Bryce Canyon National Park

Utah has to be one of the most beautiful states I've ever seen. From the beautiful city of Salt Lake City to the wonderful mountain towns and the desert and parks.... wow! After leaving the Grand Canyon, we drove a very beautiful drive through Arizona and Utah to arrive about an hour away from Bryce where we stayed the night. We didn't take too many pictures on the drive, but it was beautiful. We did stop at one point after crossing a bridge over the Colorado river at the Lees Ferry crossing. This is the only bridge to cross the Colorado for hundreds of miles and it was pretty spectacular. There are two bridges - a much older one that cannot handle automobiles and a more recent one built that can handle lots of cars and traffic, but it looks just like the older one.


















Bryce Canyon was our stop for the next day and it is by far one of the most amazing parks I've ever seen. I was blown away by all of the hoodoos everywhere we looked! We were pretty exhausted and sore, still from the backpacking so we didn't do any major hikes in Bryce, but we drove to all of the lookout points and did one small hike down into the canyon. The hoodoos have all been formed over time all by water! This area used to all be underwater and the water flowing caused this amazing landscape. Erosion and snow freezing and melting over time adds to this as well. Although I couldn't possibly describe everything we saw, these pictures do a pretty good job to start to show so that you will want to go see if for yourself! You really can see the whole park in a day if you don't do any major hiking, but you can also do a lot of extensive hiking and spend a lot more time if you want. We got a nice campspot and were able to go and see the sunset (well, actually, Scott went to see the sunset while I worked on the fire - teamwork!).

Havasupai

To start out our summer vacation, we decided to do a backpacking trip into the Grand Canyon to the Indian reservation called Havasupai. I had heard of it last year when a few friends went down and knew that the falls at the bottom were supposed to be quite beautiful. What I didn't realize is how incredibly difficult the 10 mile hike down into the canyon is when it's 100 degrees and you have 35 pound packs on your backs! We headed down at 4 in the afternoon at probably the heat of the day. It was amazingly beautiful all the way down and through. Once we were down in the canyon, it was at least shaded and not as hot as directly in the sun. We didn't have enough water and were very happy when we hit our first blue-green stream of water where we could purify some more water to drink. We were still pretty dead by the time we got to the bottom, not to mention the fact that it was dark. After 8 miles, you walk through the town of the Native Americans and it's quite amazing to see a town down in the middle of what seems like nowhere. There were plenty of houses, a school, post office and just about everything you would need. No cars - but plenty of horses. The sun was started to set while we were in the town and it was very pretty. A mile or so later, we heard the falls and when I saw it, I almost started crying. Granted, I was exhausted and dehydrated, etc... but it was more beautiful that I could even start to describe or than the pictures could really start to show. We pitched our tent and pretty much collapsed.


















The next day, we hung out by the falls most of the day because that was the only place where it was cool. Our campsite was still very hot. The water at the falls was very cool and quite refreshing - even cold if you sat in it for too long. You can see that there are lots of pools all around it that people would just sit in all day - such an amazing place. Because it's such an awesome place, there were lots of people there, though I suspect that many of them took helicoptors or mules down and many probably had mules take their bags - I was amazed at the size of some of the tents and all of the things that many people had. We had very little and still felt like it was too much due to the fact that we were bruised and sore from our bags. We may be done with backpacking for a while (or maybe forever?). Car camping and day hikes are so much better! :-) We're just getting too old, maybe. ;-)
















We hiked up very early the next day and after the 2 miles into town, we had to wait for the office to open so that we could pay for our stay. We heard that there was an option to get carried out by a helicopter and I was all ready to go, but Scott said that we came down to backpack, so we needed to go the rest of the way. It almost killed us, but we did it! The day we hiked out, I actually felt really lucky because it was overcast and MUCH cooler and so not nearly as miserable as the way down. The last mile where you're pretty much hiking straight up was rough, but I didn't think the rest of it was too bad. I'd definitely recommend taking this trip, but do it in the spring or fall and have mules carry your things. Also, take a lot of friends and stay for a few days!

Quebec City

I headed up to Quebec City for a little less than a week for work and was blown away by the beauty of the city. It's definitely the most beautiful city that I've seen in the Americas. It's very old and European-looking and is amazing. My pictures cannot even begin to describe the beauty of the city, but maybe they can start.

I was there on a work trip to meet a group that I work with on a daily basis. It was so great to get to finally put faces to the people that I communicate with on such a regular basis. And they are a really wonderful team to work with, not to mention to visit! They took me out for a night on the town and showed me Quebec - great food, shows and sites. It is the summer of the 400th anniversary of the city and people are out all times of the day and night. I was amazed at how many people were still walking around town at midnight on a weeknight! My co-workers told me that's pretty normal in summer anyway because their winters are so rough, but with this summer having such festivities, it is even more so now. I guess they'll just have to catch up on sleep in the winter when it's cold and snowing! We saw an amazing "movie" on the 81 Bunge grain silos down by the water. It's the world's biggest architectural projection ever created and showed the history of the city for the last 400 years. It was created by Robert Lepage and was incredible. It shows every night at 10PM and is 45 minutes long - and it's packed there. That just shows you how everyone likes to stay up late! (or am I just getting too old!?)

I spent a lot of time on my own too and even stayed over for an extra Saturday to get to visit the city a bit more. I spent one evening at an outside exhibit at one of the museums with all sorts of vegetables and plants growing to make it look like an art exhibit. It was pretty cool and since I've been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for my bookclub, I was very interested to see what all of the crops look like. They had a water exhibit too in which they projected down into a well the city in day and night and though I couldn't understand what they were saying because it was all in French, I think they were talking about conserving water. I also spent a weekend night out on the town and just hung out by myself, but met very friendly people everywhere I went. People from Quebec are very nice, even to someone from the US who doesn't speak a word of French. I spent Saturday just walking around the city and visited Canada's highest waterfall (I think that's what I heard). I climbed about a million steps to get high enough to walk over the waterfall. It wasn't the most beautiful water I've ever seen, but it was pretty cool to be able to walk over it. It's also frozen in the winter enough to climb on - imagine all of this water frozen! Maybe I'll have the opportunity to visit sometime in the winter, though they all warned me that it's CRAZY cold!

Happy 4th of July (in Mexico?)

Instead of spending the 4th of July in OB as has been the usual fare, we decided to head down to Mexico and share our Independence Day down there. Now Scott and I have spent two 4th of July's in Spanish-speaking countries! Michelle planned everything (thanks, Michelle!) and we all had a great time beaching, eating, drinking, playing and just relaxing. The place we stayed in was awesome with a beautiful, big house and wonderful outdoor area for bonfires, games and even rooftop entertainment. The beach was only a bit away, but by the time we brought down our chairs, umbrellas, coolers, etc, we decided to spend the next day just sitting around by the house (vacations are for being lazy, right?). There was a bar close by where we spent some time playing pool and dancing, dancing and then dancing some more. The beach was fun and I tried to do some surfing (as did Baylis - you can see him here), but the waves were awful and no matter how much I fought them, I couldn't seem to catch anything. There were also 4-wheelers going crazy all over the beach and we had to be careful where we put our chairs and towels so that they didn't run us over. At one point, we even saw horses running down the beach with no owners nearby. I guess you never know what you'll see in Mexico! :-) The drive back across the border was actually worse than leaving OB the night after the bonfires, so I don't know if we'll pick that weekend to go again, but we'll definitely go back.