The Big Blue House!

As we were on our way from Canyonlands to Salt Lake City, Utah, we had a conversation about where we would stay once we got to the city. We have friends who've had AWESOME experiences using www.AirBnB.com, a website where people list rooms for rent in their homes, so we decided we'd look into it, and boy am I glad we did, because we ended up renting a room here, at this gorgeous 1903 fully restored historic home, minutes from Temple Square in the heart of Salt Lake City!

The couple who own the house were soooo welcoming to Aaron and I!  It was our first time doing something like this and weren't sure what to expect... but the BEST hosts!  We sat around together talking about travel, life, careers, photography, family, dogs you name it!  They welcomed us into their home as if we were their own kids, which was so special!  The wife, Sharon, loves to garden and has beautiful flowers growing up the side of her home!

Okay, so here's the tour!  First of all, this house used to be divided into 7 different apartments at one point in time - SEVEN!  When the two of them bought it in 2010 it was bare bones and was actually in the process of being restored... but everything you see from now on is ALL THEM!  They chose every single detail of the home and I was IN LOVE!  I sat here, on this couch quite a bit, blogging and catching up on e-mails with Aaron and even tried my hand at the piano a few time! 

This staircase was probably my favorite part of the whole house!  At the middle, just past Cleo the cat, it splits and curves to the right and the left, depending on which direction you wanna go! :)

... and here's our room - "The Big Room", as they call it!  They actually have 2 different bedrooms available on www.AirBnB.com on the 2nd floor, and we had actually rented the smaller one for $50 a night, but when we got there she upgraded us to the big one ($65 a night), for free, because no one had booked it yet - SCORE FOR US!

Not only was the bed THE MOST COMFORTABLE bed we'd slept on in 5 years, the balcony was HUGE with a perfect view of the mountains, there were two white hotel robes hanging in the closet for us, Cleo (their kitty) hung out on the bed with us both nights, there was a giant flat screen TV, and there was a full coffee bar set up on our dresser!  I felt like we were in a 5 star resort!

The bathroom was spacious, clean, and stocked with fancy shampoo, conditioner, hand wash, lotion and even a hair dryer!  Sharon didn't forget ANY details when she designed this bathroom for her house guests!

As if that wasn't enough, Sharon laid out a FULL breakfast for us every morning: artisan bagels, fresh fruits, homemade zuchinni bread, fresh orange juice, yummy coffee and tea, and delicious granola!  They actually both sat with us for breakfast both mornings, which we loved (traveling can be lonely sometimes)!!!   They were such a neat couple! I'm kicking myself that I didn't get a photo of them to post!

Oh, and I can't possibly leave out Fenix!  He's the sweetest old lab, who I just absolutely adored!

I'll get to more of what we did in Salt Lake in my next posts... I just thought this place was too awesome not to have it's own post!

Thanks again Sharon and Steve... and AirBnb!

Family photo shoot!

While we were in Arizona last week, we had the opportunity to shoot a family session with one of our favorite lifestyle photographers, Andrew, from Andrew Jade Photography!!

Arches National Park

We woke up with the sun (welcome to camping!), packed the 4runner and jumped on the HWY towards Arches National Park!  To be honest, I think both of us were a little sick of camping and sleeping in cold tents and warming up with campfires and then SMELLING like campfires ALL DAY LONG, so we were hoping to find a cheap motel in Moab, Utah!  Sadly, even the Motel 6 is $90 a night and we couldn't stay there anyway because it was fully booked!  :(  So, we drove around to all the different campgrounds and only found 1 available site... ONE, but it was right on the river!  And, well, it was only kind of available.  There was a handwritten sign on the front post that said, "We'll share the site!"  Which, actually sounded like a nice idea... but we nixed it and decided to try and see all we could of Arches in one day, then drive over to Canyonlands National Park (about 35 miles East) and stay there for the night. 

So, we spent a couple hours in a cafe in downtown Moab, drinking coffee and catching up on e-mails!

Then, around 4:00pm, we grabbed our cameras and took a little hike to see all the arches!

We hiked over to Balanced Rock, North Window, South Window, and Turret Arch, all of which were equally incredible!

After the sun went down, we made the trek over to Canyonlands National Park and spent the night, sleeping sitting up, in the front seats of the car (EEEkkkk!), and woke up at 5:30am to catch the sunrise at one of the most beautiful spots in Canyonlands. Sorry, there aren't any photos of that because I continued to sleep in the car while Aaron went out to watch the sunrise! :)

Next stop is Salt Lake City, where we've booked 2 nights at a bed and breakfast in a restored 1903 home in a beautiful downtown neighborhood called The Avenues!  We can't wait to have a REAL BED, a warm home, people to talk to (camping can get lonely), a yummy breakfast, a hot shower, and a new city to explore!

