A new experience

Last weekend we got invited to go to the Diamond Fork Hot Springs with some of my husband's friends. We thought it would be a great and much needed opportunity for us to get some time to ourselves and have fun with a great group of people. The group that we were joining warned us however that there might be some nudity involved, so if we were squeamish we had an opportunity to bow out. What made the trip even more interesting was that we left during a hail and lightening storm to go and hike 3 miles into the woods to get to the springs. The craziness of it made it seem all the more fun though.

Luckily when we started hiking the clouds parted and it was almost sunny. When we got to the hot springs there were already a group of people there who were from New Zealand and Denmark. They obviously held no social qualms about being nude and were very proud about it. One guy got out of his hot tub spring that he was soaking in and stood up to greet us as we made our way across a stream over to the hot ponds. The rocks we were crossing in the stream were slippery and you had to climb up and over a wall to the ponds. He was standing on this wall and as I made my way up his "parts" were practically at eye level and I remember thinking, if I slip and fall there's not much else to grab on to around me :) Luckily I did not slip and we made it over to a vacant hot pond.

This was the first time I had met my husband's friends that he bikes with and it was a little awkward socializing with nude people for the first time. I don't have problems with nudity at all, it's just hard to wrap your mind around it sometimes when it's not something you are used to every day in a social situation. It really isn't about being sexual it's just about being free and unhindered and in a natural state. I did admire the unabashed freedom in which the people partook. I did not have the courage to try it. Maybe someday. It was a very cool experience and one that was probably good for the secretly prudish parts of my head.

We all had a good soak in the hot springs, eating smoked trout and sushi, fresh sourdough, and drinking peach home brew. Also a few people got out of the hot pond and jumped into the freezing cold stream. I hesitated to do it myself but then with lots of encouragement I finally did. I am glad because it was the most amazing feeling. The hard part was totally immersing yourself into a dark (it was nighttime by then) cold creek. Then when you got back into the hot pond it felt like every single cell was tingling and then afterwords it felt like you had a massage and you just felt really relaxed. I would definitely do it again! I hope we can go back soon. This group also skis back there in the winter and sits around in the ponds like snow monkeys, I would love to get to do that.

These are pics that I have taken on several different trips, during the day.

Anniversary trip to Craters of the Moon

This past September was our 2 year wedding anniversary and we decided to celebrate it all month long.  A while ago we decided we would not give each other gifts but instead we would keep in the tradition of our dating history and our actual wedding and go on a road trip.  We decided that Craters of the Moon in Idaho sounded like an adventure worthy of this caliber of celebratory journey.  Craters is a place in Southern Idaho with lots of lava ( about 400 square miles of it), cinder cones, lava caves, and lava tubes.

We also decided it would be an adventure to try camping again with Sara.  The camp site at Craters is situated right in the lava field and the lava boulders and ash make up the grounds on which you camp.  It was a pretty cool looking place to stay, like being on the Moon I would suppose.  From the minute we let Sara out of the car until we left, she remained covered in volcanic ash from head to toe. It was everywhere and we found it pointless to try to clean her up.

 

Our first adventure, after getting camp set up was hiking up a cinder cone inside the park.  The sides were steep but Sara managed to hike some of it herself with a little assistance.  There was a great view at the top and we felt the full gusto of the wind that we had been warned about in this park.   

Hey, the trees even lean here like they do at home!

After all that walking plus the driving for nearly 4 hours that morning, everyone was ready to return to camp, grab some dinner, take turns going on bike rides, and then go to sleep.  One of us stayed behind with Sara and set up the tent while the other of us rode Dan's bike around the whole park and then we switched.  By the time I got my turn to ride through the park it was totally dark and I rode by the light of the full moon.  The roads were well lit and the cinder cones and various features stood as giant dark shadows in the sky.  There were some bats flying overhead.  It was a very unique experience.

Later that night was Sara's first camping experience since she was about 6 months old, so more than a year.  The camp ground actually filled up and it made me nervous that she'd wake everyone up.  Especially since I expected it to be really windy all night and instead you could hear a pin drop it was so quiet.  At one point Dan was snoring and it woke Sara up.  She stood up in her crib and just kept saying, "Da Da" over and over inquisitively.  She never screamed though and as soon as I could get him to turn over and quiet down, she went back to sleep.  Also it got down in the 40's which is definitely the coldest she's slept in.  I kept covering her all night and she was in warm jammies. It must have worked because she was toasty warm in the morning however I was quite tired. 

The next day we got up and actually took a long hike around the park on the edge of the volcanoes.  We took lots of pics on this hike.  I'll let them speak to the scenery.  At the end of the hike we got to hike across a lava flow too.

