Sunday, July 26, 2015

The Book of Mormon

My mom, of all people, is a big fan of The Book of Mormon. I gave her a ticket to see it in Chicago last year for Christmas, but I still hadn't seen it. Last year it came to the Kennedy Center in DC and tickets were going for $300-$600. Luckily, I am very patient, so when it came back to the Kennedy Center again, my mom and I decided to go. I'm glad I did. I'm not sure how Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone did it, but they've invented something that is at the same time hilarious, offensive, and still allows you to walk away thinking all Mormons are actually really great. We had a fantastic time and it was really special seeing it with my mom. Thanks for coming with me, Mom!

7-3-15 - Me & Mom

Pre-Show Photo Op on the Kennedy Center Balcony


Illegal Stage Photo

Illegal Ceiling Photo
Make sure you ask my mom about her ceiling photo.

Friday, July 3, 2015

Vegas

It took me 31 years to visit Las Vegas for the first time, but in the past year I've gone twice. I was highly skeptical that I'd have a good time both times, but it turns out that Vegas was one of the highlights of this trip.

We spent our 10th wedding anniversary in Vegas and decided to do a couple special things. First, we ate dinner in the fanciest (and most expensive) restaurant we've ever been to, the Eiffle Tower Restaurant overlooking the Bellagio fountain across the street.

5-29-15 - "Paris"


The views were nice, but the food was AMAZING. I had a lobster salad, a delicious apple cocktail, and duck with potatoes au gratin. Nathan had the filet mignon with spinach and mushrooms. Everything was perfect.



Our View
For dessert, I ordered the chocolate plate, which was delicious, but Nathan ordered the Meringue dish, which was so good, it literally melted in your mouth.


This is the only photo we took together on our actual anniversary.
After dinner, we went to see the Cirque du Soleil show, "O", which is the one with the pool in the middle of the stage. That was also amazing. We capped off the night with about three hours of gambling during which Nathan won $2.93, then happily stopped. I lost $65 that night, then won it all back in a lucky Craps game the next morning. What can I say, the dice love me.

We stayed the night at the Mirage and spent the morning eating delicious pancakes, by the pool and playing craps. It was a fun, but expensive night. One night in Las Vegas is about all I can handle. I think I'd either get bored or become poor if I stayed longer.



We flew back to Milwaukee to pick up the kids and on the way back to DC, our plane was diverted to Pittsburgh, where Southwest marooned us for the night. Instead of hanging around, we jumped in a car at 10pm and rode the 4.5 hours back home, arriving at 2:30am. The kids did pretty well in the back seat of our Chevy Malibu.



All-in-all, Utah and Vegas was an incredible trip. I'm glad we left the kids home for this one, but there's no reason they can't come next time. I'm sure we'll be back again really soon.

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Lake Mead

On May 29, our anniversary, we spent the night in Las Vegas before taking a flight back to Milwaukee. On our way back to Vegas, we had some time to kill, so we drove through Lake Mead National Recreation Area, then stopped to see the Hoover Dam. The scenery included these crazy rocks:


Plus a good opportunity to take some gorgeous photos!


As we both expected, the Hoover Dam was underwhelming, but now we can claim that we've seen it.




Check out how low the water is. It was over 100 degrees as we were touring the dam, so we quickly decided to depart and head to Las Vegas instead!

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Angel's Landing & The Narrows

Ever since I'd heard of Angel's Landing, I knew that I had to hike it. Twenty-one tiny switchbacks followed by a scramble up the spine of a mountain with drop-offs on both sides. This photo I stole from heidikins.com pretty much sums it up:


Here I am at the beginning: really, really excited to achieve a life goal.

Note the "falling man" warning. That's how you know the trail will be good.


Angel's Landing from the Start of the Trail

You first hike along perpendicular to the mountain and do a few switchbacks to get up to a passageway to the back of the mountain. When we were just about to turn into the passageway, a blurry jet airplane whooshed right by us and dove down into the valley. We later realized the noise was a Peregrine Falcon who'd gotten all the way down to the bottom of the valley before we saw it again.

Passageway Mid-Hike
After climbing up 21, steep switchback, you get to a point where the trail gets really skinny and that's where a cable shows up. The cable is literally your life line for the rest of the hike, because this is what you have to climb up:

I'm that tiny blue dot about 1/3 of the way up.




This was the most scared I've ever been to physically do anything in my life. Both Nathan and I got to a point where I looked down and saw a single cable free-standing on the top of a skinny ridge with two drop-offs on either side. This is where Nathan decided to play it safe and sit this one out. I spent the next 10 minutes giving myself a pep talk to keep taking steps forward.



Nathan got some really cool shots of me climbing.

Finally, I made it to the top and the view was unbelievable. I felt bad that I hadn't tried harder to convince Nathan to keep going.

I made it!

View toward The Narrows

Zion Canyon


The views were amazing, but I honestly didn't pay attention to them until I was on my way down. At the top, I rested, ate some trail mix, and had my finger nibbled by an overly-aggressive chipmunk. I thought the way down would be even worse, but I was happy to discover that the familiarity of the trail the second time over made it easier. I was having fun and taking far more risks on the way down.






I met up with Nathan and some new friends from Madison took a picture of us:


Only after the hike did I realize just how massive this cliff wall is: 


I'm happy to be back on solid ground, but was really happy to have conquered Angel's Landing. That was the major win of our whole vacation.

The other famous trail in Zion is The Narrows, which starts at the end of the road where the canyon starts to narrow. You hike completely in the Virgin River for miles, if you want, while the walls of the canyon close in on you. I would have loved to hike this trail too, but we'd had enough. We walked the two-mile, accessible Riverside Trail to see the beginning of it, though.

Riverside Walk

The Narrows



Unfinished business just makes it easier to go back soon. Next time we come, the kids are hiking in the river with us!