Friday, October 20, 2006
I hate being sick
I'm sick. . .Yesterday I had a fever and sore throat from all the snot draining. Of course I can't ever blow my nose and get any of it out. Today, I don't have a fever but I keep trying to cough a lung out and try not to pee my pants from coughing so hard. I'm on decongestants, cough drops, and nasonex. I'm lucky I can think in complete sentences. Took yesterday off but I've got so much to get done for the Young Authors Conference on the 28th (which I am one of the presenters thank you very much) that I didn't feel like I should take another day off. I did get my presentation done today and I'll probably get the handouts done also (hopefully). As I'm also on the committee for the YAC and in charge of the lunch break which we just found out won't be outside as there will be another activity there. I had planed on playing games and doing sidewalk art. But we'll move it inside and have more sedate activities instead.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Utah Rocks part 2
Sunday morning dawned clear and blue. We had decided to go to Escalante and go to some slot canyons but as I lay in bed Saturday night I was looking at the distances and thought, do I really want to drive all that way. It turned out that we really didn't get up and about until about 11:00 so I asked that we go to Zion instead.
Arlene was not feeling very good at all. She felt she needed to go back to bed. She told us to go on. I felt bad that she wasn't feeling very good. She told us she'd only feel worse if we didn't continue with our plans. So we left and she went back to bed. Zion was totally awesome! It was quite a drive to get to the Visitors Center from the entrance. 12 miles! There was so much beautiful nature I couldn't believe it. Also lots of narrow roads and people who couldn't drive on their side! They kept crossing over the lines straight for us. Needless to say it was a pretty winding road. We also had to go through 2 tunnels. One was pretty short but the other was really long. In fact it was under construction and it was only one lane. So we sat outside of it for about 5-10 minutes and then drove through. It is the longest underground non lighted tunnel I've ever been through. That's right we're driving through the middle of a mountain with no lighting except from our car lights. It is not a straight tunnel either you go around these little curves. I have to tell you it was pretty dark! Though a really neat feature of the tunnel is it had "windows" in a couple of places, you could see outside the mountain. The winders were only a couple of feet wide and it only illuminated a couple of feet of the tunnel but it was an interesting feature.
We got to the visitors center and checked out all the stuff there and decided which trail we were going to do. We had brought a lunch and ate it at the visitors center because we couldn't drive up to the trail in fact you couldn't go anywhere in the park with your own vehicle unless you were staying at the lodge. So everyone parks at the visitors center and then you ride a trolly to your destination. We didn't want to lug a cooler with us. So we rode the trolley to the lodge, crossed the river and started our hike to see the Emerald pools. There are 3 the upper, the middle, and the lower. We turned to go to the upper ones first but a helpful hiker told us it was much easier going down that way than going up (the pools are sorta on a loop) so we decided to take a chance and go the other way. The hike to the lower pool was rather easy but after that it got a bit more difficult! Lots of climbing. There were two middle pools though at the time we didn't know it. The upper pool was only reached after a marathon climb over sand slick rocks and a rather vertical climb is was also. I have to say that while it almost killed me, it was well worth the climb. It was extremely beautiful. The climb down wasn't so bad, but I had a few bad moments on the slick rocks. As we headed back down we were glad we weren't climbing up. It was a pretty steep going, I'm not sure I would have been able to climb up to the upper pool if we'd started on the other end! It was starting to get close to dark by the time we got back to the trolly. On the way back to the visitors center there was a rare blue heron in the Virgin River.
We got gas on the way back. Saw a cop, actually we saw a lot of cops this weekend. I would have to say I saw more cops on this trip than on any other trip I've ever been on. We saw at least 8 cops before we even left LV. Then there were several on the way there. Got back to the cabin about 8. Arlene said she'd been sick and went back to bed and slept the day away. She said she was feeling better. I made Chicken Broccoli casserole and rice, which was a hit and went to bed as we had to be out of the cabin by 11:00AM the next day. Actually none of us had brought an alarm clock so I offered my phone clock. I set it but the stupid thing wouldn't acknowledge the alarm. I tried a closer time, 10:30 and it took it. I realized that it wasn't going to acknowlege the setting for 9:00 AM until after midnight. Grr. So I stayed up. But I didn't sleep well and was wide awake at 8:00. So I got up and got ready for the day, finished packing etc.
We packed the Jeep up and were on the road by 10:30 ish. It was raining. We hoped we'd see more snow as we topped the mountain, but it was just raining! We were planning on stopping at North Zion Kolob Canyon and drive the scenic rout. It was just too wet to contemplate hiking. As we were coming up on the exit we got behind a big semi. It was raining pretty hard and with the water sprayed up by the semi, I missed the exit! So then we were going to do an illegal u-turn on the emergency vehicles only but I was still driving way to fast so we opted for the next exit. We turned around and stopped at the visitors center (very small compared to the other centers), showed our pass and drove on into the park. By the time we got to Kolob it was still raining but not so hard, kinda more like a misty drizzle than rain. We pulled over a couple of times to take pictures. We got to the top, turned around and continued on our way back to LV.
