2nd Annual Enoch to Escalante Ride

Alfredo has been excited about this day for months now.. he is riding 130 miles off-road on dirt-bikes with our neighbor Brandon, his son Billy and 15 other friends/neighbors; they are going from Enoch to Escalante. With stops for lunch and providing that nothing goes wrong with their bikes, it should take them about 5 or 6 hours to reach their destination. They'll stay tonight in Escalante, watch the Pioneer Day Parade tomorrow morning, then they'll start the trip home. Have fun guys, stay safe and we'll see you tomorrow!... in the meantime, while the guys are away, the girls will play! and I'm off on my first girls night out in months - a trip to the movies to see 'The Proposal' with my friends Stacey and Liz.

Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park: Queens Garden & Navajo Loop Trails

I'm ashamed to say that having lived in Utah for nearly 5 years now, we've never been to Bryce Canyon! With this amazing natural wonder just being a little over an hour and a half from our house, we thought a visit there was well overdue! I'm in love with the red rock and rock formations we have here in southern Utah and I was in awe with all the hoodoo's (the chimney type stacked rock) to be found in Bryce Canyon... they truly are magnificent and Bryce is a place that everyone just has to see for themselves, you can never even begin to describe how it feels to look out over the thousands of acres of amazing views deep in the canyon. Having only a few hours in the park today, we did the Queens Garden & Navajo Loop trails - 2 trails that join up in the middle to form a 3 hour hike... and wow, was it an amazing hike! The start of the hike took us way down to the canyon floor, meandering in and out of the hoodoo's on switchback-like trails that were so beautiful. Owen loved when they'd cut holes in the red rock to make little tunnels so the trail could continue - he had so much fun running round and hiding in the little hidey holes that were naturally cut into the rocks. Once the trail hit the bottom floor, we walked for a mile or so before it started to climb up again, really steeply through a series of switch-backs, through this amazing slot canyon, ending at the top of the canyon. It was a very beautiful hike and the weather was perfect; really warm but it rained a fair bit - not heavy, just a perfect amount to keep us cool! Owen was a real trooper and walked the whole way, we were really proud of him.

Cedar Breaks Nat'l Monument: Alpine Pond Trail

First off, CONGRATULATIONS to my little brother Mat who married his sweetheart Luisa in England yesterday, 18 July 2009. Unfortunately we couldn't afford to be there, but I've heard that the day was fantastic and I'm excited to see pictures. Congratulations to you both, we are so happy for you! Meanwhile, back in Cedar City, the temperature hit 100F and we decided to head up the mountain to Cedar Breaks in search of some cooler weather. We hiked the Alpine Pond trail which was beautiful. The mountain is full of wild flowers at this time of year and the 2 mile round trail was so colorful. Owen had a blast, running ahead, picking flowers and pointing things out. We've been to Cedar Breaks so many times but each time we're blown away by how beautiful it is. After our hike, we took a short drive up the road to Duck Creek and the annual Duck Creek Days where Muddy Boots (our friend's band) were playing so we stayed there for a couple hours to listen to music, dance and visit with friends.

4th July Weekend... the Sunday

The last day of this very fun weekend and it's back to work tomorrow for me :( but today was a lot of fun! We went up to Navajo Lake with Roger & Arlene and their cute daughter Bailey. We BBQ'd, had fun collecting water for their cabin from a nearby spring (Alfredo got soaked!) and hiked part-way to the beautiful Cascade Falls... I say 'part-way' because heavy rains had caused land/rock slides to destroy the trail and prevent us going further.. but what we saw was beautiful and I'm hoping they reconstruct the trail soon so I can go back and finish the hike. In the meantime, I'm eager to get back up the mountain to hike and mountain bike the many other trails we saw on our travels up there. Happy 4th July everyone! - I hope you had as much fun as we did.

4th July Weekend.. the Friday

So the 4th July Independence Day holiday weekend has never been one of my favourites, don't know why because we've always had a good time - I guess because it's not a holiday celebrated in England, I don't get as excited about it as the Americans do, but the longer I'm here, the more it is becoming one of my favourite holidays.. and this year was the best yet, thanks to our amazing friends and neighbors with whom we spent the weekend - it was crazy and a lot of fun! Friday was a day off work for me... 3 day weekends are always very welcome! In the evening we went to see our friend Roger's band 'Muddy Boots' (http://www.muddybootband.com/) play in Beaver. We went with our good friends Robyn & Dwayne and had a super evening. Muddy Boots put on a fantastic show and if you ever get the chance, you need to see them play! You guys rock!!

