MORE hiking?

After a week of recovery from our big hike, I hit the trail again with my dad, who is training for his rim-to-rim trek at the end of June. We hiked from Hidden Valley to the Moab Rim, and after scrambling around off trail it ended up being about 8.5 miles and almost 1000 ft elevation gain and loss. At the end of the Hidden Valley trail we visited some neat petroglyphs that I've never noticed before. There were a lot of desert critters, including a couple of bull snakes. It was a lot of fun to spend the time with my dad, and I'm looking forward to helping him train more.

My dad and I have very similar hiking styles. If we see something that looks cool, we'll go explore it... even if it takes us off the trail for hours, scrambling up rocks on the edge of a cliff, while jumping through pokey bushes. Unfortunately, we've both burned bridges with the rest of our family (who--for some reason--don't appreciate these kinds of adventures), but we sure enjoy exploring together!

That evening after Dani got off the river we went over to the Moab Arts Fest and bumped into one of our old buddies, Jason, who was selling some of his ceramics. We invited him and his new wife to float the river with us on Memorial Day before they left town. One of my other friends, Sheena, was in town for the weekend with her husband, so we invited them too.

On Monday, Dani and I grabbed a few inflatable kayaks from the Hazlett's and met up with our friends and their spouses to raft down the daily section of the Colorado. There was no whitewater carnage, but we had a good time!

Our buddies Kat, Jason, Tyler, and Sheena

First Full Week in the Desert

After I trained at the doctor's office in Springville last Friday, Dani and I drove down to move to Moab to live for the summer. After settling into the guest bedroom at my parent's house, I had a full week ahead of me of training at the office. I'm working Monday through Friday, 8am-5pm. Dani took advantage of her free time to get out and enjoy the plentiful sunshine on some day-hikes in the area. She sent me PLENTY of pictures throughout the day just to make me jealous:

The Moab Valley from the top of the Rim trail.

Morning Glory Arch at the end of Negro Bill Canyon.

Dani's arm around an imaginary me while I'm at work.

Friday night we went on a short overnight trip to Culvert Canyon. We brought our tent, but the weather was so great that we decided to cowboy camp under the stars. We sure love the desert. After we hiked out of the canyon we stopped at the Moab dinosaur tracks and petroglyphs.

Sleepin' in in the morning sun.

Dino tracks!

Petroglyph panel at the Poison Spider Trailhead