HIking Red Butte

We went for a hike today, not only the last hike of the year for us, but also the first hike in about a month. I think we went to Red Butte, but I am still not sure of names in the area. I know it was near Red Butte Creek. This is an easy trail, unless you are from the east coast, wearing boots with slippery treads and not using traction aids because they were not needed. Because I am still not fully adjusted to the altitude and we are both out of shape, we didn't make it all the way to the top on this hike. We did at least make it to the "living room", which is a pile of rocks set up to look like a sofa and chair. This is about what we managed to do last year about this same time. I was wearing better boots last time though. I am not sure what was up with my Asolo's but the traction which looked aggressive enough, didn't give me any purchase on the snowy trail. I found I would slip down and lose momentum. On the way down, I was sliding like crazy on some parts of the trail. I'm glad I opted to go back down the easier way rather then the steeper section. I feel bad we just did an out and back hike though. I would have preferred a loop hike. Oh well. I will try a different pair of boots next time and bring along some traction aids just in case.

Moved in

We are all moved in with just a couple of items left at the old place. There is still the final paperwork to do Monday afternoon, but we are out. We will unfortunately not have internet at the new place for about a week. We are also trying to figure out how the programmable thermostat works. There are boxes everywhere and the place is a mess, at least we managed to get the bed set up and will have a place to sleep tonight in comfort. This has been a crazy move, we picked up the truck Sunday morning and did the move in one day. Good thing we had a ton of people show up to help or we would not have finished in the one day. We even managed to get the truck back before they closed at 5:00. So begins the unpacking. Fun stuff. Seems a waste that we just packed all this stuff up and now we have to unpack it again. We also need to sell off duplicate items and unused hiking and backpacking gear, of which we have a ton.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Hope everyone who reads this is having a great Christmas. We did have a nice Christmas and are looking forward to better things in the new year. We move this weekend so fingers crossed that all goes well and nothing gets broken. Happy holidays.

Moving again

Found out an offer had been made on the condo so we jumped on it. The hope was that we would have some time to move, and that this would give us the freedom to pick up and eventually go hiking. Well the anticipated move date was less than ideal with the guy asking us to be out in less then a week right during the Christmas break. In order to delay the inevitable we had to move the signing to the last possible day and the last possible hour. This gave us about a week and a couple of days. We managed to pack everything up, get a van and move all the stuff out. Needless to say, we didn't clean the place and didn't leave anything behind. We were planning on being a little nice and leaving behind a couple of things but we were so pissed with his rude treatment of us, that I didn't even leave toilet paper for him. Who thinks it is okay to require people to move out over Christmas when they are out of town enjoying the break?

To add to our new misery, the house we were looking at renting was rented out from under us. The woman who owned the house wanted to rent to us and was okay with giving us a short term lease. Her husband apparently was not okay with the short term lease and had a coworker sign for the place for one year. She was upset but obviously not enough to do anything about it. So I had to find another place, on Christmas eve no less. The new place is actually a bit bigger but not as nice. At least the rent is cheaper so we should be able to save up more money this way. Fingers crossed on that.

Zion National Park

We decided to go down to Zion and check out the park. I had never been and my fiance was telling me it was worth checking out. It was also one of the few places in the state that was not going to get hit with bad snow or other bad weather. So off we went. We were initially going to take the truck, in case we hit bad weather, but we ended up filling the truck up with empty boxes and stuff to clear out the apartment. So the car was filled with camping stuff and off we went.

The drive down was mostly uneventful due to it being dark all of the trip down. We arrived really late that night and basically set up the tent and crashed. The next morning I finally got to see some of the park. It was pretty cool to wake up to a full moon and canyon walls nearby. We ended up doing Angel's Landing which was a pretty scary hike. I wasn't a fan of the drop offs, 1000 ft on each side but after I got up there and started heading back, I thought it was nice. The views were simply amazing. We enjoyed the hike up and back then had a nice lunch on a sunny rock. I am not in shape for either the elevation or the hiking right now. I haven't had a chance to do serious hiking in quite a while so I was struggling a little. Plus wearing knee-braces doesn't do me well either with my balance or with my energy. But I did it.

We didn't have much time left of the day to do another big hike so we went back to have a much needed nap. After that was a nice night hike. Too bad the moon wasn't up at that point. The next day we did a couple of small hikes and then left. It was really nice out there and then we came back to snowy winter.

Another successful NaNoWriMo

I once again participated in National Novel Writing Month. In spite of moving across the country, packing up my apartment and going on a crazy business trip, I did make my word count, barely. I did get off to a really strong start and might have finished up early ut I was railroaded by various things that lead to my not finishing my word count until about the day before the end of the month. I think that is the latest I have ever gone with this event. Normally I manage to get my words out and validate early then I am burnt out for the next year. I hope this year I can keep writing and finish the story. I ran out of words and time but I still have story. I hope to get my schedule settled and get some writing done. My goal would be to write a bit each morning since I am up earlier then I need to be. So if I can get it done before I leave for work, the better. But still a pretty cool thing to do. Maybe one of thee days I will get it published, in the meantime I am hoping to podcast the first novel once I finish this current novel. Keep an eye out here for more information about that. Not sure when that will happen though.