06_24 to 07_01 2010 – Gnarly weather in Cancun, MX

After only 4 days at home, I headed for Cancun, MX for some R&R. I admit, I think Cancun is lame - it's full of screeching drunk and obnoxious Texans enjoying what seems to be their first beers and chain-smoking Europeans in tiny weenie-bikinis.

Lame, yeah, but there I was.

Why? It's cheap. I just wanted to get hot and tan and have a pool and a hotel room. If one can ignore the two major problems with the locale, it is an inexpensive way to re-charge.

So months ago, I made these plans - 8 days of sun, heat and tan. Dave didn't want to go so it's a solo trip. How could I have know it'd be the first friggin' tropical storm of the season. WAY early. WAY WAY early.

The flight into Cancun was epic. It took pathetic American Airlines 24+ hours to get me here. This included a night in the Dallas Westin. After yet another broken plane, we were flying over the Gulf of Mexico. We passed over Houston to get to the Gulf, far west of the oil spill....but wait, what was all that stuff I could clearly see from 37,000 feet up??? Oil. Lots of sheen and lots of gnarly looking arms of oily glob. How sad was that?

Once here, I wondered why I was so anxious to arrive. 40+mph winds, crazy rain, lightning. Blargh. A nightmare.

It did lend itself to a nice sunset on the first night. I was able to capture some of the color and beauty with the point and shoot.

The next several days SUCKED. No way to sugar-coat it. I spent most of my time in my room watching the one channel of (bad, very bad) TV. And going to the 'gym' in the hotel. In three short days I think I gave myself elbow tendinitis! I've done over 100 push-ups each day, 90+ lat pull downs, 50 curls, etc. You get the message. I've been so desperate as to run. RUN. Me. gack.

On Monday the sun came out and my sour attitude improved. I even got some tan lines. The sun was healing enough that I tolerated the 40+ mph winds even. :) For the first time in a couple of days I was able to walk the grounds of the hotel - well at least the parts that are open. The winds have managed to close a fair amount of the place. Poor palm trees!

Not sure why, maybe I could finally see them, but one day offered some really cool views of Magnificant Frigatebirds. I've seen these beautiful birds before, but never in these numbers. I couldn't accurately count them above 70. So gorgeous (sorry the photos just show tiny specks!). The following day, I counted over 120 of them! It was so cool!

In reality, only one day during my trip was okay though really windy. I can't complain though. I've been going to Mexico for R&R since 1983 and this is the first time the weather has really be terrible.

Next up is a trip to Houston where Dave and I can "enjoy" the same tropical storm/hurricane. Ha!

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06_22_2010 Flagstaff Mountain and our Anniversary Picnic

Though we'd celebrated our one-year anniversary on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, we wanted to continue our celebration at the same place we got married - Flagstaff Mountain. If you know me, then you know that I think one day to celebrate anything is not enough. If it's worth celebrating, take a week, a month, heck even two months.

For our anniversary, we opted to celebrate for three weeks. :)

It was a gorgeous evening for the picnic on Flagstaff. We gathered up some sushi, strawberries, some anniversary cake, and Champagne and headed up to the place in the field we exchanged vows. We were immediately greeted by several Western Tanagers (they are always a treat). There were not many wildflowers this year compared to last, but it was bug-free and gorgeous and an ideal way to spend our evening.



It's been a perfect year. I don't expect the next one to be any less amazing. :)

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06_16 to 20_2010 Escalante, Zion, Bryce (a little), and Capital Reef

After leaving the Grand Canyon, we drove through Escalante to Zion. It was my second trip there. Who knows how many times over the years Dave has come to climb in Zion. It may have been his first non-climbing trip there.

We managed to get really good camp sites while there making our stay extra enjoyable. We were able to walk to the shuttle bus and get anywhere we wanted. We hiked quite a bit, looked at birds, took photos and hiked some more.

We were especially entertained by several Summer Tanagers in the areas. These are some mischievous and funny birds! I always knew they were beautiful, but I didn't recognize their rascal-like personalities before. They made Dave work hard for any photos of them. It was a bit of an extra treat because according to several guides, they are "rare" in this area. Not so rare this year. They were everywhere.

At one point during this portion of our trip, we stopped at an area to see Calf Creek Falls. It was only 1/4 mile off the road we were told which suited our feet fine! We arrived to find that they were NOT 1/4 mile off the road, but 3 long miles off the road. Somehow the alleged 3 miles were longer than 3 real miles. Not sure who did the measurements out there. We decided to go for it. So without any preparation, and with flip flops, off we charged. It was worth it too. It's hard to tell in the photos, but we estimate that the falls were about 125'feet tall. And we mean real feet, not long feet. Haha.

The falls are spring fed so they flow year-round. Really beautiful place.



One day at Zion, we hiked to the top of Angel's Landing. I was happy my feet were a-okay with this even though it was quite hot. It's a pretty view along the way and a nice place to lounge around for a nap at top. One of the craziest sights on this hike were some of the other hikers. How the @#@#! did some of those people get as far as they did? A fall has deadly consequences, yet some of the folks didn't look able to hike across a parking lot into a store, and there they were gripped out of their head's near the top. I thought we'd surely see some people fall to their deaths. Happily we did not.

Not much else to add - just that we had a nice time during our unplanned style of vacation. And it was nice to get home too. Enjoy some of the other photos from this part of our trip.

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06_14 to 16_ 2010 Meteor Crater and Grand Canyon

The theme of today's blog entry is "big hole in the ground." We left Jack's Canyon on our first anniversary and headed north to Meteor Crater. I'd been as a child, and Dave had never been. I remember thinking it was really cool. I wondered if I would think the same now.

I did! It is a BIG hole in the ground! Dave liked it as well. We did the usual tourist things there by walking to the various overlooks. We did not do the "difficult hike" however - we weren't allow since we were wearing flip flops! Pretty funny given the "difficult hike" looked to be pretty flat and pretty darn short. Oh well, we still got all the great views.

After leaving Meteor Crater, we headed to perhaps the most famous big hole in the ground in the USA: The Grand Canyon. We'd both been several times there, but it was our first time there together. It's quite a scenic location for our first anniversary.

After setting up the pop-up, we got a bottle of wine, cheese and crackers and headed to a secluded area of the South Rim for an anniversary happy-hour while watching the sun set. One couldn't ask for a nicer way to spend the day.

The following day, we spent time chasing birds and looking at a variety of vistas. Dave took the time to hike down into the canyon about 3,000'. I didn't go - I wasn't sure what my feet would think of this and I definitely didn't want to be a rescue! As the sign in the canyon reminds hikers - down is optional, up is mandatory.

We saw many pretty birds - the most exciting being the California Condor. It is huge! And magnificent. How could I be certain I saw the California Condor? Ah, I saw field marks that identify it without question: ID tags on each wing. Pretty cool to see the birds given that they are barely hanging on in the wild.

Enjoy some of the other pretty sites of the canyon and the birds there.

The night of the 15th, we set up the camper on some very isolated public lands. It was dark when we did this. After setting up, Dave stepped outside to use the facilities. I don't think his first foot hit the ground when he heard, very close by, the guttural growling grunt of a large near-by something in the dark. He make a sound I doubt he realized he was capable of and was back in the camper in a millisecond.

His gut told him 'big bear' and we spent our night there believing it. Scary! No photos of this big beast.

We got up on the 16th and headed out. Our next stop is driving through Escalante National Park to spend a few days in Zion - this time NOT as climbers!

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