Boise Ain't so Bad, and Yellowstone too

After finishing up with Zion, we headed to Salt Lake City to visit Simon's friend Matt and his wife Shannon. We only stopped by for a night, but we got a nice tour of SLC and got to try an awesome Mexican restaurant that was featured on the food network. Most of all, it was really nice catching up with them.

Next stop was Boise for a few days to visit our friend Colin. We got there on a Friday, and immediately upon arrival he threw us a quinceañera. Traditionally these parties are reserved for Mexican girls on their fifteenth birthday to celebrate womanhood, but Colin has expanded the tradition to mean a party with guacamole, lots of beer, and a piñata. About 15-20 people showed up, and the party was a good time.

Rooftop quinceanera - pretty chill

Complete with a chili pepper pinata and a blindfold made of paper towels

The rest of the weekend, we went whitewater rafting, checked out a birthday party, went paddle boarding, ate good food (like Boise's world famous pizza joint, Pie Hole), and hung out with some awesome people. Bo was surprised that Boise had so much (even anything) cool to offer, and we were both sad to say goodbye. 

On our way out of Boise on Monday, we stopped by Craters of the Moon National Monument on the way to Yellowstone. It's a crazy park area that was formed by the eruption of a volcano, and the volcanic rock everywhere gives it an alien-like feel. It was surprisingly cool.

We got to Yellowstone Monday night where we spent three nights just outside of the park in a small campground in West Yellowstone. The first day, we checked out old faithful and the hundreds of other geysers and pools in the area, as well as a small hike to fairy falls.

Old Faithful

so many geysers

Turns out geothermal rock make pretty landscapes

Fairy Falls

While it was really cool, Yellowstone isn't exactly the place to go to get away from the crowds, more so even than most national parks. We even had to wait in line for 20-30 minutes just to get through the entrance, and hit more than one traffic jam of cars while we were there (and this was on a Tuesday). 

The second day, we hit up the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and Mammoth Hotsprings. We did a handful of short hikes in the area, all of which were pretty awesome.

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Standing over the top of Upper Falls

random bison that decided to walk on the trail

So many elks

Mammoth Hotsprings

With Yellowstone done, Glacier is our final stop on the trip before heading home for a few days to prep for burning man!

Ooooo, Zion

We made sure to revisit Zion because we had such a great time there a year ago, and man we were not disappointed. We started it off with a scenic drive through the east side of the park during sunset (we got lucky with timing) before making it to our campground in Springdale.

Horned goats on the side of the road

This was followed by an action packed day of hiking and canyoneering through Water Canyon.  We did this after some recent storms, so the pools we repelled into were deep enough for us to swim in.  Made for a wetter adventure than we expected, but definitely more fun and cooled us off the entire day.  There were lots of thin and vertical canyons we got to repel through in beautiful scenery.

Perfect starfish position going into the water

zipline + repel

Mike, our guide - pretty cool dude

Canyoneering was one of the most fun experiences we've had on the trip so far since we both enjoy heights and climbing.  We couldn't get enough of it, so we were sad to say goodbye to our guide, Mike, at the end of the day.

The next day, we backpacked La Verkin Creek Trail to Kolob Arch.  We got to a slow start after a full day yesterday, and learned the hard way that hiking in the desert mid-day is really really hot and borderline miserable.  We found a little oasis once we reached the creek, and had no choice but to get in the water.  

 

Despite the heat, this was the best backpacking trip we've done so far simply because the views were so breathtaking the entire hike.

Kolob Arch

Mike told us the trees here smell like butterscotch ... confirmed!

Not a bad place to eat dinner

view from our campsite

All in all, Zion still holds the ribbon for our favorite national park so far, so anyone who likes the outdoors with spectacular views should go! (Aka everyone) 

Through the Storm

On Friday, we made it to Long Beach to stay with our friend Calvin and catch up with Bo's high school friend, Gloria. Long Beach is a small beach town just outside of LA with a very SoCal feel, complete with palm trees, awesome beaches, and great weather. It seemed like there was always something cool going on - even in just the two days we were there.  We watched boat races and saw the US Open of Surfing, and saw a few other events going on in the city.

Huntington Beach when they host the US Open of Surfing.  So legit.

Boat races at the marina

Chillin

Palm trees

We left Long Beach on Sunday with intentions of making it to the Grand Canyon. Normally the drive is about 8 hours long, but the fast route through the Mojave desert had major flash flood and storm warnings, so we decided to play it safe and take highway 10 south of the Mojave to avoid the worst of the storms. Even so, as we left LA the clouds looked pretty ominous in the distance:

We hit the storm a few hours into the drive, and man did it rain hard! We were caught in torrential downpours, saw huge flashes of lightning, and the flood and rain water on the side of the road was pretty crazy. At one point, we were delayed because a crew was working on a part of the road where it had done a bit of damage.

Right lane completely broken off

We thought we had passed the worst of it, until we turned onto highway 177. This is a smaller highway that would have led us back to highway 40, but the highway was impassable due to all of the recent flooding. We stupidly tried to drive through it for about a mile after watching a small sedan make it through on of the wet sections, but quickly turned around:

Not being able to take that forced us to go all the way through Phoenix. We kept hitting pockets of storm all night:

We finally made it to the Grand Canyon campground around 2am. We passed out immediately, and then woke up 3 hours later to see the sun rise over the canyon! The views were spectacular:

 

 I guess it's a pretty big drop down there

Up next, Zion!