I struggled trying to decide if I should journal entry about this trip. After all, it wasn’t some international getaway to a foreign place where language barriers made ordering dinner an adventure.
But it was certainly a long plane ride, the sleeping arrangements were unconventional, and bucket list items were tick, tick, ticked off my list every day, so I feel like perhaps it deserves its own little story time. Plus I have about 10 hours of travel ahead of me with nothing better to do, so here we are.
We landed in Vegas after a quick 4 hour flight, then began the journey to our first stop. I had originally wanted to rent a van in Denver, then drive a few hours from Denver to Moab, but the company we were renting from, at the time, didn’t allow for pick up in Denver and drop off in Vegas, only pick up and drop off both in Vegas, so I figured “what the hell, we can just drive from Vegas, easy peasy.” (I, a 28 year old woman, have recently taken up saying “easy peasy” despite it feeling like something that is only said to children.)
It turns out, 8 hours after traveling for 6 hours already, while physically “easy peasy”, was actually not my best idea. (Given that I’ve had some really bad ideas, it’s worth noting that this wasn’t my WORST idea… Just not great.) Hours 1-4 were a car concert, with Sarah and I singing along to nearly every song, bouncing away in our shiny new, green van. Hours 4-6, our energy began to fade and our attention shifted towards a podcast about an unsolved murder. Sarah had driven most of the first half, so I shuffled into the drivers seat just in time for the sun to set. After doing some math, realizing we wouldn’t arrive to Moab until almost midnight and then realizing we had no campsite reserved, one of us said, in a tone that would sound to anyone else like we were joking, that maybe we should just get a hotel. The sentence had the tone of a joke only because we had spent the first 4 hours being excited about the prospect of car camping, but the sentence also had the inklings of a question and it only took one look to decide, wordlessly, that it was not a joke, not a question, but a really brilliant idea. So we booked a hotel in Moab. Hours 6-8 were, at best, a struggle. We toyed with the idea of stopping early; capitalizing on the benefits of being theoretically untethered— sleeping in the same emerald box we were driving around. But not only did we already have a hotel room booked and waiting, but we are a stubborn bunch and the idea of MORE driving the next day made both of us irrationally angry, so we pressed on, going a steady 65 mph allllllll the way Moab.
The night in the hotel was uneventful, but the blackout curtains did their job and we didn’t wake up until 9am, much later than sunrise as we had planned. So we took our time, enjoying the last shower we knew we would get for the week and housing down some subpar food at the free breakfast. We decided to try to snap a photo of ourselves with our van, Shroom, before beginning the trip, so I set my phone up on the $10 tripod I got off Amazon, and we crawled onto the hood of the van. The background of the photo would show the unassuming Inn we had stayed at, so the photo itself was not anything to write home about. After we secured the shot, we slid off the van, both of us chattering bundles of energy, buzzing with excitement about the hikes we had planned in Arches. And then, Sarah yanked on the driver’s side door handle.
And nothing happened.
So she tried again, and I tried the passenger door. Again, neither budged. We exchanged a look that had equal parts panic and humor, and we each rotated to a new door with no luck. We both took 2 trips around the van, checking every door just in case the first 3 failures were just flukes. (Sarah was SURE one door was unlocked!) By the time I had finished laughing, Sarah had already called a locksmith, who promised us that our problem would be solved 25 minutes later in exchange for $60– a small fee to pay for an embarrassing mistake. Gary, true to his word, arrived about 30 minutes later and before I could tell him the model of our van (which is still a mystery), he had unlocked the front door, and we had hastily split the two keys apart and placed the spare key safely away in a zippered picked of my belt bag. We’re passionate about supporting local businesses, so this was all ~part of the plan.~
The first day exploring Arches was a dream. I forked over $80 in exchange for my very first Interagency Pass, which grants me access to any National park for the next year. Holding the little card in my hands and looking out at the deep brown almost Martian-looking landscape, I cried. (Since Sarah’s known me for 10 years, and spent 5 of those years as my roommate, my tears didn’t phase her.)
Sometimes, I’m struck by how beautiful the world is.
