Just Remember, You're the One Thing I Can't Get enough Of.

Okay. I guess I'll dive back into the vacation posts and hope I finish writing about them by the end of this month.We'll see...

Now, where were we? Oh, yeah. We were in Page, Arizona.

Early on Friday morning, John got up to go for a run and checked out the Page Rim Trail that goes around the city.

He came back home to tell me about it and ask if I wanted to mountain bike there. Why, yes I did.

It was gorgeous and it was a little scary in a few spots, but not too bad overall. We didn't get to ride the whole thing, but we rode to the prettiest parts.

The whole reason we drove down to Page, was to go to Lower Antelope Canyon. I had seen photos of it, and it looked amazing.

I heard the tours filled up fast, so I made a reservation many, many, months ago. I had asked Coadster if she thought she would go on the trip with us, so I could include her, but at that time, she wasn't sure what she was doing, so I just made the reservations for me and John.

When she decided to go with us, the tour was already full, so she went to check out Horse Shoe Bend while we were at the canyon.

The tour was amazing. You can choose to do Upper or Lower Canyon. We chose the lower canyon, because it's twice as long as the upper and it required climbing up and down ladders, so there aren't as many people that want to do it. It was perfect for us.

The tour is on reservation land and the gentleman who owns the caverns, makes sure there are only so many people in them at a time, they are accompanied by a guide and those guides all have to be from the Navajo tribe.

Our little group of tourists was tons of fun.

They told us to set our iPhone settings to "vivid warm" to capture the best color of the canyon walls, even if it did make my skin look a little crispy sunburn fried.

John and I loved this tour. When we talk about our favorite days or favorite hikes on our trip, this one was on the top of both our lists.

We had to run out of there and head to Zion to get our canyoneering passes for the next morning, though. Good bye, Page. I hope to be back to visit very, very, soon.

We made it to Zion at right about 4 pm. We reserved a "glamping" site at the Ponderosa Zion Ranch.

It was much bigger than I thought it would be and it even had electricity. Check out that fancy chandelier.

The resort itself was very nice. It kind of reminded us of where the "Dirty Dancing" people stayed in the Catskills with all kinds of activities for adults and kids and two swimming pools, and two jacuzzis. The only negative thing I can say about it, is that the wifi didn't really work in our little tent, but who needs wifi when you're in paradise, right?

Come Out for a Visit Here to be a Lady of the Canyon.

On Thursday we woke up at 5 am to drive to Mesa Arch at Canyonlands and watch the sunrise.

It was magnificent.

There were many, many people there for it. It is where the professional photographers stake their claims long before sunrise and the rest of us street urchins have to try and capture a small part of  the arch not showing said photographers.

Even with that, it was still worth going and watching the sunrise at such a majestic place.

From there, we headed to Page, Arizona.

We were supposed to pick up our canoe at 2, but we got to town way earlier than we thought. Arizona doesn't have Daylight's Savings Time, and that meant we were an hour early.

We decided to check out the huge dam that created Lake Powell. Everything in that area is incredibly beautiful.

We stopped at Big John's Texas Barbeque for lunch and it was delicious.

Since we weren't quite sure what else to do, we went to the canoe rental place to see if they'd let us take ours out an hour early. Apparently, that was no problem.

I had heard Lake Powell was a great place to canoe or kayak with cool slot canyons to paddle into.

They weren't wrong.

We paddled our little hearts out. The lake part had lots of speed boats and wave runners that really rocked our canoe around.

Since it was pretty long, we stopped a couple of times at little inlets to swim and the water was so perfect.

Eventually, we hit the slot canyons and they were so cool! The big boats weren't allowed in there, because they wouldn't be able to turn around, so the water was nice and still.

We could touch both both walls at the same time.

Of course, the wind was against us on the way back, so we got pretty damn tired. We stopped one last time at a good swimming spot before heading back to the boat ramp. If you ever get to Page, Arizona, I highly recommend doing this paddle. It was so worth the price of the rental.

We were getting tired of pub grub, BBQ, and Sothwestern/Mexican food, so we decided to go to a sushi place that got good reviews for dinner that night. The food was really good and it was a nice change of pace. We wanted to check out Horseshoe Bend afterward, but since there was no daylight savings time, it got dark an hour earlier than we were used to, and we couldn't go.That's okay. We were super tired anyway. We weren't going to be able to see everything, no matter how hard we tried.

The Water is Warm, But It's Sending Me Shivers.

The day after my birthday, it was pretty much just family time earlier in the day. Our friends had some practical things to take care of. They were leaving on Friday and they had to do laundry and a few other things before they made their exit and prepared for their next adventure.

Since it was our last day in Moab, we wanted to be sure and get to Delicate Arch. Man, are we glad we did.

