Weekend recap - Colorado trip

Last week, Sean asked me if I would be interested in joining his family in a little camping trip. I hadn't been camping yet this summer so I agreed to go.

Mid-morning on Friday, Sean told me that his mom wanted to leave by 4. So I made arrangements to get off work early and I rushed over to their house, showing up at 3:30. The first thing Sean's mom said when I walked in the door was, "Oh, you must not know our family very well. 4 doesn't really mean 4. It didn't take long to figure out that I was the first one there, the food hadn't been packed yet and Sean wasn't even out of the shower.

After everyone had finally arrived and we had finished packing up the trailer and truck, Sean's dad came out with a map. "Where do we want to go?" he asked. I was surprised that this had not been decided already. Right then, I knew I was in for an interesting trip.

After some discussion, it was decided that we would head for Grand Junction, Colorado and look for somewhere to camp at the Colorado National Monument. We finally got on the road around 6:30. After several quick stops, we found a suitable campground spot at just after 1:30 in the morning. We were quite noisy setting up camp. I was surprised, but glad that we did not wake anyone up in the neighboring camp spots. Exhausted, we all quickly fell asleep.

When we woke up the next morning, it was decided to pack up and see some sites before moving on.

The view from the campsite

Sean and me. Marrdy, I've got my "Mrs. Rogers" t-shirt on!

They've named the rocks, see them on the chart...

...and now in a photograph.

Sean's dad

After lunch in a park in Grand Junction, we took off for Montrose. Later that afternoon, we found ourselves in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. After setting up camp in a campground there, we took off for some more site-seeing.

Trying to capture the dizzying height...

About 7700 feet above sea-level...

When heading back to camp, we saw a doe and two fawn walking through the campground. I wish that I had been quick enough with the camera to get a photo of them. I'm no animal-lover, but they were cute! For dinner, Sean's mom made the best tin foil dinners that I had ever had. I don't know what she did, but they were delicious and perfectly cooked. After dinner, we did what any group camping would do; we set up a Sean's laptop and settled in the tent trailer to watch Bourne Ultimatum. We were all so tired though that none of us lasted very long.

The next morning we packed up and finished looking around the Black Canyon before heading back to Utah.




On the long drive home, we listened to The Sigma Protocol by Robert Ludlum, the author of the Bourne Series. It was actually a really great book. If you like the Bourne books, I would definitely suggest reading this book. We arrived home very late Sunday night, so I had no time for anything else this weekend.

I think Sean's dad said it best when he said, "For not having a lick of a plan, this turned out to be a pretty great trip." I couldn't agree more. I had never really heard much about either of these national parks, but they were definitely great sites to see. If you're in the area, I would definitely suggest checking them out. The photos I took really don't do it justice, even if you click on them and look at them in full resolution. I wish that we had had more time to spend there, more than just the weekend.

Sean's family was great to go on a trip with. They are all such pleasant, kind, loving people. I'm glad they invited me to come along with them. I hope we all do it again, next time with all of the siblings.

I hope your weekend was as lovely as mine!

New Goal... maybe...

So I was thinking...
like I do sometimes...
all the time actually...

I do a lot of shopping in my dinky little Utah mall. I do a lot of shopping online.
Maybe I should save up my money all summer and take a shopping/blackjack trip to Vegas at the end of the summer.

I could try not to shop all summer.
Really, I could.

Who is with me?

Weekend recap - Lake Powell Edition

I'll try and summarize my weekend/trip to Lake Powell for you as best as I can. Obviously a 5-day trip leaves a lot to talk about.

Steph, Teri, Sean and I rode together in Sean's car. We watched Season 8 of Friends on the way so the trip went by fairly quick because we were entertained. There was a slight delay when my dad got a flat on the boat trailer, but that was quickly swapped out for the spare and they were on their way again in no time.

We arrived at the Bullfrog Marina at probably 8pm on Thursday. It took two trips across the lake to get all of our people and and our junk across the lake to the beach we decided to camp at. It was pretty chilly outside so we had to hurry to set up camp, get a fire going and get dinner ready before it got too dark. We set our tents up way up on the beach, back towards the trees/bushes.

Saturday I woke up with hopes of getting out on the lake, but the weather had slightly different plans. It was overcast with a little wind all morning, but towards noon it started to clear up just a bit so we decided to go out on the lake. By the time we got out there, it was already starting to cloud up again. Sean and my dad got some good time out on the wakeboard, but partway through Steph's ride, it started to rain. We started to head back for camp, but we didn't make it before it started to hail! It was so crazy. We got off the boat and into our tents just in time for the lightning to start up. I took a nap and when I woke up, the weather had cleared quite a bit. We went out on the water again that afternoon.