Because I know that the only people reading this are those who don’t know me at all and those who know me so well that almost nothing is a secret, I feel like I can be honest here. This is, after all, my blog. My journal. My diary. So as I sat there, with perfectly blue skies contrasting a landscape I had hardly dreamed of seeing, with my best friend of 10 years behind the wheel and our favorite song blasting through the speakers, I thought about how hard this winter was for me. I thought about how tough it was to feel myself slipping away last fall. How my last road trip was plagued with constant anxiety. How, at the time, I had someone who spent that time telling me I was a horrible partner. I was unkind, inattentive, and selfish. Every time I lost cell phone service, I would know that the moment I turned on my phone again, there would be a storm waiting for me. I would have to battle my brain not to digest the words; to shield the attacks. And in my attempt to keep the peace, I slipped away. And while that relationship left my life, I stayed slipping. And fall turned into winter, and winter was awfully dark. And sometimes, certain moments were immeasurably cold. Sometimes, my brain chemistry was unforgiving and it was hard to imagine what the point of it all was.
But here I was, the windows open, singing loudly, with the sun beating down, an unobstructed force against a cloudless blue sky. And it felt, in that moment, like THAT was the point. The point was the sunshine on new landscapes. It was laughing at a dumb joke and screaming to our favorite playlist. It was the thrill of climbing on slick rock and being rewarded with picturesque panoramas. It was airplane mode on and audiobook so captivating that we looked forward to bedtime, when we could play The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue until we fell asleep, with the steering wheel of our home 3 feet from my head and our little sink 3 feet from Sarah.
And so day one was filled with hiking, hunting for arches and evading the few other hikers we encountered. At night, we drove to Dead Horse State Park, paid what was, in hindsight, a steep $50, and headed to our campsite. Zero bars on our phones, but the most beautiful stars scattered across the sky. We used our little van sink to wash our faces and brush our teeth, one of us pumping the water out while the other gathered it to splash on our faces. Then we bundled up and crawled into our queen sized bed, with our little space heater working overtime to keep us warm, and used our headlamps to read each other the informational pamphlets we had gathered from the parks we had passed through.
Our alarm was set for sunrise and at 5:30am, we were bundled up, resembling little 5’6” marshmallows as we meandered into Canyonlands National Park. With hot hands stashed into our gloves, we waited at Mesa Arch as the sun peeked over the horizon.
After we got our fill of sunrise, we drove around the park, passing just a handful of cars, and feeling like we had the park to ourselves. Eventually, though, we craved real food and headed 40 minutes back to Moab.
Realizing that we were going to get dangerously close to our free mileage allowance several days before our trip was finished, we decided that venturing back to Canyonlands could end up being costly, so we hunted for a campsite in town and were rewarded with a perfectly good spot just minutes from the entrance to Arches, for nearly half the price. Bonus? Heated showers. Knowing we were close to home, we decided to pass the day in Arches, with the park’s main winding road starting to feel familiar to us. After climbing around Double Arch for a couple hours, faces soaking up the sun, we decided to try to complete Delicate Arch, a 4 hour “strenuous” hike. It ended up feeling strenuous, only because our legs were feeling the pain of half marathon training already and we were sorely lacking the traction devices that could’ve helped along the icy patches that hugged the cliff’s edge. Our missing equipment became painfully apparent when we both slipped on ice, with me catching myself on rock to my right, slipping only a few inches, and Sarah being, luckily, caught by a stranger as she slid towards the ledge. The rest of that section was completed on our hands and knees, with my nails digging into the ice as I searched for the least slick path. But we made it, taking a different route on the return journey, our knees and ankles screaming by the time we made it back to Shroom.
Tuesday morning, we fully intended to wake up for sunrise. But instead, we snoozed the alarms, not ready to leave the warmth of the van, with our two fluffy blankets creating two cocoons of warmth. We woke to find the 6 socks that we had washed in the sink and left outside to dry frozen solid on the picnic table, which…. Duh? It was 19° at night??? Why would we? Expect soaking wet socks? To dry?? So we plopped the frozen slabs of fabric into our sink and ended up leaving ourselves only barely enough time to do a quick drive around the park, getting out for quick hikes and photo opps, before heading to the big event of the day.
Skydiving.
I had stumbled on the company in January and, half jokingly, asked Sarah if we could do it. With no hesitation, she agreed, and that’s all it took. A deposit was put down the next day, and our plan to launch ourselves from an airplane was put in motion.
We arrived the the airport and were greeted by a man with shoulder length hair who would’ve been mistaken for a surfer had we been closer to a coast. Everyone we met there had this air about them, like they simultaneously had not a single care in the world and, at the same time, could’ve been safely trusted with my life. And given that I would end up strapped to a man named Brian, whose sarcasm rivaled mine, and flung out of an airplane at 13,500 feet, I guess it’s good that I trusted them with my life.
