a day in the life: red rock weekend

i had a red rock weekend that was filled with lots of fun and adventure. i went down south where the livin is different than northern utah. it was just lukas and i. who is lukas?? (i like to think i may have a blog stalker or two that doesn't really know who that is) here is the guy.

off we went on friday. road trippin. by the time we got to moab it was dark. this was only a slight obstacle when setting up our tent.

his job: set up the tent
my job: supervise.. what us girls do best
we obviously didn't take note of all the campers and trailers around us. we set up camp. the next morning we woke up to find out we had to move to where the tents were [supposed] to be. yea we didn't get that memo the night before.
his job: load up the car and move campsites
my job: pack our picnic

after the slight relocation we then went to arches. i have never been to this national park. i figured if i am now a resident of utah than i needed to see the unnofficial "sign" of utah... the big utah arch. we spent the entire day in the park. {10} miles. hiking. walking. climbing. adventuring. it was [so fun]. i love mother nature. everyone else loved it too. the park was pretty packed for october. but here is the thing. it was not packed with utans (i think i made that up but just go with it) or americans. we figure we saw more people from out of this country than from the u.s.a. the germans. the french. the aussies. the englanders. the chineese. the japanese. all in attendance to see arches national park. i especially loved it when lukas spoke to the germans. i thought it was so cool.

we saw many arches. taking photos at every one. the red and orange rocks of southern utah always amaze me. i always leave southern utah in awe because i love the sandstone. we made the trek to the big arch and got plenty of pictures at it. it was much bigger than i even imagined. it was so worth it.

we had wonderful weather. i see a trend in my recent travel patterns. i keep traveling south. anywhere south of SLC. i am trying to latch on to the warmer weather. i just hate saying goodbye to it. this weekend we were engulfed in 75 degree weather, just right for hiking and tromping through arches. we covered the entire park. we were exhausted by the end of the day. [i am speaking for him too]

tid bits from the weekend:
this kid had a birthday.

so naturally i love celebrating so i surprised him with cupcakes. we all know my obsession for cupcakes so i don't know if i like them more than he did.

we roasted hotdogs. you can't camp without a fire and a dog roast.

we played our fair share of games. one was kind of like trivia on cards. and i dominated. he hasn't learned that i am a [gamer] as emo calls me.
some funny stories:
i think i had been in the sun too long. or i am just weird. but i chose to go with the too much sun excuse. throughout the day i kept pointing out "things" i saw. like the cute little deer drinking water, that turned out to be an old tree/stick. or the bus that i saw from way up at the arch that only turned out to be a large rectangle boulder. or how i was so positive i saw a kid crouching over in the distance but it turned out to be a pile of stacked rocks. everytime i was so sure of my eyes. so finally i caught on that my mind was playing tricks on me. as the sun was setting we were driving out and i pointed out in the distance "ah ha! see that one? over there. i almost just said that looks like a man bending over to take a picture. but i didn't because i caught myself being wrong." lukas replied, "that's because it [is] a man bending over taking a picture."
and we laughed and laughed and laughed.

i guess i like taking a lot of photos. but girls... dont we all? so there was this couple from england that took a photo of us in the morning. we were out and about in the park and we ran into them at this other point. i felt werid but again i smiled and asked if they would take yet another photo for us. they were nice and did. later in the afternoon we were at out last hike and as we were going up the path the s.a.m.e couple was coming down. we had seen and met so many different people throughout the day [in my defense] and the man jokes and says hey want me to take another picture of you two? i turned red as the rocks around us. lukas just laughed. i stuttered and i think managed to say um no. who knew i kept asking the same people to snap a photo of us? not me.

we had a great time. i didn't want the weekend to end. i didn't want to return to work after being ALIVE in mother nature! it was beautiful.

i am in this photo above. see me?

we took a detour and also went to canyonlands national park. it was near moab so we thought [why not] see another one of the usa's beauties?
again i was impressed

after canyonlands it was time to go home. it was time to leave the red and orange dust behind. back to the north.
his job: drive us around from place to place. site to site.