Bryce Canyon National Park!

Have you ever been so cold you’d actually jump into a fire to warm up?!  That’s how it felt when we pulled into Bryce Canyon National Park!  

Buuurrrrrr!  It was so cold that we could barely pull ourselves out of the car to set up camp at North Campground (site 60, AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME)!  The back of our site actually backed up to the canyon, with THIS view!  Whew Bryce!  I’m in love!

Okay, I'm more in love with this guy... but you know what I mean!

We went ahead and reserved our campsite by throwing $15 in an envelope and throwing it in a deposit box at the front of the campground, then drove into town for lunch and a chance to warm up!  After lunch, we put our big kid pants on (and all the warm clothes we had, which wasn't much) and set off on the Queens Garden & Navajo Loop, a hike that descends 55 stories into the bottom of the canyon and then back up!  Helloooooo leg workout!   

We started here at Sunrise Point, which as you can see was at 8015 ft above sea level. In case you're wondering, this wasn't great for my effort to attempt to appear super fit while climbing... I was panting like a parched dog most of the way!  It's REALLY hard to breath at 8000 ft!

Besides the fact that I was panting, I did take in the beauty of the place, as best I could!  It's like nothing I've ever seen and dare I say, EVEN BETTER than the Grand Canyon itself!  

Check out the balancing rock!  It's incredible how the earth has formed itself into this over millions of years!

 A little tree climbing never hurt anyone!

Okay, I'm just gonna slip this in here, because, well, I think it's fairly genius!  So, you know when you're hiking and your hands feel dirty and grimy so you don't wanna touch the trail mix you packed to snack on? Well, empty a water bottle out and pour it in there!  Great right?!  We have a bottle of corn nuts in the car too!  Feel free to steal my idea, or pin it! lol

Oh, and in case you ever happen to have your trail mix with you when you see a "wishing rock" formation and are worried your heavy rock won't sit atop, throw an M&M on there!  It's sure to work and your wishes will come true!

Time for an instagram!

Me and "Thors Hammer"!  ... and yes, it was STILL FREEZING!

I think the pictures speak for themselves in this blog post!  Bryce is pretty incredible!

The rest of the day was spent showering and doing laundry at the General Store, (1 load of clothes had to go through the dryer 4 times!  The only good part about that was I got through 3 episodes of Glee while I waited!), cooking dinner, and sleeping! Our plan was to stay here in Bryce for a couple more days, but the cold weather is unbearable!  It got down to 20 degrees today!  So, tomorrow  morning, we're headed North East to Arches National Park, which also happens to be in Utah!  Who knew Utah was so beautiful?!

Zion National Park!

Next stop on our Great American Roadtrip, as we like to callit, was Zion National Park in Southern Utah!  Luckily it was only a 2 hour drive from the Grand Canyon, but Beef Jerkywas still essential for the driver! J

Our goal is to get a photo next to EVERY state sign that wepass!   I’m pretty sure this set of picks will be my favorite of the whole trip! “I have to jump.  Their slogan is:Life Elevated!” – Aaron
(Aaron also swears he likes girls, in case there was any concern after viewing these photos! lol) The middle one is my absolute favorite... The stance of an 8 year old boy! I was dying!

Sitting about 20 feet from the Utah sign, was a smallelementary style desk with bowls full of petrified wood crafts and a donationbox, for anyone wanting to take one home. We always try to bring something home with us from everywhere we visitto throw on our future Christmas tree, so when Aaron saw the “petrifiedmashmallows” he convinced me that that’d be our Utah souvenir!  I’m not sure I really had a choice, butwhatever!  Now we’ll always remember ourUtah adventures when we adorn our petrified marshmallow on our tree!

We made it to Zion National Park around 3:00pm…

… and set up camp at Watchman Campground, # C29!

Aaron got right to cooking dinner for us…

…. while I shamelessly read about why Sean is no longer a virgin, Kim is lonely, and Reese got arrested… you know, all the important stuff that the United States has to offer! 

Yum, right?!  We couldn't just eat hot dogs for every meal now could we?!  I love when A offers to do the dinner for us! 

At around 2am, the wind was ROARING through the campsite andthe giant tree above our tent was making creaking noises that lead both of us to believe it was about to fallright on us!  So, we moved our sleepingbags to the car and slept sitting straight up! As luck would have it, we woke up to no wind and a perfectly standingtree!  Lol  We actually couldn’t stay at this sitebecause it was already booked for the night, so we drove over to SouthCampground and moved EVERYTHING to campsite # 83, right on the river with a flawlessview of The Watchman Mountain!  YESPLEASE!  (Camping in National Parks iseither first come first serve or reserve 6 months in advance, which can bekinda tricky for us, since we can only do the first come first serve sites…hence the moving camp this morning!)

