Utah - Part 1

So as I may have said a few weeks back, I went on vacation to Utah. For those that don't know, it was mainly an effort to get to know my mother better while visiting family and seeing new places. I pretty much accomplished everything I set out to do. I heard new stories about my mom, saw family I haven't seen in years, saw new places, did new things, ate lots of food, ran a few trails, almost saw Johnny Depp, and nearly got stuck on a cliff. I'm so thankful that I managed to not only find the time to take this trip but to also have a great wife that let me go and a great mom that paid for nearly everything.

So instead of me wasting words, here are a few pictures to hit the highlights (all of the pictures can be found here).

They say there's two ways to die in the desert; of thirst and of dehydration. It took a few days and a hard lesson but I finally learned to always have a drink in my hand. I really sealed the deal with a 2+ mile hike/run in 105 degree heat with no water.

Always follow the cairns (that pile of rocks that isn't quite natural). That's how they mark trails in the desert. If you can't see a cairn, you're probably lost and an hour or two from dying of thirst.

Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, and Dead Horse Point State Park are all very neat places to go see things. But it's the unexpected things that I found most interesting, like these rocks people places in natural mini-caves.

While my mom loved Arches, I found Canyonlands more fun. But both had their appealing and not so appealing parts. In the end, it was all about just having fun. There was other stuff to do too, but I'll spread these out to keep you coming back for more.