturday morning I was a little bit lazier while Dad and Natalie went out to wander through the desert a bit.  Snow Canyon was closed for the triathlon, so we hit up "Dinosaur Tracks at Johnson Farm", a museum of sorts where you can see the fossilized record of dinosaur tracks that were discovered when Farmer Johnson was digging something. Maybe a smidge overpriced for what you get, but still kinda cool. If you're into dinosaurs and/or dinosaur tracks.

Dinosaur Tracks at Johnson Farm
One of the bigger tracks

Dinosaur Tracks at Johnson Farm
A big wall of smaller tracks

Dinosaur Tracks at Johnson Farm
Apparently someone who knows a lot about how dinosaurs stand put this guy here, so please don't move him.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Springtime in Arizona

Hey remember when I used to update this blog frequently regularly semi-regulary sometimes? :) Well, today I'm not sure what work-related thing I should be working on and I wanted to take a stab at just posting some stuff I've done in the last few months.

First up:

I visited Julie back in April for a weekend, and we had a good time hanging out and eating at On the Border, and playing cornhole and softball (not at the same time), and I didn't take pictures of any of that.  We saw Jurassic Park in 3D (second time for me that week!) and went to Sonic.  Again, no pictures. But I did take my camera with us to the Maricopa County Fair and saw a few interesting things:

IMG_1112
Apparently these are secretly high heels hidden inside crappy-looking sneakers? Someone told me it was a thing. I assumed this lady made them herself.

IMG_1115
This baboon is famous.

Probably the funnest part (not counting the time we spent waiting (fruitlessly) for the male belly dancer to participate) was watching some motocross riders warm up for races later in the week.  A trick rider came out to test the jumps and that was pretty cool.

IMG_1130

IMG_1128

IMG_1162
Also there was a giant snake!

Thanks for letting me come visit, Julie!