Brad and I just had a great Memorial weekend with my parent. My parent flew in Wednesday night to Salt Lake City, just to leave Thursday morning with us to drive 5 hours to Zion National Park. We got to Zion about noon on Thursday, set up camp and toured the park. Zion is this huge red rock canyon which was made by the virgin river which runs right in the middle of canyon. It is very pretty. We took the parks shuttle bus around to the various sights, and did a little bit of hiking. After the long drive and sight seeing all afternoon, we were beat and headed back to camp. On Friday morning we woke up, packed up our campsite and hiked Angels Landing. Angels Landing is a very hard trail to hike. It is 5 miles rounds trip, but it is mostly up hill, and the last mile is on a narrow cliff with chains for you hang on to. It isn't for people who are afraid of hights thats for sure. The trail has a number of switch backs, and at one point there are 21 swictch backs right in a row, one right after another. Not easy at all. Brad and I have hiked Angels Landing twice before, and we were both very impressed with my parents who did the whole hike. They were hiking and climbing with the chains like they did this sort of thing on a daily basis. The weather was perfect for this hike because it was only about 65-70 with a nice breeze so it was very comfortable to hike. After our hike, we got in the car and drove 5 hours to the Grand Canyon.
We got to the Grand Canyon at night. We had to stop at one of the first overlooks of the canyon. It was really neat. It was a cloudy night, and to see the clouds in the canyon. We couldn't wait for the morning to see the canyon with more light. We finally got to our campsite to set up camp. In the morning we woke up and headed right for the Canyon. The Canyon in the morning still had a bunch of clouds in it, so you couldn't see for miles or get the whole affect of how big the canyon is. It was cool but we really wanted to see the whole canyon. So we took some pictures, and decided to come back later in the afternoon when hopefully the canyon cleared up. We drove around the Grand Canyon Villege, and went outside the park and got some lunch. In the afternoon when we got back to the Canyon it was perfectly clear. We could see the canyon for miles. It was wonderful. We got onto the park shuttle bus to take us to couple of different look out points to view the canyon. We couldn't get over how amazing the Grand Canyon is. None of us were disappointed. After getting our fill of the canyon, and after the sun went down we headed back to camp to make some dinner and chill for the night.
Saturday morning we woke up and packed up camp again, and headed to Bryce National Park. However we didn't end up leaving the Grand Canyon until after noon because we had to stop at more canyon overlooks, because none of us wanted to leave. We took more pictures, and just enjoyed the view. Finally we did get on our way to Bryce National Park another 5 hour drive.
We got to Bryce just after 6 pm. We didn't have alot of light left but we went to the different look out points that Bryce has. It was really pretty the way the sun was lighting up the red rock. We wish we had time to do some short hikes, but we needed to keep moving because we had 5 more hours in the car to get back to Salt Lake City. We drove into the night getting back at into Salt Lake at 1130pm.
On Monday after sleeping in we went out to breakfast, and took my parent to airport. It was a long busy wonderful weekend. We had a great time and did and saw a lot in a little bit of time. Next time we go to the Grand Canyon we really want to take a day or two and hike down into the canyon. Other the that the trip was perfect.
Check out some the pictures I took.
Great Basin National Park and Lehman Caves
Brad and I went camping for the first time this summer. We went to Great Basin National Park which is in the Southeast lower corner of NV, right over the Utah boarder. We had plans on Friday night, so we didn't get leave until Saturday morning. When we got to the park it was 70 and sunny. The first thing I was shocked by was how green the park was. Keep in mind we just drove across Utah country side, and now in the desert in NV and all Brad and I saw for the last 3 hours were brown desert. Great Basin was a very pretty green National Park.
One thing Brad and I wanted to do at Great Basin was to go through the Lehman Caves. We got tickets do a tour through the cave. We were both so excited and really didn't know what to expect. We both have been in caves before on family trips growing up, but that was a while ago. We were blown away by the cave, it was huge, and very neat. The formations were so cool looking, and our tour guide was very good and taught us a lot. At one point they turned off the lights in the cave...boy was it dark. It was kind of scary. We spent about an hour and half in the cave walking around and see the different formations. (check out our pictures)
While driving from the cave to our campsite within the park we saw two huge jack rabbits, some deer crossing the road, and three huge turkeys. Our campsite was really nice. It was back away from everybody else, and had some shade (very rare in Utah campgrounds Brad and I have learned). While we were sitting by the fire reading we had a deer walk into our campsite. We just sat there at watched it.
We then drove around the park to the outlook of Wheeler Peak. It had some great views. We were kind of disappointed that we couldn't drive up to the peak and do a hike we were interested in doing, because the road was still closed for the season due to snow. Oh well.
On Sunday we got up and drove through the desert to the trailhead for Lexington Arch. It is a six story arch made out of limestone. The hike was along side a green mountain, which had a meadow on it. It was one of the prettier hikes I have been on. We were both inpressed on how big the Lexington Arch was and thought it was neat how it was on the side of this other mountain.
One thing Brad and I wanted to do at Great Basin was to go through the Lehman Caves. We got tickets do a tour through the cave. We were both so excited and really didn't know what to expect. We both have been in caves before on family trips growing up, but that was a while ago. We were blown away by the cave, it was huge, and very neat. The formations were so cool looking, and our tour guide was very good and taught us a lot. At one point they turned off the lights in the cave...boy was it dark. It was kind of scary. We spent about an hour and half in the cave walking around and see the different formations. (check out our pictures)
While driving from the cave to our campsite within the park we saw two huge jack rabbits, some deer crossing the road, and three huge turkeys. Our campsite was really nice. It was back away from everybody else, and had some shade (very rare in Utah campgrounds Brad and I have learned). While we were sitting by the fire reading we had a deer walk into our campsite. We just sat there at watched it.
We then drove around the park to the outlook of Wheeler Peak. It had some great views. We were kind of disappointed that we couldn't drive up to the peak and do a hike we were interested in doing, because the road was still closed for the season due to snow. Oh well.
On Sunday we got up and drove through the desert to the trailhead for Lexington Arch. It is a six story arch made out of limestone. The hike was along side a green mountain, which had a meadow on it. It was one of the prettier hikes I have been on. We were both inpressed on how big the Lexington Arch was and thought it was neat how it was on the side of this other mountain.
Graduation
Well Brad graduated on May 8th. I can't believe the two years of grad school is over with. It seems like just yesterday we were in Rochester, saying how the program would take two years and it seemed like it would forever and now it is over with.
Brad just walked for his college's (College of Architure and Planning)graduation and not at the huge college graduation. The ceremony was very nice. Brad was elected by his peer to give the Master of Planning speech at the ceremony. He did a great job, and kept it short and sweet. Brad isn't offically, offically done yet. He did his thesis defence this morning (Monday May 11th), and he said it went very well. He just has to change a couple of things in his thesis and then he will be offically done.
Brad's Mom and Dan flew in for the event, and stayed the weekend. We had great weather, and did some hiking. We hiked one trail here on Friday after the graduation that took us out to an over view of the Salt Lake City Valley. Then on Saturday we went to see Bridal Vail falls, Sundance ski resort, and did a hike up Provo Canyon to see some more waterfalls. We all had a great time, and enjoyed the sights.
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