Montana Vacation: Day 9 - Butte

Last night was spent at the very beautiful Lost Creek State Park just outside of Anaconda. Another very primitive camping area but very pretty - a short hike took you to a waterfall at the end of the creek which we walked to. The only huge down-side to this Park were the mosquitos.... sooooo many of them and they were everywhere! Alfredo and I got bitten all over our arms and legs - at the last count I have 23 bites on my legs alone... and they're still itching like crazy 4 days after we've returned home! The morning was spent in Butte, an architecturally very interesting city with some amazing old buildings from the 1800's but this mining town has definately seen better days and was somewhat of a ghost town in that a lot of the buildings were abandoned and the old town didn't have much in the way of shops / commerce which was kind of sad. We did however find a cute cafe to have an early lunch at and I had the Butte speciality which is a pasty - very like an English Cornish Pasty but about 5 times the size - Alfredo and I sharing it still struggled to eat it all - meat and potato crammed into a pastry shell and topped with a thick beef gravy, served with coleslaw which was a very bizarre addition but actually quite tasty. Sadly this was our last day in Montana. We had planned to slowly work our way home and stay in Idaho for a couple of days but the rain poured down again - really hard this time with the largest size hail i have ever seen. Our plan was to keep driving south (hopefully for just an hour or two) until we escaped the rain..... 13 hours later we arrived home ..... not a drive I would recommend doing with a 4 year old but he was a trooper and was excited to get back home to Buzz Lightyear and the rest of his toys!.... so a very happy vacation was had by us all and I'm already planning the next one wherever that will be.... stay tuned.....

Montana Vacation: Day 8 - Missoula & Phillipsburg

Missoula is a delightful small city where we spent a couple of hours wandering the downtown area. The weather was actually really warm and sunny so we were happy to be outside. The highlights for Owen were definately the hand-carved Carousel and the Big Dipper ice-cream parlour that make the most delicious home-made ice-cream; the Huckleberry flavor was the best! After Missoula we went on a long drive headed East toward the little town of Phillipsburg which was adorable. The Main Street is so tiny and all the buildings are from the 1880's and full of charm - this little town has so much pride. The best shop by far was a candy store - i have never in my life seen one shop full of so much candy/chocolate - and it was all done in the old-fashioned way of how you would imagine the inside of a store would have looked in say the 1920's.. it was so cute! ... the funny thing is that Owen was fast asleep throughout the whole store-visit.... phew, lol.... huge relief that we didn't have to deal with a huge tantrum because he couldn't have every single candy in the store... and it all smelled so good.. mmmmm.. we sure lucked out on that one, lol.

Montana Vacation: Day 7 - Great Falls & Glacier National Park

Loren & Jane, Alfredo's friends from a previous Mexico motorbike trip, had invited us up to stay with them in the KOA they own in Great Falls which I guess is the initial reason for this road-trip and I am so very pleased that we decided to go visit them; they are wonderful people and made us feel very welcome... the deluxe Kabin they put us up in was a very welcome sight after several nights in the tent! Jeff, another friend from Mexico was also there and it was with him that we had a lovely morning at the Fish Hatchery and Giant Springs State Park in Great Falls. Owen had a blast at the Fish Hatchery - for 5 cents, kids got a handful of fish food to sprinkle in the ponds which were over-flowing with whatever kind of fish they were growing. The Fish Hatchery is within the Giant Springs State Park so we wandered on over to the thermal springs area which is so pretty - Lewis and Clark, the original pioneers of the Missouri River around 200 years ago discovered this area so it has a lot of history behind it in that sense. After a quick lunch, it was North for 2 hours to Glacier National Park which I enjoyed a lot but was somewhat disappointed with because of the 70ft snow drifts they had the days before our arrival which closed the road going through the park so we got to see very little of it. We did do a short hike to the St.Mary's falls which are very pretty and with all the recent snow-melt they were roaring.. it was wild! I loved Glacier National Park and I can't wait to go back some day.

