The remainder of our day was spent at the trail of West Fork.
We orginally tried to go to a place close by called slide rock. You can usually swim in the water there, but being so late in the summer there was a overgrowth of unfriendly bacteria. So swimming was off limits.
Luckily the next place we tried was West Fork. It was a cool shaded creek running through a forest of trees, mostley ponderosas. It was quiet, calm, and cool. The gully was filled with wildlife and wild flowers. Most being native southwestern species I was unfamilar with which was exciting. The hike was a relaxing break from the blaring desert sun.

We spent the morning in Sedona Arizona.
It's crazy out there. We didn't spend much time in the town itself, only a quick stop at a gluten free gourmet pizza resturant. The food their was incredible!
After, we headed out to a place to hike the big red rocks. It was so freakin' hot. Like standing in a hairdryer hot! e:paul and e:terry managed to make it to the top of the huge mountain we decided to climb, i did not. I took pictures instead. I can't do desert. It was beautiful out there, but I really missed green and water alot at that point. Luckily later in the afternoon I got a dose of it at a closeby mountain trail. I'll have pictures of that in my next entry.

The second part of our summer vacation was spent in the mountain/college town of Flagstaff Arizona. e:Paul and e:terry went to school there years ago, it's also where they met. I've never been before, and it was only a 4 hour drive south of las Vegas.
The weather was perfect while we were there, 80 degrees in the sun. I guess the week prior was filled with rain. I didn't realize they had monsoon seasons there. Paul said Arizona was the greenest he's ever seen. It made for great picture taking! There were wild flowers blooming everywhere.
The town was cute. It reminded me a lot if Ithaca, NY only on a mountain top. I think we were there before school was in session, so there weren't many students around the downtown area as usual. We walked around the campus then grabbed some southwestern food at a local restaurant. It had salty margaritas.
Later in the evening we headed out to an old volcano Paul wanted to check out. It was really cool to climb around the strange rock formations. It was like a landscape of some deserted alien planet.
It was getting dark at that point so we headed back to the town. Along the way we stopped a pull off in the road to check out the bazillion stars in the night sky. It was beautiful.
The next morning we were on our way to Sedona Arizona.

Our trip to Las Vegas was great.

The plane ride in was delayed about six hours, that sucked. I guess there were tornado warnings over NYC. I didn't know NYC could have tornadoes. So instead of getting in to Las Vegas at 10 at night (lv time) like planned, we got there at about 5 in the morning. I hate planes.

We stayed the first night in the Excalibur hotel and casino. e:Paul wanted to stay at least one night in a fancy strip hotel. It was so late when we got in I don't honestly remember much about the place other than it had a comfy pillow.

We woke up and headed out with e:terry and his family around 8 the next morning. They had planned a family camping trip to Fish Lake, Utah(Utah) some six hours north of Vegas. The long car ride added to the long plane ride the evening prior did not make my body happy. My butt hurt like it's never hurt before! Luckily the company in the car took my mind off my aches. Terry's mom, Denise and sister, Alex are a lot of fun. I'm glad I had time to get to know them better.

We met up with terry's brother Caleb and his wife Paris and their three boys as well as terry's aunt Lovey and her husband Dave with there two daughters. It really was a family trip.

Normally I don't much like camping with kids (it was my vacation from work after all) but they were all such fun happy people I didn't mind at all. Blonde people have a lot of energy. Talking with them around the campfire was fun, they really made me and Paul feel welcomed.

Our campsite was nestled in an alpine forest close to the lake, which was 6 miles long and surrounded with quaking aspen trees. It was beautiful, and hard to believe we were more or less in desert land, just 8000 feet up. I kept thinking about how e:jim's mom and dad (who live near by I believe) described the west as 'gods country'. I understand what they meant. Everything is so big out there, you really feel tiny, exposed and insignificant. It was truly awe inspiring! I hope my camera captured it truthfully.

We rented a pontoon boat the second day and did some fishing. e:Paul really liked the fishing part. I liked the boat ride. It reminded me of being on my grandfathers boat when I was a kid. I believe everyone on the boat caught at least one perch. Even me, though i threw mine back. Paul ate his raw. The water was too cold to swim in. Colder than Lake Erie! The hot sun made up for that though.
It was around 80 degrees during the day, at night it would get as cold as 34 degrees! I wasn't prepared for that. I should have brought more sweaters.

It was a good time.

The pics below are from the Utah portion of our trip. Some family shots as well as some landscapes. Enjoy!

Next entry, Flagstaff Arizona.

Happy birthday e:terry! Hope it's everything, you deserve it.