The last thing we did in the park was go out to the lava caves.  They are in the middle of a lava field that you have to hike through that is massive, you can't even see where it ends.  There are lava tubes and caves that go down 30 or 40 feet, it's even cold down there!

What a great couple of days in the park, a fun adventure, and a great way to celebrate us!

As an unexpected spur of the moment side trip we decided to stop at the worlds first Nuclear Power plant and take a tour.  It was a very interesting if not a little unnerving place to visit.  Dan had fun playing with all the exhibits they had set up of mechanical arms that move stuff around and we learned a lot about how they actually produced Uranium at this site.  At one point we were standing right over the nuclear reactor chamber.  I love the control room photo with all the buttons and old charts.

Capitol Reef : Day 1, Part 2 + Day 2

After seeing Cassidy Arch, we headed back out of the park to the small town we were staying in called Torrey. We have always wanted to eat at Cafe Diablo in Torrey but for some reason or other it was always closed or we missed out. This time, we did it! It's a Zagat rated 4 star cafe out in the middle of no where and the food is supposed to be amazing. They grow their own vegetables and herbs on premises and they're know for their free range rattle snake cakes, so we tried em, they're great! Dan was a little embarrassed that I was taking pics of our food, but everyone else was too, it was just almost too cool to eat.

Rattle snake cakes, complete w/ Tapioca balls to remind you of snake eggs :

The main course! Everything they brought out looked like this, works of art.
I got pecan crusted chicken and Dan got Turkey w/ Poi "potatoes" :


Sara checking to make sure no rattle snake eggs accidentally got on to her tray :


Here are some random pics from the weekend from Day 1

Sara checking things out and running off energy :

More Cassidy Arch hiking pics:

Standing in front of the anatomically correct petroglyph :)

Playing in the wash, Sara loved the rocks and tried to eat all the dried mud :




Day 2 we hiked up to Chimney Rock before leaving. It had some amazing vistas and lots of petrified wood on the trail.




Giant petrified log :

We had so much fun even though Sara didn't sleep well and she came home pretty sick :( I hope we have lots more adventures in Capitol Reef, it has rapidly become one of my favorite places here.

Capitol Reef : Day 1, Part 1

I love Capitol Reef State Park because so much of it is undeveloped, it has lots of cool geology, and is fun to explore. This visit we headed towards the Cathedral Valley area of the park. Unfortunately it rained heavily Friday before our visit, so washes that would have otherwise been dry this time of year were muddy. We still made the attempt and got halfway after several butt clenching stream and mud wash crossings. We were able to see lots of Bentonite hills, the Temple of the Sun and Moon, and Glass Mountain (made of huge, foot long gypsum crystals, way cool!). We will have to go back next time to see Cathedral Valley.

Colorful Bentonite ( a volcanic clay) hills :

Temple of the Sun and Moon (sandstone rock fins) :


Glass Mountain (from the NPS web site : Glass Mountain is a large, exposed mound of selenite crystals. Selenite is a variety of gypsum (CaSO4•2H2O) in the form of glassy crystals. Gypsum is a common mineral found in the sedimentary rocks of this area. The crystals of glass mountain are somewhat unusual in size and in the massiveness of the deposit.)

Glass Mtn & Sara and I foreground, Temple of the Sun background :

The crystals, it was so hard not to take souvenirs but we left all of it behind.

On the bumpy drive back, somehow she slept :

After a stop at the fruit orchards in the park for some cherry pie, we headed up to hike to Cassidy Arch.

The Overlook from the trail, we started the hike where that road is down there :

Cassidy Arch from afar:

Us standing on top of Cassidy Arch, it's huge!


To be continued...

Confession and Apology

Facebook takes up most of my limited computer time, so I don't blog as often but I promise to keep this blog and Munkey B's alive...

Alabama Trip, May 2009 - Days 1-4

Despite me stressing about it for weeks, the plane ride to Alabama was fairly tame. Sara was enthralled and entertained by her first airbus experience. Dan ran her around the Dallas airport during our lay-over and she slept from Dallas to Alabama :

Luckily our flight back was equally uneventful.

Upon arriving in Alabama we rented a bike for Dan to ride for the week, bought a play pen for Sara to sleep in, and then we went to Mom's house. Fara and Kevin also came over for a visit that night. We put the over-tired Sara into the shower where she screamed and then we put her to bed for the night in my old room.

The next morning, Dan got up to ride his bike early and then we played with the three dogs and Nanna played with Sara. Then we got ready to leave for the lake house we had rented up at Lake Guntersville (in North East Alabama) for the weekend. We met up with Fara and Kevin that afternoon and stopped to eat at a Mexican restaurant on the way to Lake Guntersville.