Montana Vacation: Day 6 - Helena & Lincoln

After a very stormy start (not much fun packing up a tent in heavy rain and gale-force winds!) we travelled on to the State capital of Helena which was an ok place but doesn't really hold any special memories for me... it probably would have looked better in the sunshine and not the heavy, gray thunder clouds that greeted us. We did see another very long train though which Owen was thrilled with. We then took the very stunning Stemple Pass up over the mountains and along a 30 mile gravel/dirt road to the town of Lincoln.... soooo totally nothing like the Lincoln where i'm from but very nice in its own right. On the back-side of the Stemple Pass we followed a river pretty much the whole way... Alfredo with his fishing pole never far from his reach took the opportunity to fish at 2 or 3 spots along the way and caught a variety of Trout he'd never caught before so he was happy... Owen on the other hand was rather freaked out by the wiggling fish and the blood on alfredo's hands when he unhooked the fish to throw him back in the water. We had a very nice lunch in a real small-town / locals kinda restaurant in Lincoln and then went to the Forest Service office where they have taxidermied the largest grizzly bear ever found West of the Continental Divide... this thing was HUGE!!! Some poor guy driving his truck hit it on the road just outside of Lincoln and killed it instantly... the bear weighs over 800lbs!!! and stands 8ft tall! From Lincoln, we continued North to the city of Great Falls where we were staying with Alfredo's friends Loren & Jane (who he met on a motorbike trip in Mexico).

Montana Vacation: Day 5 - Livingston & Bozeman

Owen is VERY into trains right now; we don't have many trains here in Southern Utah but somehow through watching many hours of Thomas the Tank, he has become very obsessed with them, so imagine his excitment when we pull into the town of Livingston and a nearly 100 carriage freight train pulls through the station.. his whole world had been made in the half hour or so we stood there watching it and the other hustle and bustle of depot life... he was thrilled! Livingston also has a claim to fame for being the town where 'A River Runs Through It' was filmed (Brad Pitt / Robert Redford).. other than that, it was a pretty non-descript little town that has definately seen better days but it provided a nice way to spend a Sunday morning drinking coffee and watching the trains. After that, it was on to Bozeman for lunch.. a very big, artsy, upscale kinda city that was nice to walk round. From Bozeman it was North to Canyon Ferry Reservoir (East of Helena) for the night... and yep, you guessed it, it poured down with rain again!

Montana Vacation: Day 4 - Bear Tooth Scenic Byway

The Bear Tooth Scenic Byway is the beautiful road that takes you from the North East entrance of Yellowstone National Park up through the Wyoming state border and into Montana... and oh wow... I said that word a lot on this road!!.. the views were amazing. It's a very twisty turny mountain road (not for people with weak stomachs!) that takes you to at least 10,000 ft over a mountain pass and there was still a lot of snow up there - 5ft in some places, for mid-June, it was insane! - they even had a ski-run still open. Despite beautifully clear and sunny skies, the wind was icily cold. You'd think that Owen had never seen snow before because his little face lit up when he saw how much snow was on the summit and we just had to get out and let him wander round. The back-side of the mountain isn't as dramatic as the drive up there but still very pretty in its own right. We took Hwy 78 up into Montana and camped just South of Colombus where it poured it down with rain... again.

Montana Vacation: Day 3 - Yellowstone National Park

Wow.... Yellowstone National Park.... this place is HUGE!!! If you're going to go, you need a minimum of 5 days to begin to cover it all; sadly, we only had a half day and a night and the weather was soooo cold!! The wildlife viewing was spectacular; within minutes of being in the park we had seen too many bison to count, big-horn sheep, antelope, deer and a black bear which I was very happy to see from the safety of our car and not skulking round our campsite looking for food which campers and hikers are warned about everywhere! We didn't make it to Old Faithful but we did see the very beautiful West Thumb Geyser which I can't begin to count how many times I said 'wow' at... it was so amazing... the colors... the smell of the sulphur... the heat from the steam blowing off the pools.... just everything, the whole atmosphere was magical. We camped the night in the primitive and very pretty Pebble Creek campground at the North East entrance to the park and pitched our tent next to 2 very cool guys, Steve & Jeremy. Jeremy was a real mountain man and taught us how to make fire the traditional way... think Tom Hanks in the movie 'Castaway'... it was cool! ... and I was obsessed with making fire.. my hands were blistered and very sore the next day but I made fire and went to bed a very happy camper!