Scenes From Utah Hikes (04-26-16)

After leaving Vegas, we headed to Utah to do some hiking.  Utah is probably my favorite state for hiking, although our first venture out didn’t work out so well.

This trail had  a warning to anyone who is afraid of heights, but I am fond of saying I am not afraid of heights, I am afraid of falling.  This Canal Trail took us along the edges of a canyon above the Virgin River. Unfortunately, the trail (you can see it below Paul, along the CLIFF) was too close to the edge for me, and I had to turn around.

Still, the views were nice.

Just to prove my point, here is me, smiling at the top of a mountain, with a gorgeous view, but no fear of falling. This was the Red Mountain Traverse Trail- about 8 miles long, with varying views along the way.

Paul posed for the same picture.

I love hiking on rock, and this trail offered plenty opportunity for that.














Another view from the same hike.  This was one of my favorite hikes.  The valley we are overlooking is in Snow Canyon State Park, in Utah, near Zion National Park.

We have spent a fair amount of time hiking in Utah, so this trip we were kind of staying away from the places we had been before, and trying something new.







Another day, another hike- this one in Red Cliffs  National Conservation Area.

The weather was all over the place while we were in Utah.  80s one day, followed by 62 degrees the next.  Add differing elevations to that and you never knew what you were gonna get.


I really wanted to check out Kolob Canyon- it’s a more remote part of Zion National Park, and has some great hiking trails.  It also had snow. Fresh snow.

Our plans for hiking being thwarted gave us time to drive 10 miles down a dirt “road” to Toquerville Falls. This is a popular swimming destination, but not until the spring run off slows down!

Nearby Snow Canyon State Park was on my list of places that I wanted to hike, but we ran out of time. We were staying at an Elks Lodge, and thought we’d be able to extend our stay but they had a special meeting going on and we had to leave. 







It was really cool to realize that we were only 4 hours from home, so we can come back whenever we want!




Speaking of home, on the way there, a tire on the truck developed a bubble, and Paul had to put on the spare.  Luckily we caught it before it was a catastrophic failure.
We were planning on replacing all 6 tires before we left Havasu for the summer, so we bumped it up on the priority list, and they have already all been replaced.  We even got the damaged one replaced for free- we love Discount Tire!



We have been home for about a week now, busy buying things (more on that later), planting things and all the usual stuff.

60,000 Miles (09-02-13)

It’s hard to believe the truck has 60,000 miles on it, but it does, and it was time to buy a new set of tires.  That’s just one of quite a few chores we’ve been taking care of in Michigan.  It’s one of the more expensive chores though. Ouch.  Paul is pretty happy with the new Michelins, so that’s a consolation, I suppose..

The guy who runs the storage lot where we store our jet boat called us a couple of months ago to tell us there is a hole in the shrink wrap, so we drove over, patched the hole, and headed on our way. One of these days we’d love to figure out a way to get the boat to Arizona, or somewhere else where we could use it!

Our next stop was our storage unit where we keep our household goods.  We passed by our old house on the way there.  It’s a nice house, but we sure don’t miss all the “stuff” that goes along with house ownership!








 

Digging into our storage unit usually requires us to toss a bunch of stuff into the hallway.  We always hope no one will need to get past us while we are there.

I know most of our full timing friends sold all of their household goods, and every year Paul and I reassess whether it’s worth paying for another year of storage, and every year the answer is yes, so I guess this works for us at this point.

The RV Park we’re staying in had a yard sale on Saturday, and everyone could put stuff out that they wanted to sell.  We took advantage and grabbed a bunch of stuff from storage to sell off.  Some of it is our daughter’s stuff, and she was happy to make a few dollars (without having to do the work!)  We did ok- the most important thing being that we got rid of stuff that we don’t need or want anymore. 

Paul is using some of the “down time” to make some changes to the valances on the windows.  Me, I just make sure I’m close by to hold up the other end for him. 

In between chores, we’ve managed to spend time with friends!  There’s never enough time to see everyone, and I hardly ever remember to get the camera out, so I have very few pictures. Mason was very happy to have his picture taken in between his attempts to entertain the cat though.  I was still working with his mom, Pennie, when she became pregnant with him, but we were gone before he was born. We've seen him several times since then though!

The next few days will be full of other "stuff" that needs to get done before we leave here (hopefully) on Friday.