just swell

my cousin annie and i decided friday eve at 11 p.m. prior to the beloved 3-day memorial weekend to rendezvous in richfield and then head for the swell (san rafael that is) for the weekend. annie's 1960 ish bug is a beauty but is questionable of it's reliability at times so it was a good meeting ground for her driving from vegas. i don't see why my 97 civic with now 197K miles on it seems to be so much more reliable, but it is, sorry annie. she did have to get towed from south of cedar to st. george on her way back and then again a few days later in vegas so i can substantiate that statement.

so with our bikes on top of the car we headed for tomisch butte and hondu arch fm recommendations from my friend levi. it was wonderful to sleep beneath the starts. saturday was full of a little biking, a lot-o hiking in the wilderness area including being bit by a small army of deer flies, and a little mine exploring. once i get the video i'll attach. if i can figure it out that is.

isn't this amazing it! i love the patterns and shapes. a little wind, rain and sand... amazing.

i wish this was in color

ain't she cute? anyone know a good Catholic boy?
we ate lunch here...

then we decided to go to moab to see fart pipe and eat food and pick up church the next day.

then back to the swell but this time to the black dragon where we almost got civic stuck but annie was a good pusher.

the wind blew our tarp and woke us up multiple times thinking it may be a skinwalker but we didn't see anything... this time.

monday was a short ride...
with some pictographs
dinosaur findings
and cool mountainish rocks...
my ride home was pleasant while annie got towed...
all and all it was swell

Chris Carrabba & Best Buy love

#1 if you would have said this name to me less than 5 minutes ago, i wouldn't have known who it is, but with the power of google i found out it's the lead singer to dashboard confessional.

i've heard their new album in hilary's car multiple times and liked the average song on the radio, so i went into:


yesterday as i was waiting for hilary to get off work (so we could eat sushi at teru sushi off 20th east and fort union...so delicious!). for mere $8.50 i bought the dusk and summer album. i enjoy the whiny songs of dashboard every now and then. as i went to the early 20's cashier she immediately flipped the cd and told me that she thought chris was so hot and showed me the picture of him on the back pointing. she then let me know that she probably wouldn't date him though because she'd be afraid of him writing a song about her. i didn't know quite what to say and just thought hmmm.... i didn't realize chris carrabba was interested in best buy cashiers.

what do i know? good thing she hasn't had to break his heart yet. i can't wait for the song to come out when she does though. i hope there's a plug for best buy.

wizards and jetties

ever since i learned about spiral jetty in my art history class in college, i've has become a quest to go to. so about a month ago my new friend, rocky, and i made the voyage. with the kayaks poking out the back of his subaru outback sport and a trusted NSR strap to keep the tail down we headed up north.

on the way there were suspicious life-sized wizard cut outs on the side of the road next to i-15 signs. i think rocky thought i was lying when i spotted the first one and he didn't see...but there were others. we talked about how great it would be if they were at the spiral jetty.

we dropped by golden spike national monument to find NO traces of a golden spike but a fancy railroad tie...BORING!!!

so we arrived at the first jetty we saw and got out. i was too excited to continue to read on the directions to not stop here. so we explored this other jetty for a while but the shape did not connect to the shape in the pictures...




then i read the rest of the directions which said to walk around the bend .6 miles and that we'd see spiral jetty. i felt like a foolish little kid when i explained to rocky that we had gone to the right one, luckily he was easy going and we rounded the corner and what did we see???


wizards!!! i was hoping for more of cloaks and a brewing pot but they were nice, friendly folks that were willing to share their food and beer. we found out it was an annual tradition of a wizard fest. after rocky cast a few spells on the wizards we headed to spiral jetty to realign ourselves with nature and become one with the earth.


after walking the jetty of basalt rocks and basking in the sunlight it was only proper to brush up on our yoga moves at the end of the jetty and continue the balancing our souls.

some of us are better at balancing than others....

review of spiral jetty: a definite must see....

taking my life back

I've realized I've not been myself for approximately 8 months since I've started grad school, so with finishing up, I've decided to be me again. Case in point... my cousin calls me Wednesday night to see if I can go canyoneering in Zion with him and his friend, I go.

So mystery canyon it was. It was superb. 7 hours with 10-12 rappels and 2 of which were 12o+ ft.


Happiness = sandstone + water

welcome

what does one do after getting back from a trip. start a blog. my inspired friend, hilarious, showed me how easy it is to start... we'll see how this all goes.