We stopped in St. George at the Cracker Barrel. Good food that! Everyone consumed mass quantities and did a little shopping in the gift shop. When we left the CB, it had stopped raining. The rest of the trip was dry and sunshiny. We dropped Arlene off and while waiting at a corner a red truck ran the stop sign only to be caught by the cop sitting on the corner! Whoo hoo! It was a happy glorious ending to a fun trip. Allyson, Leona, and all gave a round of applause.
But wait our adventure didn't end there! I dropped Ally off and started back to Henderson. On 215 we ran into heavy traffic. I being the impatient soul pulled off and said, "we can take Blue Diamond" HA Traffic was backed up there too, so I decide to go off road, merge with traffic and then do an illegal u-turn (no cops around thank god!) and are finally on the last legs of the trip. All I have to do is drop Leona off and I'm 5 min from home! Yeah. It was a lovely trip, but I was really glad to be home.
Arlene was not feeling very good at all. She felt she needed to go back to bed. She told us to go on. I felt bad that she wasn't feeling very good. She told us she'd only feel worse if we didn't continue with our plans. So we left and she went back to bed. Zion was totally awesome! It was quite a drive to get to the Visitors Center from the entrance. 12 miles! There was so much beautiful nature I couldn't believe it. Also lots of narrow roads and people who couldn't drive on their side! They kept crossing over the lines straight for us. Needless to say it was a pretty winding road. We also had to go through 2 tunnels. One was pretty short but the other was really long. In fact it was under construction and it was only one lane. So we sat outside of it for about 5-10 minutes and then drove through. It is the longest underground non lighted tunnel I've ever been through. That's right we're driving through the middle of a mountain with no lighting except from our car lights. It is not a straight tunnel either you go around these little curves. I have to tell you it was pretty dark! Though a really neat feature of the tunnel is it had "windows" in a couple of places, you could see outside the mountain. The winders were only a couple of feet wide and it only illuminated a couple of feet of the tunnel but it was an interesting feature.
We got to the visitors center and checked out all the stuff there and decided which trail we were going to do. We had brought a lunch and ate it at the visitors center because we couldn't drive up to the trail in fact you couldn't go anywhere in the park with your own vehicle unless you were staying at the lodge. So everyone parks at the visitors center and then you ride a trolly to your destination. We didn't want to lug a cooler with us. So we rode the trolley to the lodge, crossed the river and started our hike to see the Emerald pools. There are 3 the upper, the middle, and the lower. We turned to go to the upper ones first but a helpful hiker told us it was much easier going down that way than going up (the pools are sorta on a loop) so we decided to take a chance and go the other way. The hike to the lower pool was rather easy but after that it got a bit more difficult! Lots of climbing. There were two middle pools though at the time we didn't know it. The upper pool was only reached after a marathon climb over sand slick rocks and a rather vertical climb is was also. I have to say that while it almost killed me, it was well worth the climb. It was extremely beautiful. The climb down wasn't so bad, but I had a few bad moments on the slick rocks. As we headed back down we were glad we weren't climbing up. It was a pretty steep going, I'm not sure I would have been able to climb up to the upper pool if we'd started on the other end! It was starting to get close to dark by the time we got back to the trolly. On the way back to the visitors center there was a rare blue heron in the Virgin River.
We got gas on the way back. Saw a cop, actually we saw a lot of cops this weekend. I would have to say I saw more cops on this trip than on any other trip I've ever been on. We saw at least 8 cops before we even left LV. Then there were several on the way there. Got back to the cabin about 8. Arlene said she'd been sick and went back to bed and slept the day away. She said she was feeling better. I made Chicken Broccoli casserole and rice, which was a hit and went to bed as we had to be out of the cabin by 11:00AM the next day. Actually none of us had brought an alarm clock so I offered my phone clock. I set it but the stupid thing wouldn't acknowledge the alarm. I tried a closer time, 10:30 and it took it. I realized that it wasn't going to acknowlege the setting for 9:00 AM until after midnight. Grr. So I stayed up. But I didn't sleep well and was wide awake at 8:00. So I got up and got ready for the day, finished packing etc.
We packed the Jeep up and were on the road by 10:30 ish. It was raining. We hoped we'd see more snow as we topped the mountain, but it was just raining! We were planning on stopping at North Zion Kolob Canyon and drive the scenic rout. It was just too wet to contemplate hiking. As we were coming up on the exit we got behind a big semi. It was raining pretty hard and with the water sprayed up by the semi, I missed the exit! So then we were going to do an illegal u-turn on the emergency vehicles only but I was still driving way to fast so we opted for the next exit. We turned around and stopped at the visitors center (very small compared to the other centers), showed our pass and drove on into the park. By the time we got to Kolob it was still raining but not so hard, kinda more like a misty drizzle than rain. We pulled over a couple of times to take pictures. We got to the top, turned around and continued on our way back to LV.
