John's Visit

So the last week or so has been really busy, but really fun. John came for a week-long visit and we were able to do a lot of cool stuff while he was here. I'm trying to figure out how to put together a slide show because I have lots of pictures, but here are a few of the highlights:

The first day, we kayaked around Bullfrog Bay for a couple of hours. A guy I work with has a bunch of kayaks and he lets people take them out whenever they want, which is really cool. The pictures from that day are on a waterproof camera I will have to develop sometime.

The next day, Thursday, we went hiking in Goblin Valley. This was actually "work" for me, but John drove separate in his truck and he and I hiked together. I have been to Goblin Valley a couple of time before, as a kid, so it's been a long time.

It was a lot of fun because we didn't really have a trail to stay on and we could just hike among the rocks and "goblins" and the view at the top was really cool. On the way home, we took a little detour into Capitol Reef to check out Freemont Falls, which was also a cool spot. I get to go explore there more next week for another work trip.

On Saturday we did a little boating in the morning so I could learn to drive the other kind of boat we have (for work), but it was good to get out on the water for a little bit. Later in the day, we decided to drive up the Burr Trail, which is a mostly unpaved road between Bullfrog and Capitol Reef. We turned off to drive out to the Halls Creek overlook.
When we got out there, we could see these arches across the Creek and a marked trail, so we (ok, it was John's idea) decided to take the trail and go see the arches up close. It was a pretty intense hike, and it ended for us when we came upon this cold pool of water. We weren't 100% sure we were even in the right canyon and we didn't want to leave our packs, so we didn't actually make it to the arches. I was wearing my chacos, but John had on hiking boots so we weren't really prepared for the water part of the hike. I now wish I would have just swam in my clothes and at least checked out where the trail went from there, but the water was really, really, cold.


After we hiked back out and were to higher ground again, we could see the arches again and we were in the right canyon. Next time (although I doubt there will be a next time) we will be better prepared. It really was the worst hike I have done in a long time, mostly just because it is a steep uphill climb the whole way back and by then I was sunburned and tired because it was so hot. I think we learned a good lesson though, but we also had a lot of fun (because we didn't die).

On Sunday, we took a boat out wakeboarding and waterskiing in the morning. It was a lot of fun, even though we were a little sore from our adventure the day before. John learned how to jump the wake and I tried wakeboarding for the first time. I did get up, a couple of times, but it was really awkward. Mostly I didn't know what to do once I got up and I had a hard time going straight. I
tried something new though, so I'm proud of myself, but I'll still probably stick to waterskiing in the future because it's easier and more fun for me. We spent the afternoon exploring the lake a little and swimming. It was a tiring day, but I love being on the water!
We spent John's last couple of days here mostly relaxing and just hanging out. I was really happy he could come visit and we had so much fun.

On the boat in Forgotten Canyon