southern utah trip...

this first picture below is a lighthouse that's right on lake havasu. my cousin and her boyfriend came over from phoenix two weekends ago and they took me out on their boat. it was wonderful! i got to see a side of havasu that i don't normally see, since i'm living and working here and not so much a part of the lake scene. there were so many boats all over the place and lainey and kevin were kind enough to answer my millions of questions about them and everything else. they took me on a ride down the river and then afterwards they took me to kevin's parents summer home, a fifth wheel on the lake. he has a wonderful family and they had me over for dinner and then his step mom took me around the park and i got to see the community that they live in. it was a great weekend!

to continue, this past weekend i got a stint of 5 days off! i know, i know, you are all jealous. :) i had a bit of deliberation over what to do. i first was thinking about catching a ride to safford, arizona to visit grandparents. and then i was just going to stay here in lake havasu city since everyone else was leaving. and then i decided to rent a car and head up to southern utah and play around there for the long weekend. luckily, my brother-in-laws family lives in cedar city, utah and they were kind enough (as always) to let me stay at their house for the time that i was up there. on the drive north i found a little public (and free!) beach on the colorado river, right below hoover dam, called willow beach. it's quite pleasant and not at all crowded. my thought was to do a little swimming, an action that didn't really come through. sure, i had every intention on going swimming, but as soon as i got in the water my only thought was to get out as quick as i could. yeah, i think there were ice cubes floating in that river. it was colddddddd! it was nice and hot outside, so i would sit and read my book and then when i got unbearably hot i would jump in the river, thinking that i might be able to stand it. not a chance. but that little jump was quick enough to cool me down in a hurry. when i pulled up to the beach i had thought it odd that there were many people out having picnics, yet no one was really swimming. now i understand why - hehe! even with the chill, it was wonderful to find out that little bit of paradise.

on thursday i played tourist and did the whole zion national park thing. i do have to say that i was quite disenchanted with zion. it was a total tourist trap with way too many people. sure, it was incredibly beautiful but it was kind of hard to get away from the crowds. i managed to find some places where i found a bit of seclusion. i would just pull over on the side of the road and just start walking across the sandstone and try to get "lost". it worked! i lost the crowds and was able to take some amazing pictures of the rock. it really is quite beautiful, as the pictures below can attest to. i found this type of sandstone (below) more pleasing than the huge towering cliffs. i just really liked the shadows which brought out the contrasting and elegant lines and layers, so i took a lot of pictures of these.



later that afternoon i wandered up a less traveled zion road and came to a little town called kolob creek. i told shawn that i could definitely live here. it's perfect! he can have his horses, i can have my huge lawn, we'd have a lake down the road. it'd be perfect! and we'd have to provide our own electricity, since we wouldn't be on the grid. sounds like a dream, huh? so these pictures below are primarily so shawn can see our future home town.

and then here's more privately owned land just next to zion that would also be perfect to live in.


on friday i did a hike to kolob arch. it's in a less traveled section of zion so i decided to enjoy the solitude. i did encounter a few people on the trail including an older couple from austria. many of you know that i absolutely love talking and meeting new people, which i got to do in plenty on this trip.

so i didn't make it all the way to the correct vantage point to view the arch. i only went 8 or 9 miles instead of the full 12 miles. tyson's sister, krystal was playing volleyball for the utah summer games and i did want to go watch her play that evening, so i didn't complete the hike, but i did well enough to be able to see the arch.

on the way back i kept stopping next to all the little streams and took lots of pictures of them. i absolutely love water and anything to do with it and i kept thinking that if this stream was bigger than there would be some amazing swimming holes.


hamming it up for the camera...


and on my final day, saturday, i headed north to fish lake national forest. i didn't really have too much of an agenda and so went where the wind took me. i found some cool little nooks and places that i'd never been before and, indeed, i had never heard of fish lake national forest before so it was a fun and new adventure. when i was getting ready to head south, back to cedar city, i found a hieroglyph place called fremont indian state park. it's awesome! i have never seen hieroglyphs before and so took a lot of time looking at all the hieroglyphs that i could stand and i still want to go and see more!

this whole place was chalked full of them and i got description papers for a lot of the markings. i have to admit that i think that some of the interpretations are pretty far out there, products of fertile imaginations, but i don't know that i could do too much better in coming up with the translations. maybe there's a wind of change blowing that's telling me to change professions. hmmm....


here's me standing in front of some of the mini cliffs that some of the drawings were on.

and again the cliffs. oooh, how pretty!

and to conclude my trip report, i just wanted to include two photos that describe some of the communities that i drove through.


yes, this sign does say "watch children act like monkeys". haha!

and if you are having a hard time distinguishing what exactly is hanging on the tree, they are shoes. many, many shoes.