day 21

after a long night of jumping on the trampolin, star gazing, and attempting to sleep out on the trampolin we awoke in the early afternoon to enjoy a bountiful feast of french toast and eggs! so delicious. we packed up our gear into greg's car and said our farewells to the beaulieu family. huge thank you's to the beaulieu's! they fed us like kings, cleaned us up, shuttled us around, took us swimming and hiking, as well as made us apart of their family (well i guess evan is apart of their family). ha so maybe just being super awesome! ron and michelle have huge hearts and am so glad evan connected with them and their kids are loads of fun and super nice. i was surprised to see a family of 7 cooperate so well. we then cruised on up to greg's cabin, which is awesome! his mom custom made it all and it even has a trap door! we sat around for a couple minutes and decided we'd rather go sightseeing at bryce canyon national park! took a little drive over there and got to hike around for a bit. it is so amazingly beautiful there, reminds me of star wars and the sand people. saw some major areas then headed to panguitch to get some dinner at a cowboy restaurant where we got some steak, potato salad, and i got yams. it was so good. headed towards the cabin but made a little detour at a lookout to take in the sunset. it was gorgeous and we were not even at the best vantage area but we made do. did some hiking and some picture taking. lots of fun running up and down the rocks. finished our day by relaxing on the couch and watching seven at gregs cabin. such a wonderful day and got some sleep to get ready for biking.

new article

just saw that they published my write up in the boise weekly, check it out! Boise based SF to Boston trip

updates coming soon

we are in hanksville, utah where we head towards blanding and it's about 160+ miles of nothing in between and its in the high 90s! have been camping for the past 4 nights and haven't had time/wifi to update. sorry everyone but updates to come. maybe in 3 days or hopefully less! take care and stay hydrated, i know we're trying.

day 20

today we got up early to pack things up and head to zion for one last adventure. we hit up an orchard market where we got pears, apples, and apple cider. they were all super good. greg, evo, and i decided to hike observation point which was a 8 mile roundtrip hike where we gained a couple thousand feet of elevation. it took us about 4 hrs and it was a really pretty hike. lots of switchbacks to some cool water tunnels carved through the mountain to more mountain switchbacks to a flattened out section at the top where we were led by a bright red trail among a lush forest of trees, flowers, and cactus'. once at the top we sat at the edge and checked out angels landing and then something on top of one of the cliffs that looked like a stonehenge. there were some birds that were swooping soooo fast by us it was kind of scary. we couldn't see them but could hear them whoosh and feel the wind from them. we snapped some pics of each of us then did a group pic and headed down the trail. we ran a good portion down the trail and once at the bottom we hit up the weeping rock. it was a waterfall down the rock face that dripped down. it was a nice day of hiking. we headed back on the bus to greg's car and we headed up to cedar city where we picked up evo's new rim. we came back to ron and michelle's to do a load of laundry, wash up, and upload the blog. evan and greg took the bikes up to greg's cabin in panguitch while i stayed behind to update the blog and they will head back and pick me up.

 

day 19

got up early to catch a ride up to zion; we got a ride with a german couple that was a couple campsites down from us. they were super nice and were traveling around the u.s. for 3 months. we talked about parks, germany, and their van/camper. we caught the free bus up to the grotto to start climbing angels landing. after an hour of switchbacks and scaling rocks with a chain we made it to the top. it was hot and beautiful. it was quite an adventure climbing the rocks up and on one side is a couple thousand foot drop and on the other is a couple hundred foot drop. wild stuff but not real scary! i was surprised. we stayed around at the top just soaking in the picturesque and sometimes fake looking view. so wild.

once at the bottom we hiked over to the emerald pools which weren't that interesting. it was so hot and the pools were more like stagnant water pockets, except for the upper pool which was like a pond but it was impressive that the little waterfall was dropping from a couple thousand feet up. it was super busy there with kids so we hiked back down. we then caught a bus to the brewery/restaurant where we tried a couple of their local brews and watched a hockey game. after some time there, we hitched a ride back to our campsite and read for a bit then built a fire and waited for our friend greg to show up. greg is a friend from college and he drove up from vegas to hangout with us for a couple of days. we met up with him and chitchatted around the fire until we went to sleep.

day 18

today we headed down to zion national park to spend a couple of days hiking around. once we got there all the campgrounds were full or super expensive ($30 a night for wifi and showers for tent camping). no thanks. we found out a free campsite 5 miles outside of town. we got dropped off and setup our tent. we were going to hitch a ride up to zion and hike a bit but wasn't sure about how late the shuttles run and the hours the park stayed open so we stayed around and walked the campsite next to the virgin river. evan kept getting bit by deer flies for some reason too. we read for a bit and napped. our camp neighbors rolled up and i started talking to them cause they are from eagle river! 30 minutes from where i live in alaska. super small world. they were really cool and invited us to a potluck with them and with some locals that live in the campgrounds. we made our soups and added it to the growing amount of food: steak, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, biscuits with gravy, and beans. it was so good and we just sat around the fire swapping stories. met butterfly, she lives in the campground and sometimes does massages; jon, he lives in a camper with a friend and he's been there for a handful of months; then there was the youngins (i can't remember their names but that was their nickname), they lived in a tent near jon and butterfly. we eventually went to bed.