As promised earlier, here are pictures from our hikes in Zion National Park. Overall I’m pretty happy with the way they turned out. I read that sunset from the top of Angels Landing was very pretty, so that’s when we went, though I think it would have been even better just a bit earlier. You’ll see some very dark shadows in some of the pictures. And I wish I would have taken a full 360 degree panorama from the top, it was such an amazing view!

Once again, here is our honeymoon itinerary with all of the stops that I’ve planned. This includes our second sea day of the trip, which will take us to our final port on the tenth day. I will write about that final stop next week.

• Day One: Cannes / Monte Carlo / Nice
• Day Two: Livorno / Florence / Pisa
• Day Three: Rome
• Day Four: Naples / Capri / Sorrento / Pompeii
• Day Five: At Sea
• Day Six: Venice
• Day Seven: Venice
• Day Eight: Split, Croatia
• Day Nine: At Sea

Since I last wrote about Split, we decided what we are going to do there, at least part of the time. We are doing one of the excursions through the cruise line, the Off Road Safari. This excursion involves a little adventure, but still allows us to sit back and relax as we drive vehicles through the wilderness.

And while we were shopping for the excursion, we also added something else to our itinerary, a Mystery Dinner Theater. This will take place on the seventh day after our boat leaves Venice. Kim said that she has always wanted to go to one of these, and I was all for the included special Italian menu and wine. From what I’ve read online, this should be a good time. Now we just need to figure out what to do during our days at sea.

As mentioned yesterday, we spent Sunday roaming around Bryce Canyon National Park. Though this is usually grouped into the same sentence as Zion, the two parks are very different. Bryce Canyon is at a higher elevation than Zion, so cooler temperatures. Also Zion seems many more tourists than Bryce Canyon does, though you still need to try to avoid the massive tour buses. And while Zion actually is a canyon, Bryce really isn’t a canyon and is actually considered a natural amphitheater created by erosion of the land plateau.

I’ve heard that sunrise is an amazing sight to see at Bryce, and though we tried our hardest to get there early, we didn’t make it until 8:30 or so. Still the light was pretty low, and we immediately headed for a couple of the overlooks to take in the sights and get some pictures. Soon enough, we started encountering larger crowds, and decided that it was time to get away from most others with a hike down into the amphitheater and surrounding areas.

We started at the very crowded Sunset Point and quickly moved through the switchbacks and down into the hoodoos. This trail is called the Navajo loop and it leads down through Wall Street, a very narrow slot canyon. Once we reached the much less crowded floor, we headed further out on the Peek-A-Boo trail, with excellent views of the Wall of Windows along the way.

Once we completed the Peek-A-Boo loop we opted to skip the remaining Navajo loop that we had not done yet, and instead started the Queens Garden trail. This trail leads to one very famous hoodoo named after Queen Victoria, which it supposedly resembles. Once we arrived at the sign marking Queen Victoria, I must admit that I didn’t see it. I saw the rock in question, but didn’t see how it could look like the Queen. The sign does say that the formation is continually changing, so perhaps it is not as defined as it once was?

After seeing the Queen, we finished off the hike by continuing up the trail to Sunrise Point. From there it was a quick half mile or less hike back to the car at Sunset Point. All things considered this trail was an awesome way to see the park, though if I did it again I would likely skip the Queens Garden section. The highlight of the entire trip is definitely the Peek-A-Boo loop. And even though this park is amazingly beautiful, I may have been a bit spoiled at Zion the previous day.

Southwestern Utah on Dwellable

Early Saturday morning Kim and I headed for the airport to catch a flight to Salt Lake City, where I am currently sitting in a hotel room doing some work. Kim has been working the past few days in and around SLC. But before all of the work, we took the weekend to head down to southern Utah and check out Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. You may recall our trip last year to both Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, which are also in southern Utah but on the eastern side. Our trip this time took us into the western side of southern Utah.

After our arrival, we quickly got down to Zion as fast as we could. Once on the shuttle system, we immediately headed for the far end of the park and to the Riverside Walk. This is a simple paved trail that runs along the Virgin River. This wasn’t our goal of the hike though, as at the end of this trail is the Zion Narrows. Hiking the narrows requires you to actually wade through the river, which is surrounded by a narrow canyon on both sides. There is a full or multiple day, sixteen mile hike that you can do in the narrows, but we opted to just see a mile or so of the end. Since it was so hot out in the middle of the afternoon, walking through the chilly water was quite nice even though it was thigh deep at times.

After the Narrows, we headed for the trail that would lead us to Angels Landing, which is regarded as one of the best hikes in any national park. I wanted to wait until later in this day to avoid any potential crowds and the extreme heat, which worked pretty well. The hike starts off flat and paved, but soon enough enters switchback after switchback as you start climbing the near 1500 feet in elevation gain. After two miles you reach Scout Lookout, which seems to be an excellent place to view the canyon, but just wait until you ascend the last half mile out to Angels Landing.

