Why Yes, I Am Still Alive

Hey everyone. Sorry for no update recently. Apparently in Tahoe the hotel didn't believe in having power outlets with ground plugs, and Vegas charges for wireless internet. Yeah.

Anyway, I'm sitting in a hotel in St. George, Utah now. It's late, has been a long day, and tomorrow is going to be just as long, so I'll give you all the cliff note version of what we've been up to.

Thursday:

We left Sunnyvale and headed north to wine country. Susan found a vineyard with some big castle, lots of wines, and we decided since we were already up that way, why not. We spent the first half of the day there, taking a tour and doing wine tastings. It turned out to be a lot of fun and we were both glad we decided to do it.

After that, we piled back into our car and finally headed in an eastward direction toward Lake Tahoe. We got there late, ate some dinner, and passed out.

Friday:

We got up, ate some breakfast, and took a walk around the lake a bit. We decided to stay an extra couple hours and went out kayaking on the lake for a bit. After driving all that way, it would have been a waste to skip town so quickly. Kayaking was fun, the weather was pretty nice, but the wind was in our faces on the way back to the dock and it was rather challenging.

After finishing there, hitting the atm, and getting some lunch, we turned south for Las Vegas. Patty (my GPS), took us on some ridiculous roads. We wound up and down through the Sierra Nevadas, going as high has 8,000 feet, drove through nothingness for miles upon miles, and wound through a part of the Nevada desert where I couldn't go over 40 and I felt for sure I was about to live out the movie "The Hills Has Eyes."

Luckily, that didn't happen and we made it to Sin City A-OK. After that, it went downhill. We stayed at the Stratosphere and the guy who checked us in was apparently incompetent. He checked us into one room, but gave me key cards which worked for a different room..twice. Yeah. After that I got killed on the black jack tables.

Saturday:

We got up early at headed to Zion National Park 2.5 hours away and just in Utah. I had heard a lot of hype about the park so I was pretty excited to go. It was a beautiful day and walking around the canyon was pretty surreal. Driving to Vegas, we saw a huge storm and Susan pointed out that it was moments like that which made her feel we are pretty insignificant in the bigger picture. Hiking through the canyon, staring up at stone walls a couple hundred feet high that were cut into over the course of thousands of years, I felt pretty insignificant.

It was a pretty hot day when we parked in the town right outside the park, but as soon as we got into the canyon the temperature dropped dramatically and I think I barely broke a sweat. I had been worried about sun tan lotion, but the sun hardly crept into the whole canyon. As we walked along waterfalls and the river, you could feel the sudden change in temperature as you got closer and further away from the water source. Watching the sun move through the canyon was awesome as we saw a few select peaks highlighted as the sun settled in the West.

Tonight we are in St. George and the plan for tomorrow is to get up and head to the Grand Canyon for the day. We are planning on taking a mule trip for 3 hours around the canyon, but there is a chance of rain so keep your fingers crossed for us!

I haven't put up the pictures from the past couple days, but I'm banking of the massive amount I put online the other day holding you all over for a little longer. Hopefully tomorrow night, so check back then.

And don't forget your (non) rain dance!