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!

Things that made my day.

Happy Thursday everyone!

-Jan telling me that every time she sees me I "Look so cute."

-Finally catching up on everything on Google Reader. I got pretty backed up over my vacation.

-Sharing my cupcakes with my co-workers.

-Rick sharing his cookie with me.

-Hearing how protective Rob is of me.

-Tomorrow is Friday!

-Getting a blogazine!

I also want to once again encourage people to start doing their own "things that made my day". I'd love to hear what you all have

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

Lake Powell, Here I come!

Well, I'm off for a little vacation. The dad-fam and I are going to Lake Powell for a little wakeboarding, boating, tubing, swimming adventure.






I'm a camera whore and I can guarantee there will be at a minimum 4-6 different cameras, not including camera phones, so be prepared for picture not overload. Just kidding, I'll keep it reasonable.






If I get downtime, I'll be updating my twitter, so make sure you're following me!


Hope everyone has a lovely Memorial Day weekend!