How to Bake Monkey Cupcakes

Friday, June 5, 2009

Elephant Seals

Moving on from Las Vegas we headed back to California. We have a WWOOFing gig at a vineyard/winery in Cloverdale, north of Santa Cruz. By chance stopped and saw some elephant seals. We drove along the Big Sur area of the coast but didn't seem to take very many photos.

Young ones learning to fight

Pile-o-seals

The two sand dollar man

Elephant Seal action

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Another night in Las Vegas

This time we spent time with old and new friends. Arrived in Las Vegas from Zion tired and dirty from camping and repacking the car in St. George, Utah. (Side note: a couple of climbing friends of Charly's let us drop off our stuff and car so we could go to Zion and not worry about our stuff. Thanks guys!) Josh and Sarah Jane went to meditation at the Diamond Way Buddhist Center in Las Vegas. We arrived just as they were finishing. The hosts at the center were so sweet and let us shower and clean up. Then we all went out for drinks and sushi. Can't beat that!

Me, Chary, Josh, Sara, Richard and Sarah Jane

http://www.diamondway-buddhism.org/

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Sign near Vegas

Not even sure what to say.

Dune walk

While at Zion we spent one day camping at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. Camping was ok and hike was fun. Josh and Morgan went to hike the Narrows this day and the rest of us opted out and spent some time playing in the sand.

Coral Pink Sand Dunes, Utah

She'll pump YOU up

Resting in the sand

Playing in the sand

http://stateparks.utah.gov/stateparks/parks/coral-pink/

Monday, June 1, 2009

ZION

Leaving Harmony Hills we headed to Utah to meet my friend Sarah Jane and a friend of hers for a backpacking trip in Zion National Park. Memorial day weekend and we have made no reservations... uh oh. It turn out even though we were not able to do the multi-day backpacking trip we had hoped for. We ended up doing an overnight trip up the East Rim Trail to Cable Mountain. Had a great time. It was our maiden backpacking trip and a great location to begin our backpacking future. Seeing my friend Sarah Jane was awesome and she and Charly got along amazingly. We learned a lot about how to load our packs and what kind of things to bring along.

I have to admit when we first arrived in Zion I was disappointed. After being at the Grand Canyon it seemed to be lacking in grandeur. It didn't take my breath away. However as we hiked and camped my appreciation grew. Zion has so much to offer such as climbing, hiking, camping, and sight seeing. You can approach the park in multiple ways and have a good variety of activities to choose from. Once we started hiking through the different areas of the canyon I found the lack of grandeur replaced by the intimate beauty of slot canyons and massive sandstone walls.