After waiting for what felt like an eternity, our stomachs churning with some mixture of emotion that would be tough to encapsulate in words. Not nerves. Not exactly. Maybe anticipation? For me, I think it was basically pure excitement— the same feeling I get before doing or seeing something I’ve been dreaming of for months or years. Eventually, I found myself strapped to a stranger with a GoPro, sitting in the back of a plane that had just one roll-up, clear door in the back (like a see-through garage door), joking about how nervous everyone was (it was the first day of the season, so no one had jumped in awhile) and the solo jumpers chatting excitedly in front of us, trying to decide what path they would take down to the ground, if they would do flips or angle themselves a certain way. Suddenly, the door was raised and one by one, the solo jumpers climbed outside the plane, hanging onto the side like spider monkeys before flinging themselves off. Then, before I had time to thinking “hey, that’s pretty god damn wild.” Or “wait, wait, wait, why am I willingly launching myself from an moving vehicle at 13,500 feet????????”, Brian had scooted my body to the edge of the bench and next thing I knew, my thighs were sitting on the floor with my ankles curled around the bottom of the plane so that my heels kicked the underbelly. Brain put a hand to my forehead and pressed the back of my head into his shoulder. Did he ask if I was ready? Maybe. I couldn’t tell you, I just remember feeling my heels scrape across the bottom of the plane until it was gone and then I was screaming. Or, more accurately, whooping. I’m pretty sure I just said “OHHHHH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDD” and then all I felt was the cold wind making my cheeks flap as I hurdled towards the ground. Free fall lasted about a minute, but it felt like both a millisecond and an eternity. Then, a tug at my back and the parachute had come out, yanking us both to a slower, steadier descent. Holding the parachute straps, he yanked on one handle and we spun, spun, spun to the right, with the ground below blurring. Then, he steadied us and pointed to the mountain range in the distance, then to Arches National park to one side, and then canyonlands to the other. Once we reached the ground, someone asked when my next jump would be and I answered, completely serious, that I wanted to go again right then. They laughed, which was disappointing because I was kind of hoping they would just let me bop right back up into the sky.
We hopped into Shroom, me in the driver’s seat for a change, and headed to Capitol Reef National Park, with the campsite we had inquired about the night before (they told us it was first come first serve….. we ended up being one of two campsites used that night, with the other 20+ sites staying empty.) We stopped at the visitor center to pee and pick a hike, but the moment we turned our key and killed our engine, a bus full of children arrived and unloaded and I watched 30 tiny humans meander into the bathrooms, killing any chance we had at getting a bathroom stall in the next half hour. So we grabbed a map and started driving. We turned off the paved road and spent the last mile listening to our kitchen supplies bounce around in the back. While the dirt road was smooth, the noise in the back of our van would’ve convinced you we were off-roading deep in the wilderness. It was so bad that I was just about to tell Sarah that we should probably turn back, that Shroomie couldn’t handle this path, when we found the parking lot for our chosen trailhead. Only one other car was parked in the lot, which was a good sign for the bathrooms and the hike alike. We followed signs taking us to an arch, a moderate, quick hike. It was perfect, given we had started a little after 2:30pm and didn’t intend on hiking after sunset. We hadn’t had cell signal in several miles, and we felt significantly under prepared, but couldn’t figure out why. We had packed hot hands, portable chargers, water, ample snacks, bandaids, the whole shebang. But we went into this hike feeling just a little uneasy, neither of us admitting that out loud so that our nervous energy wouldn’t rub off on the other, but after the hike we both laughed at the realization that neither of us felt confident. But all that worry was for nothing. While we did get lost, and end up on an entirely different trail than we had expected to take, it ended up being one of our favorite hikes of the trip, ending at a vast overlook starting out at Cohab Canyon. Sweaty and overdressed, we decided we had just enough time to double back and do the originally planned hike, and an hour later we were scrambling across slick rock, ankles screaming at the incline, finding our way to the arch we had first seen almost 2 hours prior.
We made it home (aka our Ford E-Series) just before sunset and passed a dozen deer on the drive to dinner. Dinner was at the only open restaurant in town, a tiny little Mexican joint that was packed with people who, based on the questions they asked, had never experienced Mexican food before. The man next to us told us to take route 12 to Bryce Canyon and we chatted about the beauty of the parks we had been to.
The next morning, we took advantage of the warm showers and laundry room at our campsite and began the search for breakfast. Turns out that, literally, almost every single business was closed for the season, with the exception of the Mexican restaurant from the night before and one diner attached to a hotel that closed at 10am. So we scarfed down breakfast at 9:45, finished our laundry, and turned Shroom on and headed southwest to our next destination.