This last section of the trail can be seen from Scout Lookout, and at first it scared the crap out of me. You can tell that parts of the trail are just a couple feet wide in parts, with steep cliffs on either side. Also some of the climb up the ridge is very steep and the park system has installed many chains along the route to assist with the climb. Being slightly afraid of heights, I wasn’t sure I could go on from the landing, so we sat there for a bit. Eventually a large butterfly flew past us, right along the ridge and up toward the landing. After my brother passed away, butterflies have held a special meaning to my family, so this was a sign to me that I should get off my butt and finish the hike. And I’m so glad that we did. The view from the top of Angels Landing is absolutely breathtaking, and words cannot describe it.

I hope that some of my pictures turned out well, and I will be sure to sort through them as soon as I get back to Denver. I would have to say that the Angels Landing hike was one of the coolest things I have ever done, if not the best. And overall, Zion is such an amazing place to visit. Even though I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, I’ve been told that Zion is the better of the two.

Washington on Dwellable

I attended my second etown taping on Friday night, again at the Boulder Theater. I know the last time I attended one of these tapings I said that I might not ever go again, but I’ve decided that if I enjoy both performing artists enough that it is then worth it. This new criteria was met Friday evening as both Ray LaMontagne and Ingrid Michaelson were scheduled to perform.

Going into my second taping, I knew exactly what to expect and wouldn’t be disappointed when only hearing seven or eight songs from each of the performers. And unlike the last time, I actually enjoyed the interviews this time. Both performers are hilarious in their own unique way. First, LaMontagne is a very quite and reserved speaker, which is completely opposite of him as a vocalist. Even though it was tough to hear what he was saying at times, he had plenty of jokes and humor to throw into the mix. My favorite was when the host said that Ray’s next album would be out in a week. He replied, “no its not,” not realizing that the show is not live and when it gets played on the radio it will be one week before the album drops. He went on to crack a series of jokes about pretending the album was coming out soon and being on a make believe interview.

Michaelson is equally a talented musician, but is quite a goof as evident in some of her lyrics. While not performing, she would entertain the crowd with little jokes and stories that had everyone in the room laughing, especially one gentleman in the opposite corner, with a deep and loud laugh. Throughout the night, her one liners had the host (and crowd) enjoying every minute of her stage time.

Overall, the taping was a success in my mind and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Knowing what I was getting into, and not having my expectations too high, made it easy to have a good time. I think I’ll attend any of these in the future that have two performers that I’d like to see. It worked this time.

The Olympics start tonight. I’m pumped and have already set the DVR to record everything. I wonder how long it will take before it gets full, especially since I’ll be away this weekend and early next week. Go USA!

I know it’s been a long time coming, but here’s another song of the moment. Michael Franti & Spearhead are no strangers to the sotm, having two other songs be featured in the past. They have a new album coming out on 9/9/08 titled All Rebel Rockers and from what I’ve heard this is a must buy. This song in particular has been stuck in my head since seeing the band perform at the Mile High Festival, and I’m so happy too now have a studio quality version of it. I highly encourage you to download “Say Hey (I Love You)” now and buy the album when it’s officially released.

I think I’ve become addicted to the library. Though I haven’t been to one since college, I decided to get a library card so I could check out the book Into the Wild after watching the movie. I’m nearly finished reading the book, and though I feel it’s a good read, I think I partially ruined it by watching the movie first.

However, I’ve now discovered that I can get travel guides from the library as well. Yesterday I went to two different libraries to put together quite a large stack of books detailing European or Mediterranean cruises, as well as some books about hikes in some southern Utah parks that Kim and I hope to visit this coming weekend. It’s a good thing I’m riding the train back and forth from work for most of the remaining week, so that I can start reading through these new books.

If you have to become addicted to something, it might as well be something good for you.

Sunday morning came early and we headed into the mountains to go out for a hike. My original plan was to hike to the summit of Mount Edwards, and at first we were well on our way. That was until we parked the car and started walking. At that point we forgot the directions in the car, and missed the actual trailhead that we needed to take to go up to Argentine Pass and then over to Edwards. Not knowing that we missed the trail we wanted to take, we actually ended up walking right to the bottom of Edwards at probably close to 13,000 feet. But then we didn’t see a very good route to take up to the top, and the storm clouds quickly closed in. However, I still managed to get some really good photos.

We celebrated my birthday on Friday evening. My birthday was four months ago, but due to multiple reschedulings, we weren’t able to use my gift from Kim until then. She bought seats for both of us to attend a cooking class at the Cook Street School of Fine Cooking. Originally we were going to take a grilling class, but after missing that class we opted for an Thai cooking class.

First we were briefed on all of the different dishes we were going to prepare and enjoy over the next three hours. From there we were all actually able to get our hands dirty and involved in each phase of multiple dishes. For both Kim and I, it was great to learn some knife skills first, and then put them to use cutting and chopping all sorts of fresh ingredients. Later, we were involved in tasting and recommending additions that needed to be made to each dish. And finally, we got to sit and enjoy all of the dishes the group of around fifteen of us prepared.

Though we lost the recipe book that was provided to us for each of the dishes, I think the overall knowledge we gained will help both of us cook better than before. Now all I need is a decent chef’s knife to use as the techniques we learned are likely not going to work with what I’m using currently.