Uintah Backpacking Trip

Brad finally did it. He somehow convinced me to do my first backpacking trip this past weekend. I am not one for hiking usually and was afraid I was going to die on this trip due to lack of "physical endurance". Seriously. But it ended up being such a blast and I am actually willing to go out and do it again! My parents joined us for the trip as well. Three days in gym clothes and no makeup....can't be that bad, right? (Don't judge, I never claimed to be a beauty queen).

Brad and I think that Utah is one of the coolest places to live, as you can see between this post and the previous Moab post Utah has so much to offer for recreation. There are beautiful red deserts with lots of recreation opportunities as well as gorgeous mountains tucked far away from life's "conveniences" and all the little petty things we get caught up in everyday of our lives. We are so fortunate to live in such an awesome state with all of the beautiful and diverse areas to enjoy!

We chose to backpack to Granddaddy Lake, which was 4.5 miles from the parking lot to where we decided to camp just a little ways from the lake itself. This was for my sake of course. It was so beautiful up there, lots and lots of green landscape & crystal clear lakes. We headed out Friday morning at 5am and spent the morning getting to where we decided to camp. We then spent some time at the lake, did some fishing, and hung out around a fire. Brad was the first to catch a fish that day, and my mom the second (and sadly the last) to catch one on Saturday. The fishing success was a little disappointing, but we had a lot of fun anyway. Saturday morning we got up and hiked to Betsy Lake and Mohawk Lake and spent some time fishing at each one.

The weather was beautiful and it was so nice to get away from everything and just be. I got to try my first portions of freeze-dried food and I have to say, I was impressed! We had Sweet and Sour Pork the first night, and Beef Stroganoff the second. We even had desserts! My mom brought a Raspberry Crumble & Blueberry Cheesecake, and for my treat/reward for agreeing to backpack, Brad let me get freeze-dried Neopalotin Ice Cream. Yes, I will obviously do almost anything for ice cream. Aside from the meringue-like texture, it was actually really good. My mom was even woman enough to pack a couple of cans of Coke Zero in her pack....sometimes you just can't leave ALL of the world behind. ;0)
Sunday was Brad's 24th birthday, and we spent it hiking out of the Uintahs & following that up with a dinner and cheesecake at his parents house with some of his family. (We had a great together the week before with all of the family to celebrate Brad and his sister, Lisa's, birthday). Brad loves the outdoors so it was a very fitting way to spend his birthday.

Over the course of our Friday-Sunday trip we hiked just over 15 miles. I was pretty sore to say the least as that is probably the furthest I've hiked in my whole lifetime combined, but I am excited to get out there and load up for another trip! Thanks to Brad and my parents for being patient with me this weekend. And I do need to mention that I didn't even cry once on this trip....both my mom and I have been known to be drawn to tears during hikes out of slot canyons, so not crying on this trip was a feat in and of itself ! :0)
















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Moab: Trip #2

This post has been a long time coming! I have been lucky enough to be very busy designing quite a few wedding announcements for people with my little design "business" in the past month or two that it has required this blog take a backseat for a while, but that doesn't mean the action and adventures we tend to find ever stopped!

Back in June Brad and I teamed up with my parents for yet another trip to Moab to do some off-roading. We absolutely love being out in the red dirt rumaging around on rocky trails. For this trip we choose to do two trails, Poison Spider Mesa & Metal Masher. They were right up our alley with just enough difficulty to keep things exciting and allow for the "pucker factor" here and there. I even did some of the driving myself!

Aside from the trails we had a lot of fun in our spare time, we even discovered a new game called "Farkle", a dice game, and I'm pretty sure we had just as much, if not more, using the name in sentences than we did with the actual game itself. (Side note: using the word Farkle in sentences has nothing to do with the game....it's just such a fun word to use & we used it in almost every way imaginable). If you have never played this game I highly suggest that you spend the $10 and treat yourself. I don't think any of us had laughed that hard in a LONG time.

On our way home we hit up Arches National Park and spent some time checking out the arches and scenery. Brad and I were a little disturbed that as we were in route to the Devil's Garden in Arches our 0dometer hit 166,666. A little ironic????

And of course, what would a trip down to south-eastern Utah be without a stop at our favorite restaurant, Ray's Tavern. Mmmm, delicious! We had such a great trip and are already getting antsy to return and do it all over again.

Addendum: A friendly commentor has reminded me that I failed to mention that while on this trip we got to have dinner with our favorite Blanding people....how I forgot this, I do not know. Never a dull moment with those folk! :0)