J & E Wedding @ Nixon Library

PDX Weekend

(1) Pine State Biscuits, (2/3) Nike HQ (4) Farmhouse Thai, (5) Celtic Axe, (6) Dante’s, (7) Chinatown, (8) Ground Kontrol

Utah – Park City

(1) Olympic Park – Salt Lake City, (2) Five5Seeds Park City. Amazing SHAKSHOUKA! (3) Hiking in the mountains, (4/5/6) Hiking through Park Mountain, (7) Much needed rest & recovery.

Florida – Everglades National Park

(1) Everglades swamp, (2) gigantic grass hoppers, (3) forks in the path, (4/5) can you spot the gator?!

Florida – Keys West

(1/2) Keys West, (3) international, (4) SNUBA!!!

God moments:

During the call to Florida Keys SNUBA shop the person answering informed us we should head down ASAP when we land. In doing so we completely avoided the traffic of memorial weekend in and out of the Keys. We were able to go from Miami airport to end of Florida Keys in less than 2 hours. On the way out on Saturday we would see the line coming in to the Keys and getting in must have been at least 5-6 hrs long!
Waves were way too rough the first day and SNUBA was not an option in the morning. In the afternoon, the SNUBA store called and said the waves were calming down and we could go if we were still interested. Since the waves were so crazy that morning, it must have scared everyone off because we ended up being the only couple to SNUBA (another couple snorkeled) and essentially had a private tour under the sea in the Keys!

Barton Flats – Winter Camping

Barton Flats. Opening weekend. highs of 60C and lows of 27C! First excuse to use our big Agnes tent.

Zion National Park – The Narrows

God moments:

*Discharge > 100 cf/sec is extremely dangerous due to high water levels and the flow rate. With the high sheer rock walls on each side there is no place to escape in the event of a flash flood. Gear rental companies don’t even allow rentals to people unless the rangers approve the conditions. We arrived on Friday and the snow melt was too high and so it became a waiting game. Literally on the last day at 1pm, the discharge died down to safe enough levels and we were able to go!
Since this was opening weekend of the area near Zion there were very few people there. We had such a serene hike and only saw a handful of people on the trail. The beauty was majestic.
K was recovering from a cold earlier in the week and so neither of us were sure this was going to happen. Going from sniffling to being able to traverse snow and icy water is no easy feat.