Alright you, I feel that we’re good enough friends by now so you’re gonna stick with me through this…
My Summer Vacation
by: TwoWheeledWorld
8 days in about 3 minutes:
Day 1: Hello, Vegas; goodbye civilization…
Day 2: Puddle jumpers and private landing strips…
Day 3: We did what anyone would do when they’re 80 miles from the nearest paved road on a 2500 acre dude ranch. We rode horses, and we shot guns, and we practiced the YMCA just above the rim of the “Big Ditch”…
Day 4: Choppered out’ the ranch, and down to the mighty Colorado where we hopped on the next mode of transportation…
…To a place where the water temp was 50 degrees, and the air temp was 103…
…In the evening we set up our cots on the rocks just above the river, and toasted to no one falling into the rapids, before sleeping out under the stars…
Day 5: Thirty-to-forty miles down the Colorado river, view after view of Grand Canyon splendor, 20 ft cliff jumps, and other general horseplay…
…And again, set up our cots on the beach, ate like kings and queens,
…And toasted to the day…
Day 6: One more day on the river would spit us out at Lake Mead. Jettisoned the floaters, and road tripped up to Zion National Park…
Day 7: Hiked the fabled Angel’s Landing. Towards the top the trail narrows to 3 ft wide in some places with a 1000′ vertical cliff on one side, and a 1200″ cliff on the other. Yup – straight to the top of this knife-edge rock you see below… Chains to hold on to? Yes please. Fear of heights? This ain’t for you…
Half mile from the top – you can see the tiniest flecks of people on the right side of this picture below…
The Mrs., flirting with an untimely end…
Day 8: The Narrows. Trodding through shin-to-waist-deep water with 500ft red sandstone cliff walls above. No way out – and not a good place to be during a flash flood. Fortunately for us we hadn’t seen a cloud for like 5 days…
Feeling like ants in the water below…
Day 9: back to reality. You ready to book yet? Jeez I’d go back in a heartbeat. If you are, try these:
http://www.nps.gov/zion/index.htm
Neither words nor pictures can do it all justice…
Aaaaahhhhhh…. man, I need a vacation from that vacation.
Next up: U.S. National Marathon Mountain Bike Championships, Breckenridge, CO.
Distance: 50 miles
Elevation gain: 10,000+ft
Time I expect to be suffering: 4 hrs, 15 minutes
Calories I expect to burn: 4900
Calories I expect to ingest: 1000
Times I expect to yell “track please” to JHK: Zero.