Our campsite was just minutes from the entry to Bryce Canyon, and by midday we were hiking again. It was 60° outside the canyon, but snow still covered the ground and the hoodoos, so I spent the day scooping up snowballs to lob at Sarah. Our “easy” hike ended up being much too easy, and even though we had a half marathon in 4 days, we have no impulse control and quickly decided to add on a moderate hike into the canyon, coming back up a couple hours later. After sunset, we found ourselves at one of the few open restaurants in town, an overpriced buffet. We struggled through dinner, giggling at everything (the menus told us EXACTLY how many pieces were in each dish. Appetizer coconut shrimp? 6 pieces. The entrée version? 10. A side? 3 pieces. For some reason those details felt weirdly out of place.) We paid $40-some bucks for a split entree and appetizer, plus a trip to the dessert buffet and made our way back home. No shower at this stop, which felt fine since we had a plethora of body wipes that did the trick.
The next morning, we watched a peach colored sun rise over the edges of the canyon, giving the snow beneath us a pinkish hue. We made small talk with a man and his 8 month old shivering puppy. The puppy was skittish and tiny, the opposite of Beau, which made me miss him more. Is that what people with kids deal with? Like do parents just constantly miss their children? That sounds exhausting to be honest. I’m much too selfish for that. And tired.
We had already reached our 800 mile allowance provided by the rental agency for our home on wheels, but we had our audiobook to make the hours fly by as we headed to Zion. It was a quick drive, or at least it seemed quick, since half of it was through the park, with views that took my breath away. I’m continually amazed that places like this exist. How can this be the same earth that is impossibly flat in the Midwest? The same one that rainforests sprout from? The same planet that is covered in turquoise blue waters? It just doesn’t seem real sometimes. You mean to tell me that these things all exist? In the same dimension as me?? How???????
We asked the ranger for a suggested hike that would allow us to avoid as many people as posible, as the park felt too crowded for us, and we embarked on a moderate hike along the East rim. The sun was hot and we both ended up with red lines outlining our tank tops by the end of the day. Given the weather that followed, we don’t regret soaking in the precious rays while we could.
Our campsite was inside the park, with a perfect view. We sat at our picnic table near Shroom, soaking in the perfect views, the perfect weather, the perfect company, the perfect music, the perfect beer. Perfect. The sun set over the stone cliff in front of us and the stars emerged, one by one, outlining the edge of the stone ahead of us, until the air became chilly and our aching feet urged us to bed.
The next morning, we did a quick hike. More accurately, a walk. Wearing our running shoes for the first time in the trip, we spent the first 1.5 hours of the day walking the paved trail along the river, trying to figure out how we could fit in at least one of the two most famous hikes in Zion. The problem? These hikes were also the most strenuous. And also, the longest. Not the best choices for a day before a half marathon, and even worse when the forecast called for rain. So we forced ourselves back to the van. We ate string cheese and beef jerky and every twenty minutes, one of us would say “ok, but if we started the hike now, it’s only 5 hours, so we could be back before the expo ended.” And then the other would have to say “yeah, but should we do a strenuous hike less than 24 hours before a half marathon when we both are already battling injuries?” Then the first person would consider this, agree, look sad and move on, only for the cycle to repeat itself shortly after.
Walking to the expo, my stomach was in knots. Similar to right before skydiving— I had never done a race before (jumping into the deep end seems to be my M.O.) so the buzz felt new and exciting. It was a strange thing, to share an experience with thousands of other people, but only know 3 of them. We picked up our bibs, our reusable cups, our race shirts, and hunted for compression socks for Sarah. We met up with my coworker and his wife, both turned friends over the years, and wandered back to the campsite, where we soaked up the last of the sun, Ryan and I playing chess and Sarah and Jaimie playing cribbage, before we eventually decided it was time for dinner.
After dinner, we left Watchman Campsite and headed to the hotel I had booked months prior………… which I realized that day was an hour away. It ended up being worth it, as the hotel was adorable, the shower was hot, and the bed was cozy. I slept a couple hours at best, waking at 3am to watch YouTube videos on KT tape for shin splints and knee pain. The forecast when we packed for our trip has shown Zion expected to be 60° on race day. Sarah and I had some our long runs in shirts and capris, expecting to warm up over our 2 hour run through the park. But the universe had other plans, and we were left facing a winter weather advisory. In a moment of weakness (every trip has one), I threw a mini tantrum. Disappointed in my packing, in my training, and in the upcoming weather, I (and trust me, I wish I were kidding) stomped my foot against the ground and curled my hands into frustrated fists and thought, briefly, that I might cry. But instead, Sarah and I laughed at how ridiculous and childlike I looked. I ended up setting aside a pair of dirty leggings that I had hiked in when we visited Capitol Reef, mud speckled along the back of my calves. On top, I had a long sleeve running shirt under a fleece lined Nike half zip, under the only hoodie I brought on the trip. I put a baseball cap on the keep rain out of my eyes and grabbed hot hands and my gloves before we left the hotel at 4am, stashing a clear plastic poncho in my running belt next to my reusable cup. After returning to our campsite and plugging our heater in, we walked briskly to the shuttle. And then, we were off and race day began.
