Just Plodding Along

We spent a night in a hotel in Barstow to regroup, shower, do laundry, and clean equipment before continuing on to Sequoia National Park. We hit the main part of the park the next day because I was on a mission to see the General Sherman Tree, the largest tree by volumn in the world. It was a bit of a nail biting, vomit inducing winding ride to get to the big trees area. Worth it! Redwoods are amazing! By the time we got to the big trees area it had started to drizzle which  meant we got to try our new rain jackets out. We strolled down to gaze at trees and they were incredible. Redwoods are amazing and so giant. I had no idea. I get weirdly excited when I see one, like I have spotted a yeti or something. After tree gazing for awhile we wound our way slowly down and out of the park headed for Mineral King, a remote part of the park. After two hours of an even more nail biting road we arrived at the Atwell Mill campground. The sign at the bottom of the road said the campgrounds we...

What you don't want to hear when you are asleep deep in a canyon in a tent you were too lazy to attach the rain fly to is thunder. Which is what I heard around 2 a.m. At first we tried to ignore it.....maybe it will go away......but then the smell of rain came on strong so there D and I were, one headlamp between the two of us, ( we are always prepared....) in our underwear (it was warm) wrestling the rain fly onto the tent wind blowing, rain coming down around us. Once we were back inside I began to wonder how hard it was raining around us. Flash floods do happen in the canyon and we were up the canyon as far as one could be. Luckily it was never more than a drizzle. Just enough to get everything gritty and dirty. But is also gave us cool temps and overcast skies for our hike out of the canyon. After breakfast we packed up and strapped all our gear on for our hike back out. It seemed to go quicker on the way out until we hit the steep uphill. Then it was sllloooowwww going. Hike...

The Kolob Canyon area of Zion National Park is only about 2 hours from Bryce Canyon. We zoomed over to the visitors center to get our backcountry permit and then hunted around for a place to camp. Our first choice was booked up due to a cycling event. Though the owner was super nice and offered to let us pitch a tent in her front yard, we decided that would be our last resort. We ended up at the KOA in Cedar City Utah, about 20 minutes from the park. It was weird to camp in the middle of the city but they had SHOWERS and laundry. So it was a bit of heaven really. As a side note I wasn't sure how I would react to the limited showering situation but with baby wipes, dry shampoo, biodegradable hand soap, hand sanitizer and face wash that doesn't need water I stay pretty darn clean. That being said I haven't worn my contacts because I don't trust the above listed cleaning supplies to save me from pink eye. I am probably just being paranoid but sticking my finger in my eye ...

I wish I could post the picture of the cow that stood in the middle of the road staring at us while we were trying to get to Bryce Canyon. Unfortunately blogging from a phone means no go on that since I took a picture with one of those old fangled cameras not attached to a phone. You will just have to take my word for it. Bovine obstacles aside, our drive to Bryce Canyon was easy and the closer we got the cooler the temps! Luckily there was room at the campgrounds. We stayed at the Sunset campground. The first night we had an okay spot for camping but after making friends with the camp host we were alerted early the next morning to a prime spot and nabbed it for our second night. Thanks Martha! The first afternoon we got there we just hung at our site, didn't even go see the canyon. We were just happy to be in pine trees and cooler weather. The next morning we set off to hike the Navajo trail, a short but oh so steep trail that runs down among the hoodoos. Amazing. A must do if y...

After a few hours of driving through the desert we arrived in Moab and were met by a temp of 104. Ummmm no thanks. I was most excited about these two parks but once we got there I was not as excited. We just moved from a hot desert. We have spent years living in a hot desert. I don't actually want to be in a hot desert anymore. Luckily D had a deep cycle battery installed in our truck that allows us to charge and run electronics. We were able to keep fans running in our truck bed ( which we are using as a camper) to stay coolish while we slept. We camped along the river, got up at 5am and explored both the parks from our air conditioned car. We did a short hike at Arches to see some Arches but that was it. I had planned short hikes at Arches because this park is kinda laid out to be seen by car but had planned multiple days of hiking at both Island in the Sky and Needles areas of Canyonlands. Nope. Not happening in those temps. We saw most of the views from the car which was good ...

A lack of fast or any internet at all and having too much fun has left me with a bit to catch up on blog wise. So blogging from my phone, what could go wrong....probably just the usual spelling, grammer and formating issues as usual. Beginning of this month the hubs and I hit the open road heading west to the Black Canyon of Gunnison for the first stop on our National Parks tour. We stayed at the North Rim which has a smaller camping area and several trails. We did a short Chasm View hike the first evening we were there and the next morning instead of heading down into the canyon we hiked up the Green Mountain Trail (8 miles round trip) for some awesome scenic views (a common thing in National Parks I am finding). This was the first hike we used our hiking poles on and they are amazing. I never want to hike without poles again. They are way helpful for balancing and using arm strength (if you have any, bit of a t-rex going on over here) for getting up amd down steep inclines. We fin...

Walk breaks have basically been the key to my running in Colorado since I got here. Because breathing is hard. Real hard. But the scenery around here it not bad. I have been running pretty consistently but nothing over six miles. It is taking awhile to adjust to the elevation (7,000+ feet). The nice thing is there is plenty of trails and long, empty country roads.  On Saturday I ran the Rock Hawk 10k. Luckily I had enough sense to not register for the half marathon which was my first inclination. I would probably still be out there running. The Rock Hawk Trail race was brand new and pretty small. But like other races I have been to in Colorado, everyone looked like they had stepped straight out of trail runner magazine.  This was a new one... D went with me and commented on the number of tiny shorts. I informed him that the tinier the shorts the faster you are and that he should note that I had capris on. I was optimistic that maybe I could finish in an hou...