Zion National Park has an awesome FREE shuttle system thattakes you to the base of a bunch of different hikes throughout the park!   

So, we jumped on it and headed to the horsecoral, which was on the way to the trail for the Emerald Pools.

Don’t be fooled by what looks to be a sweet horse!  The darn thing tried to bite me, twice!

There are 3 Emerald Pools, all at different levels of thecanyon!  We hiked to all three, and wereglad we did!  The hike from the bottompool to the upper Emerald Pool was rocky and sandy!  I never realize there could be that much sandup so high!  It was like taking a strollthrough Huntington Beach!

The water literally falls from the cliffs, over a cove inthe mountainside.

It was hot, hot, hot today and we were both starving by theend of the hike, so instead of going back to camp, we just walked over to theZion Lodge (the original accomodation in Zion!) and had lunch in the grass, under a giant shade tree, just outsidethe lodge.

We took the shuttle over to the stop between the Lodge and the campsite to the Museum, where we watched a really interesting 15 minute movie all about Zion, how it was formed over the years, all the different viewpoints, hikes, etc.  I was just happy to be in the air condition if I’m being completely honest!

We decided to skip the shuttle and take a mile walk back to camp along the Pa’rus Trail.  It was here, along the easiest walk we did all week, that I twisted my ankle and fell flat on my face down a set of stone stairs!  Aaron said it was like I did it in slow motion.  lol We both had a nice laugh about it, brushed my shins and hands off, picked up my pride and kept on trekking!  Lol 

We got back to camp around 5:00pm and the sun was STILL SHINNING and I was melting in the heat, so we walked over to the Virgin River to cool off and read under the shade trees! J

We had heard that the bridge next to Canyon Junction was a stunning site to watch the sunset, so we drove over there around 7pm and hung out with the other 5 or so photographers who were there to capture the same shot.  I, personally, am much more of a “photo journalist” than a “sunset/sunrise/landscape enthusiast”,  so I left capturing the PERFECT sunset shot up to Aaron and snapped this one before setting my camera down to chat about travel, photography and life with the other people around. 

 

I happened to think that looking in the opposite direction was almost just as stunning!

We got back to the campsite around 8:30, made dinner andwent straight to bed!  It’s funny howheat’ll suck all the energy from ya!

We were so excited to do an 8+ mile hike called The Narrows,where you literally tread through the Virgin River, through steep, gorgeous, canyonson either side!   It was the hike A and Iwere most excited about doing in Zion, but TODAY it was closed due to high andrushing waters.  So, instead, we did theRiverside Walk trail, which was way too easy, but beautiful none the less.

Eventually, the Riverwalk trail leads to the beginning of The Narrows! 

This is what "roughin' it" looks like!!! lol

  

Next stop was Weeping Rock a short steep hike that ends at arock alcove with 1,000+ year old water, dripping through the rock (sorry you can't really tell)!  

It’s pretty amazing to think that that waterhas been traveling through the mountain for all those years!

… even flowers are blooming from within the stone!  It’s such a beautiful place!

We were kinda feeling like losers for doing such easy hikesin a place where people are doing hikes like Angel’s Landing, which has 1,400ft drops on either side of a narrow 3 foot pathway and a single chain to hangonto for dear life, so we knew we needed to up the ante (sp?) a bit and headedfor Canyon Overlook, which overlooks part of the Zion Valley!  The hike ends at the top of the arch in themountain in the background, which doesn’t look THAT high in this picture, but a5,300 foot drop is high ENOUGH for me!

Yep, this was more like it!

I had to keep reminding Aaron that no picture was worth dying for when he was setting his tripod right on the ledge!  The guy gets so darn close to the edge and it was so windy, I thought he might blow off the side of the cliff and down that 5,300 foot drop!!!   I know he’s being careful, but I can’t help but tense up and freak out a little.  I think he secretly kinda liked that I was so worried about him.

I mean look at this view!!!

I much preferred being about 15 feet from the edge, on thislittle rock. J

But, I did brave up a bit and get 5 feet or so from the edgeto enjoy the view with A!

 

And for that, I was pretty proud of myself!  ... and every proud moment deserves a jump, right?!

We were feeling great about our stay in Zion, but were readyand eager to move on to our next stop, Bryce Canyon National Park!  You’ll just have to wait to hear all aboutthat till later! J 

Ciao from Utah!