We corralled at the start line, huddling under the heat lamps. I nervously rebraided my hair even though my fingers felt frozen and clumsy. We stretched, but not enough, and planned our strategy. Sarah and I had both cut our training short and started our taper early. I had the inklings of shin splints start two weeks prior and knee pain that made me want to crawl home on all fours after my last long run day, so we knew we wouldn’t be running the whole thing. Sarah had (/has) what is certainly a stress fracture on her foot, so we had planned to complete the race in intervals. Our original plan? Run for the length of 3 songs, then walk for 3. Our “warm up” mile 1 was completed at a 10 min/mile pace, according to the woman taking into our headphones, reading our progress out loud to us at every mile. The next mile was closer to 12 min/mile. The rain started around mile 2, turning to hail while we jogged through miles 3 and 4. Our pace slowed to 13 min/miles as we rounded the corner to face 30 mph winds, with hail and sleet smacking us. We kept to our interval plan for 4 or 5 miles before the pain really set in. While my pain would wear away after a couple minutes, Sarah’s would only get worse, and by mile 6 we had resigned ourselves to a brisk walk and the weather had cleared. So there was a brief time where we got to enjoy blue skies and incredible views as we listened to our audiobook. A nice, scenic walk that I had logged 150 miles trying to train for. Loved that for me. Sometime around mile 8 or 9, the weather turned again. The clouds rolled in, and Sarah and I laughed as the rain poured down, our ponchos whipping around us as the wind roared. We had long given up on our interval plan, and were listening to our audiobook for the second half of the course, laughing as we made jokes about the book, about the weather, about our luck. We walked briskly, proud of our 16 min/mile and actively reminding ourselves that we knew coming into this that my 9:30-10:00 min/mile pace that I had held during training would be impossible. By mile 12, the walk had turned to a limp and while we tried to jog for the camera men stationed at miles 7 & 10, Sarah’s foot protested and my right knee screamed, and the jog turned to a painfully embarrassing hop. The last mile gave us some light snow, mixed with rain that soaked my shoes, but we hobbled across the finish line nonetheless, securing our finisher medals and feverishly searching for a dry spot to sit while Ryan, wearing shorts and having finished long before us, hopped around us, seemingly unaffected by both the weather and the distance we had traveled.
Our time ended up being over an hour slower than what I had gone into training hoping for. But it would’ve been easier for us to skip or defer. Easier still to never have signed up. But we didn’t. Instead, I stuck to a rigorous training plan. I logged almost 150 miles in preparation. I got up early, stayed up late, dragged myself to the treadmill when all I wanted to do was wallow in the comfort of my warm bed. I think I’d like to do anther half, but first, I’ll reset my training. Start at 0. Humble myself and take it slow and work my way back up from mile 1. And then, in a moment of weakness, I’ll impulsively sign up for another race and plan an entire trip around it.
The rest of the day was spent with Ryan and Jaimie, eating oranges and playing chess on the floor of their hotel room, theragunning our legs, and swapping race day stories. By early evening, Sarah and I were back in our van, listening to our book and the rain on the roof, preparing for the end of our trip. We ventured out, limping, to eat loaded French fries and beer for dinner, laughing over stupid jokes and playing wordle until it was dark and Shroom, camouflaged in the night, called us home.
The final night in the van was cold, with the space heater unable to combat the dropping temperatures outside, so our sleeping bag heaters were held close to our faces and then, in the morning, shoved into the pockets of our leggings.
We headed back to Vegas to return our favorite home on wheels, stopping 12 minutes away to listen to the end of our audiobook, crying in the parking lot of a random gas station as the narrator concluded her story.
We returned Shroom, clocking in just over 1,400 total miles, and headed to the airport, where we met Sarah’s dad and began the cold journey back to chicago.
Utah, I remember you. (I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember you.) Cheers!
bugalocious.
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