Click on the thumbnail pictures to see them full size ...

So it's been an interesting 2006.  What better way to regenerate than a few weeks of fun stuff? 

Friday October 6, 2006:  It begins

Let's get started.   So I'm planning to do most of this vacation alone, but ..  in discussions with my friend Bobbi..  who has a birthday (October 14th) very near mine (October 4th), we decide that we should have the "First Annual we go do something fun the weekend between our birthdays" celebration.  Sweet.   After mulling some options..  we decide on two destinations..  First, inspired by a beautiful picture once seen on the 'net, destination #1 is Zion National Park in Utah.    We board Northwest Airlines around dinner time, and land in Las Vegas (it's the nearest airport to Zion) around 11PM.    Sleeeeeeep.

Saturday October 7, 2006: Zion National Park

The next day, the trusty Ford Taurus hauls our butts the 120-or-so miles to Zion.   For our first day, we've decided we want to hike "The Narrows" at Zion, which looked spectacular on the web.  The better news is that it looked as fabulous in real life.  We started in the more benign parts of the park by Zion Lodge, easily reached by tour bus.        ..  We quickly moved on to "The Narrows", which  is the upper part of the park that can only be reached by hiking up through the Virgin River itself.  Over many millions of years years, the river cut a path through sandstone that was fluvially deposited about 240 million years ago.    The river is a balmy 50 degrees, and the water is murky and we can't see where we're walking.  Stumbling along using the Braille method, we manage to hike up about 2 miles.  It's not a pretty hike, but it's worth it..  The visual effects are stunning...  ... The walls of the canyon are eroded and smoothed by the flow of the river, which then also exposes the colorful stratified layers of sandstone.     Most excellent, although, this is clearly something best seen in real life 3D rather than photographic 2D.. 

Sunday  October 8, 2006:  More Zion

After a shower, dinner and some rest..  The hunt begins for the hiking spot for day #2.    The park is so cool  that we end up stopping several times  along the way to see various cool  stuff and get a better feel  for the park..     Seems like every time  we round another corner there's another, "Oh my <insert diety here>, we need to get a picture of  that!"  .. and so we did.  :)  

The target destination for the day is a different part of the park called "The Subway", another amazing swath cut through the sandstone.. this time by the Left Fork of Zion's North Creek.   The principals of the fluvial erosion are the same in this part of the park, except that the timing of the erosion caused a very unique formation which looks like being in a subway station somewhere.    The hike is about 2.5 hours up, and along the way we stop to see some cool waterfalls and stuff  ..   Then we finally reach "The Subway."  .. Is this the coolest thing  ever or what?

The hike to The Subway is longer than we expect, and with nightfall approaching, we have to hustle buns on the way back as we have no portable lighting source.   We make it back to the car almost exactly at sunset (7:06PM).. and a few minutes later it starts to rain.   We high-tail it back to Vegas for the next leg of our journey. 

October 9-11, 2006: Las Vegas

The Las Vegas experience was inteded to be orthogonal to what we'd just lived in Zion:  From nature and rocks, to unnatural and Martinis.  In the city, we did some boy watching , shopping , and the usual stuff ..   I think I ended up about $60 positive in gambling gains.   We also got reasonably dressed and went out for some nice food and drink.   It took some mild coaxing to get Bobbi to go, but we also made a canonical  pilgrimage to Hoover Dam to see if it's still there.     It is.  .. and it's still pretty "dam majestic." 

Click here to move on to the next leg of the journey.