We stopped in St. George at the Cracker Barrel. Good food that! Everyone consumed mass quantities and did a little shopping in the gift shop. When we left the CB, it had stopped raining. The rest of the trip was dry and sunshiny. We dropped Arlene off and while waiting at a corner a red truck ran the stop sign only to be caught by the cop sitting on the corner! Whoo hoo! It was a happy glorious ending to a fun trip. Allyson, Leona, and all gave a round of applause.
But wait our adventure didn't end there! I dropped Ally off and started back to Henderson. On 215 we ran into heavy traffic. I being the impatient soul pulled off and said, "we can take Blue Diamond" HA Traffic was backed up there too, so I decide to go off road, merge with traffic and then do an illegal u-turn (no cops around thank god!) and are finally on the last legs of the trip. All I have to do is drop Leona off and I'm 5 min from home! Yeah. It was a lovely trip, but I was really glad to be home.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Details for trip
I'm typing up a huge long post about my trip. I'm about halfway done. I'll get it up as soon as I can. It was an awsome trip! We had a blast!
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Utah rocks!
Or at the very least there are lots of rocks there! I had a great time in Utah. We (friends Leona, Allyson, and Arlene) left Vegas Friday morning in the pouring rain. We stopped in Mesquite for Starbucks. Ironically half of HDPL's administration was in Mesquite for a conference. I thought it quite hilarious that we might run into them. Of course we didn't but we coulda! Our next stop was in Cedar City for lunch and to pick up groceries at the Wal-Mart there. It was pouring rain the entire way! In fact as we drove up the highest mountain (9910 ft) it started to snow! Quite a bit of snow at that. It was pretty tricky driving. It was curvy mountain roads with snow and ice! Thank goodness for my trusty Jeep! We got over the hump and into Duck Creek Village and checked into our lovely cabin. It was just pouring cold rain on us as we unloaded the Jeep, of course we all got soaked since at least one of us can't pack light! (ME!)
The cabin was great 3 bedrooms with double beds and a loft with two twins, two full baths, a full kitchen, a woodburning stove, and satellite TV. We decided since it was raining so much that we'd stay in the rest of the day, it was a little after 3:00 anyway. Leona made yummy mexican meatballs for dinner and we watched Battlestar Galaxia season premeier at Arlene's request. I thought it was pretty good. Arlene filled us in on all the bits we needed to know to follow.
Saturday dawned with a beautiful clear blue sky. We drove out to Bryce Canyon National Park. We checked out the visitors center and made phone calls as we had reception there. We drove to Fairview point and turned around to go back to Sunset point. We had a picnic of turkey sandwiches and then we started the Navajo and Queen's Garden Loop. It was pretty steep going down (and coming up for that matter!) I believe we descended and climbed a 32 story building! Absolutely beautiful! (If I figure out how to post my pictures I will!) We didn't see any animals but that's not a surprise us girls were pretty noisy. Silly that's what we are! Climbing back up was pretty hard. I had quite a bit of a time catching my breath as the switchbacks back up were pretty steep and the air was a lot thinner than I'm used to. But it was lots of fun and if I was a bit stiff that night it was well worth it! At the cabin we ate Turkey Lasagna and dump cake. We played hearts with Leona being the big winner and then we played Trivia 20th anniversary and Arlene was the big winner.
End Part One
The cabin was great 3 bedrooms with double beds and a loft with two twins, two full baths, a full kitchen, a woodburning stove, and satellite TV. We decided since it was raining so much that we'd stay in the rest of the day, it was a little after 3:00 anyway. Leona made yummy mexican meatballs for dinner and we watched Battlestar Galaxia season premeier at Arlene's request. I thought it was pretty good. Arlene filled us in on all the bits we needed to know to follow.
Saturday dawned with a beautiful clear blue sky. We drove out to Bryce Canyon National Park. We checked out the visitors center and made phone calls as we had reception there. We drove to Fairview point and turned around to go back to Sunset point. We had a picnic of turkey sandwiches and then we started the Navajo and Queen's Garden Loop. It was pretty steep going down (and coming up for that matter!) I believe we descended and climbed a 32 story building! Absolutely beautiful! (If I figure out how to post my pictures I will!) We didn't see any animals but that's not a surprise us girls were pretty noisy. Silly that's what we are! Climbing back up was pretty hard. I had quite a bit of a time catching my breath as the switchbacks back up were pretty steep and the air was a lot thinner than I'm used to. But it was lots of fun and if I was a bit stiff that night it was well worth it! At the cabin we ate Turkey Lasagna and dump cake. We played hearts with Leona being the big winner and then we played Trivia 20th anniversary and Arlene was the big winner.
End Part One
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
October already!
Wow, I need to spend more time on my blog! Sorry y'all. I'm going to Utah on Friday for a weekend getaway with some friends. We're planning lots of hiking and hanging out. It should be lots of fun. We're planning on going to Bryce Canyon, Zion, and the Grand Staircase. I'll let you know how it goes!
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