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December 8, 2005
The Land of 3.2 Beer
(This was also written a while ago, but dated as such so it appears in the right order.)
(Disclaimer: For those of you interested in running, there will pitifully little running described in this post. However, if you'd like to hear all about my adventure in Utah, keep reading.)
Now, I don't have anything against the primary religion of Utah, I say to each their own. However, I do say that it's a travesty that their religion precludes the state from having high-quality, normal-alcohol-content beer readily available to the rest of us non-religiously inclined folk. Let the good people drink for goodness sake! Well, I survived a week in Utah despite the regulations on alcohol, and it was great fun! Good thing my primary purpose for visiting the state was not to imbibe!
To continue from the last post, we stayed one more night with my friend's family on Monday. Then, on Tuesday we headed south from Idaho to Salt Lake City, and stayed overnight in SLC. I didn't run at all on Tuesday. We spent Tuesday night at a really good restaurant with some friends eating good food and drinking great wine.
Wednesday morning, I woke up and headed out to run amongst the commuter traffic bustling around the city. Overnight, it had rained, sleeted, and snowed. Everything was coated with a crazy layer of ice. I didn't bring my Yaktrax because I thought I was going to sunny southern Utah for a week! I tiptoed around aimlessly on the ice for 20 minutes or so before I gave up my attempt at running. I'm not even sure if I raised my heart rate at all, aside from the anxiety of trying not to fall in front of thousands of cars! That was to be my last running endeavor for many days. My running break was not at all intentional. In fact I'm not quite sure why I didn't run for so long, but oh well. No, I do know why, I was having too much fun doing other stuff!
On Wednesday, we headed south to St. George, Utah, where we had planned to camp for 4 nights. Upon our arrival, we headed into Dixie National Forest, found a campsite up high in the mountains, and set up the tent. When we got out our sleeping bags, my friend realized that he had forgotten his! Already by this time, the temperature was close to freezing in the mountains. So, we had to pack up the tent and head to a hotel. We were kind of bummed to not be camping, but in the end it seemed a good decision.
On Thursday, we spent the day at Zion National Park. By all descriptions, this place is phenomenal. I had spent a few days here in college, but I had forgotten the gorgeous red and white sandstone cliffs, the deep Virgin River Canyon, and the narrow slot canyons. During our day in the park, we drove the roads and did 2 hikes. On the first hike, we climbed up to a viewpoint overlooking Zion Canyon. It was stunningly beautiful, I loved it! Plus, it was about 65 degrees and sunny, and I was wearing a tank top and shorts. That made it even better! We hung out at the viewpoint a little while, soaking up the view and the sun. On the second hike, we hiked a few miles up into a little slot canyon. We got to play on a few interesting up- and down-climb challenges. We turned our clothes all red sliding around on the red sandstone, but it was awesome. Dusk arrived while we were still in the canyon, so we had to hurry a bit to make it back to the car before dark. I was surprised by how cold it got as soon as dusk arrived!
Friday brought another hiking adventure on BLM land outside of St. George. We decided to hike on BLM land so I could bring my dog, who is forbidden on trails in National Park Service areas like Zion. As we were wandering around St. George drinking coffee, we stumbled upon the BLM office and went in for some hiking suggestions. As it turns out, we did a great hike from a trailhead just a few minutes from town. Another great hike, I have no idea how far we walked, because we got a little lost (Well, temporarily misplaced!). We intended to do a loop wherein we traveled on 3 different trails. At some point between the second and third trail, we lost the right trail and headed off in the wrong direction. It was never scary or dangerous, though, because open desert areas afford you will stellar views to landmarks that help you keep your way. We never did find the third trail, so after a while we gave up and started walking cross-country towards a road we knew was out there somewhere. When we got to the road, there was a paved path that followed the road, so we walked that for a while. We came upon an area that's a popular bouldering spot, so we went in and checked things out. We played around in there for a little while checking out the routes. From this spot, we could see the trail that we were supposed to be hiking on down in a valley. However, we couldn't find a route down from the cliff to the trail, so we were resigned to walk the paved trail back into town. Oh well, it was fun anyhow!
On Saturday, we went hiking in Snow Canyon State Park, where dogs are allowed in some areas. We hiked the West Canyon area, I think it was called. It was a gravel road in and out of a gorgeous red rock canyon (Ok, I admit, it's all red rock around there, but it was still beautiful!). This hike was moderately painful because it was bitterly cold and windy. We were all bundled up down to hats and gloves. Though it was sunny, it was cold and the wind was strong. I think we were nearly frozen solid after an afternoon of hiking.
Once we returned to St. George, we were revived enough by some warm coffee to make a short drive to Mesquite, Nevada, which is a casino town. We met up with another friend there, had dinner, and spent a little time wandering around in the casino. This was my first casino experience, so I just put $1 into the quarter slot machines. I won a total of $26 dollars originating from that $1, but squandered it all away. Still, I think my return on $1 was pretty good. I should take up gambling as a hobby! Mostly, though, we did some drinking. Nevada has no alcohol limitations, and after hanging out in Utah, we felt like going a little crazy. I was a much more controlled drinker than my companions, however!
Sunday we had to return to Salt Lake City, but not before my still hungover and dehydrated friends could get hangover recovery breakfast food. We took most of the day to get back to SLC, and we were exhausted by the time we got there. We made just a little bit of dinner and crashed!
On Monday, I had to return to Yellowstone to get ready to go back to work (Or, to get ready to come to work training in Douglas.) I left SLC at a decent time, but it took me all day and night to get home. What should have been a 7 hour drive took so much longer! There was a crazy snowstorm going on! It was an adventure in 4-wheel driving, going over some steep, snowy mountain passes! But I made it safely just in time to pack for Douglas and crash to sleep!
Thus describes my Utah adventure! Yeah, I'm embarrassed somewhat to say that I didn't run for a whole week. I definitely could have run, but just chose not to. I'll call it a rest week of the finest kind. After that, I should be rearing to go running again!
Posted by Meghan at December 8, 2005 8:12 AM