zions + vegas = legendary

(R-L: Chas, JC, Kjell, Ellie, Rach, Anthong, Mattie, Bridget, Brad)

So last Friday our "Adventure Club" (so named because we supposedly go on wild adventures a few times a year) drove down to St. George to stay in the condo of Anthony's gracious grandmother. We got up early Saturday morning (not too early, we were still two hours behind schedule of course) and went to Zion's National Park to hike Angel's Landing. Now for the unfamiliar Angel's Landing is 5785 feet tall. The trail is a five mile loop with a 1488 foot increase in altitude. The trail is strenuous and littered with sharp drop offs and narrow paths. People have died while hiking the trail atop the steep narrow cliffs. However, the views from the end of the trail are spectacular and well worth the climb. This is a sign showing how not to accidentally walk off a cliff.

This is the end of the trail, four feet to the left or right and you'd sky-dive sans parachute 1500 feet.

This is a bridge at the beginning of the trail; Zion's has an amazing red hue in the rocks. The mountains are overwhelmingly massive but gorgeous. The other pictures is a little cave on the trail; we couldn't resist the disgustingly cute photo op.

These are our two "dangerous" pictures. That's me swinging my legs over the ledge, and Brad doing his best Spiderman impression, this looks a lot more dangerous than it was...

So after the hike we decided to do Vegas: Couples Style. We found it a little ironic that the three married couples chose to venture down to Vegas on a Saturday night while the three single people stayed in St. George to get fast food and play cards (reportedly they actually had a rip-roaring time and stayed up until 6:30 AM in an intense game of Tarot). What, you might ask, is there to do in Vegas when you are LDS, married, and poor? Not a whole lot. We went to the Cheesecake factory (yum!) walked around Caesar's Palace (excellent decor, they've really spruced the place up recently), and walked over to the Ballagio to watch the fountains (not running due to high winds). This is the best picture we came up with after we found the most non-camera-stealing looking person we could find to take the picture... :) The blurry effect really says a lot about Vegas.

All in all an A+ as far as Adventure Club trips go... next up we are going white water rafting on the snake river in the spring.