[Me, Lindy and Annie with Teri sticking her hand in.]

[Steph and I]

[Sean and I]

[Lisa and I]

Saturday the weather was a little better than the day before. I actually got out in the water for a bit. Even with a wetsuit, the cold water still took my breath away.

[Me with Sean]

[Me on the wakeboard]

Sunday ending up being mostly a gorgeous day. I spent a lot of time laying out in the sun reading and on the boat. This resulted in me getting a sunburn on my back. I guess I wasn't as diligent with the sunscreen as I had thought I'd been.

[Sean is sad because I sat on his chips. They were his breakfast.]

[Randall digging a moat for his sandcastle]

[Sean and I]

Saturday night my dad stuck this at the shoreline because he suspected the water level was rapidly rising. This is what it looked like midday on Sunday.

There was an emergency tent moving operation to get Adam, Randall, Jacquie and Amy's tent back from the shoreline.The four of them ended up leaving Sunday night anyway, but if they hadn't, their tent still would've been under water by Monday morning. The waves were coming right up to Sean's tent on Monday morning. Take a look at the picture right above, Sean's tent can be seen on the left. That should tell you just how much the water level rose.

We had to pack up camp and head home on Monday morning. The wait on the boat ramp seemed to go by quite quickly and we were on the road home by lunchtime. Entertainment for the trip home was provided by Seasons 8 & 9 of Friends. I love so much that Sean put that system in that plays DVDs. Its certainly comes in handy.

I had a lot of fun on this trip despite the weather. I want to go again real soon though and get some better weather! There are way more pictures than what I put on here, on my camera alone there were 500+ . I'll post a link to the rest once I get them all up.

Thanks to my dad, Lisa, Adam, Steph, Randall, Trevor, Jason, Carter, Miles, Annalise, Loralyn, Sean, Jacquie, Teri, Amy, Kent, Carol, Heather, Kim, and Andrew for a fun trip!


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For those that may be interested, these are some of the things I wore in the above pictures:
White sunglasses, Friday swimsuit, skirt, Saturday swimsuit, Sunday swimsuit, wakeboard, bindings

Finally, a fun Wendover experience.

In honor of Traci's upcoming 22nd birthday, we took a Trip to Wendover. Sean, Traci, Mike and I went along with Mike's parents, Traci's parents and aunt. We watched season 2 of The Office in Sean's car on the way down, what a great way to pass the time on the road.

After we check into the hotel, we went down to the casino to meet Traci's mom and aunt and were there for less than five minutes before I got ID-ed. We went over to the Nugget to meet up with Mike's parents where Traci and I promptly got ID-ed again. I guess we looked like a couple of teenagers playing "Let's pretend to be adults." I don't love to gamble so I didn't take much money down to play. Traci loves the penny slots so I played with her and ended up losing nearly $20 on them. Lame.

Later we all hit up a blackjack table at the Nugget. The dealer was this guy named Jesus. I hated him. He was so pushy and rude. He kept saying stupid stuff such as, "You can't say no to Jesus." as a means to get us to play or bet more. Watch out for that guy if you're ever in Wendover. He's no good, I lost $20 at his table.

Dinner led to a new experience for me. At dinner, everyone except Traci and I were eating shrimp that you had to peel. It was so gross, they still had they're legs on! I don't eat seafood so this is something I've never come across before and it was something I really could've done without.

After dinner we wandered around for a while and ended up at the Rainbow casino. Sean, Mike, Traci and I were playing video poker for a while. After a bit, Sean left to find a restroom, the next thing I know some guy comes up, sits down and asks if that seat next to me was taken. I responded with, "I guess not." and prepared to ignore him. No such luck however. "Aren't you here with anybody?" the strange guy asked me. At this point I knew where this was going and got ready to drop the boyfriend word. I gestured to Mike and Traci who were to his right and said, "I'm here with my boyfriend and our friends." He turned to Mike and started talking to him at which point I stopped keeping up with the exchange due to the fact that we were sitting right in front of the live band. Next time I glanced over, the seat was once again empty. Later Mike told me that he introduced himself as "Tip" and announced that he was "kinda drunk." Too funny.

Next we squeezed our way into a nearly packed blackjack table. There were three men at this table that the dealer seemed to know by name. Turns out they're there a lot, but none of them knew each other. There was one guy that kept running to the ATM and coming back with $100 bills only to lose the entire $100 on one hand. He did this over and over. I kept begging him not to bet it all on one hand because it was killing me to see him throw all that money away. I have no idea how much ended up losing that night, but I'll bet it was more than I make in a month. Sean and I sat at that table for probably 3 hours, both of us slowing winning. I ended up winning back everything I had lost that day. It was great!

It was nice to finally spend a night in Wendover and actually have a good time with good company.