It was a pretty steep hike up to it. We kept commenting on how many people brought their young kids to these hikes with steep drop-offs and no kind of railing. I would have had about 15 heart attacks if they were my kids.

We knew it was one of the most popular hikes, so we headed out around 7'ish to see it. Which turned out to be a good idea. We didn't even have to wait to stand in the arch for John to take a photo of us in it.

Afterward, we decided to hang out and just take it all in. If I learned nothing from the last couple days, it was to slow it all down, so I didn't get too tired and cranky to enjoy what we were doing.

As you can see, the views were worth hanging out and taking the time to enjoy.

On the way back, we checked out the petroglyphs there. They weren't as old as the ones from Newspaper Wall, but they were still pretty cool.

We also stopped by the Garden of Eden on the way out of the park. It was another hike John missed on his first day.

After lunch, Coadster stayed back at the room to chill out, and John and I finally got a little alone time.

What did we do with it? Mountain biked, of course.

We checked out a new trail, called the Dino Flow. It was perfect for me, because it wasn't crazy scary, but it was still challenging to ride on the slick rock and even more of a challenge to go down the twisty hills while watching my brakes, because it was so sandy and I would slide all over the place, if I braked very much or very hard.

After our lovely ride, we got ready and headed to dinner with the whole, darn, gang. We went back to Moab Brewery, because you can't beat the amount of decent food you got for the money.

Since it was our last night in town, we decided to check out another hike to a waterfall fed swimming hole. This one got a little tricky. It was hard to find and the road leading up to it, was too rough for our little Honda Fit. I kept imagining huge oil leaks, every time we hit a rock. Eek!

We finally were able to find the waterfall after our friend Burne talked to some locals. It was beautiful, once we got there, but the water was so damn cold. My foot almost froze when I stuck it in it.

Both John and Burne braved it and Burne kept telling me I had to go in, since it was my idea to go there. Whatever. I still didn't do it, even after John tried to lure me into the depths of hell with him.

I'm glad we had such a lovely time in Moab. We had to get up early the next morning to try and see the sunrise over Mesa Arch and head out to our next adventure...With just us three - me, John and Coadster.

Funny Day, Looking for Laughter and Finding it There. Sunny Day, Braiding Wild Flowers and Leaves in My Hair.

A petroglyph hand print.

Today I'm going to talk about my birthday. I turned 54 on the first Tuesday of our vacation. It wasn't the best day, because I was exhausted. Some of it was that I had a period on and off for over a month before we went on vacation, with the the migraines that accompanied them, we also had been doing more activities over the last few days than we had in years and years, and then we woke up at 5 am that morning, and Coadster was up writing a paper in the very small room we were staying until the wee hours of the morning the night before.

Anyway, I was very tired, which meant that it wasn't the best birthday I've ever had, but I can't feel sorry for myself, because it was still filled with hiking and reading, and petroglyphs, and eating good food, and ice cream and ended with a beautiful sunset and a gigantic rising full moon. So, really, my birthday wasn't bad, it was more that my attitude was not the best for all of the wonder I was shown.

We got up at 5 am so we could drive the hour and fifteen minutes to get to Canyonlands. It was incredible there. We did three smaller hikes. The first one took us to the cowboy site, where you could see what their camps looked like back in the day.

As usual, we also took some goofy photos with leaning trees.

All of the hikes in the Needles section of Canyonlands were cool.

We climbed ladders to reach the slick rock on the top of the hike.

And the slick rock didn't disappoint.

Like I said, I was lucky as hell to get to do this on my birthday with friends and family.

I even tried to do one of those inspirational yoga poses the kids are always doing...With wildly different results than the cool kids. Oh, so not graceful.

We found funky rocks to climb on, around, and inside.

The clouds also contributed to the beauty of the scenery.

On the way back to town, we stopped at Newspaper Wall to te see the Petroglyphs.

Some of them were over 2,000 years old.

Once we got back to Moab, John and our friends wanted to go mountain biking, and I decided to skip that. When I get tired, I'm even more clumsy than usual, and I didn't want to end up in the hospital on my birthday, so I stayed back at our place with Coadster. I read 50 pages of my book and took a well needed nap.

Later in the evening, we went out for Mexican food and margaritas. Both of which were really, really good.

Instead of birthday cake, we stopped for ice cream - my drug of choice.

Then we all went back to Arches to check out the sunset. This was the hike that John missed the morning before, so he got to see most of it. He had a Summer cold that was making him super tired too, so we thought a mellow hike was best.

Double Arches was even more beautiful with the sun setting behind them.

There weren't as many people there as the time before, so we were even able to climb up into the arch for John to get a photo.

We ended another day with a beautiful sunset and moon rise. Even with a tired/bad attitude, I realized just how damn lucky I was to be at these beautiful and sacred places on my 54th birthday.