Yearly Hajj to Arches National Park

This is a place I seriously can't get enough of. I've gone there every year (except last year) that I've lived in Utah. Kind of ironic, since I remember my parents taking us to desserts. They would sit and say how beautiful it was, and I would sit and say how ugly it was. I love it down there! There are tons of trails to hike on and there is something for everyone. This time around, we got to hike out to see the sun set on Delicate Arch (always a must). We also got to see Navajo Arch, which was a first for me.

Kim was sooo excited to go. We got a tent and brought a bunch of blankets, but it was still suuuper cold (so she says - I always sleep like a log). The wind was blowing really hard, which I've never had a problem with. It's always been kind of breezy, but it has never been this bad.

Matt and Annicka came along with us. We were going to make it a three day trip, but we decided to shorten down to two days and one night. I drove on the way down. It had been raining really bad for about 2 weeks and we were concerned that it was going to be bad weather down there as well. On our way, we went through a minor storm, but nothing huge. There's a tiny little summit on the way down, though, called Soldiers Summit; it has a Chevron gas station right there and then nothing else for about half an hour. Well, we get to this little summit (really, it's more of a hill) and we hit an ice patch. I'm not sure exactly what happened; I just know that doing all those donuts in the parking lot of the BYU football stadium with snow on the ground kicked in. I'm soooo grateful that it did, because we ended up doing a 720 on the road with a semi coming head on. Thankfully, the road was two lanes wide on both sides with a left hand turn lane and no other cars. I think everyone had to change their pants after that, as well! I know I had to get out of the car and take a couple deep breaths and say a VERY heartfelt prayer of gratitude.

I'd be willing to pay some money to see what that truck driver was thinking when he saw us spin out and head for his rig...

Check out the pictures we took below



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