Let me explain about Alabama food. It's the best food anywhere. The Mexican food is good, the barbecue is good, the Greek, the Chinese, the Hamburgers, the best! I had a list of restaurants I wanted to get back to and we made it to some of them.

So we arrived at the house in Lake Guntersville and it was a huge million dollar mansion! It is actually for sale and we took a pic of the sale brochure for fun. At the house we also met up with our friends from Wisconsin, Chris and Shannon and their two kids. It was good to have everyone together again. We all had previously met up in Glacier in August 08.



So the first thing we did after exploring the residence and unloading the car was to kick back and lay on the floor.

Then we went in search of food, Barbecue. This was Sara's first taste of lemon and we gave her some baked beans. I had my first sweet tea since leaving the South :

The place was kind of "special". It had dead stuffed animals all over every wall and giant rod iron chandeliers. We had paper towels on the table, as you would imagine, for all the barbecue sauce and they had great hush puppies.

It was raining a lot, even so, when we got back to the lake house we went on a walk down to the lake to hunt for frogs (the women that is : Leslie (Chris's Cousin), Shannon, and Fara, and I. The men mostly stayed in the lake house and talked nerd and drank beer and could not be coaxed out. We saw huge gar under the dock by the lake and found several interesting insects and tree frogs.

The next morning we innocently got up to hike at the Walls of Jericho not knowing what was waiting for us, Alabama MUD! It had been raining rather heavily for a few days on and off so we should have known but still it would have been hard to imagine this.

Here we are in the parking lot, L - R, : Chris, Shannon, Leslie, Fara, Kevin


Sara would have been completely entertained by the rocks in the parking lot.


We saw lots of wildlife :

Newt

Millipede held by Jaz:

Also there was a ring-necked snake that Dan spotted. I caught it and we let everyone hold it. Leslie was particularly excited because she grew up in Alaska and had never seen on in the wild, much less held one. It was moving so fast though, no one got a picture of it.

On the trial there was beautiful Alabama greenery. Also these tree bridges we had to cross were pretty narrow actually. Dan crosses with a sleeping Sara.

Even with the people telling us we'd never make it to the end because the mud was slick as ice, Dan, Leslie, Sara, and I pressed on to the end. There were a couple of really terrifying moments but we made it.

Here is the last pic I got before the really scary trail section began. After this we were holding on to roots, rocks, and anything we could to stay on the trail.


We made it! Dan and Leslie swim at the falls. It was probably lucky the trail was almost impassible or we would not have had this beautiful place to ourselves for a moment :

Sara watches Daddy swim :

Sara gets a snack before it's her turn to check out the water :
Sara's turn! She loved this, collecting rocks in the water and handing them to us :




Then we continued on, climbing above this waterfall pool area to the next one. Here's a pic looking back at that amazing spot from above :


The next part up from that waterfall was like a giant rock amphitheater or cathedral as some people refer to it. It was pretty amazing. We climbed up here without Dan and Sara, so it was just Leslie and I taking a look.



Upon seeing this amazing sight and because we were encouraged to keep going by some guy or we would miss the most amazing waterfall, we kept climbing up the rocks. We were glad we did because there was a really cool waterfall at the end.


Then, led by Leslie, we climbed down the rocks to the bottom of it, and found a red newt on the wall too. What an amazing place :

On the way back we hoofed it up the trail and really felt the humidity kicking in. Even though it was only in the 70's with probably 70 or 80 percent humidity, which is nothing for Alabama.

Random things I forgot to mention:
We also went to Cathedral Caverns, which I highly recommend. Fara has those pics from the cave since I didn't bring my camera. It was Sara's first caving experience and she did great. Even when they turned out all the lights to show us the phosphorous glowing rocks.

Dan and I both rode the amazing bike that Bob's bikes in B'ham rented us. It was about a $5,000 bike, Specialized Allenz ( I think) and it rode like a flying carpet, we both kind of want one now. I went riding one morning in the pouring down rain, I mean pouring. I went about 10 miles along side lake Guntersville and saw several snapping turtles crossing the road, it was a great ride!

Also on the way to the Walls of Jericho we (Fara and Shannon and Kids) rescued many turtles crossing the road, you're welcome turtles.

We were really sad to say goodbye to our friends from Wisconsin, until next time! Hopefully we will have plans in the works for a North Eastern vacation next time to see them.

We said goodbye to the mansion and continued home to hang out with Mom and Fara and Kevin and Birmingham friends.

Bama bound

We are headed for Alabama tomorrow for a 10 day visit with friends and family. Hopefully we can blog some from the road and post pics. I'll be excited once we get off the airplane. It's going to be a long day. Once we're in Bama though it should be lots of fun. Can't wait to see everyone!