A forced birthday is needed sometimes!

About a week or two before my birthday, I was not looking forward to the day approaching. I did not want to celebrate it. I wanted to forget it even existed. This would be the very first time in my entire life that I didn't want to even think about it, yet celebrate it. I usually want, if not an entire month of festivities, at least a week for fun, treats and celebration. 

Not this year.  

Jamie kept asking me what I wanted to do or if I wanted anything. Nope. The only thing I actually wanted was to talk to my mom.

This year I was sad, I was depressed, I was in a funk.

When the day came I didn't want to do anything. I didn't even want to be reminded it was my birthday, I wanted to act like it was any other day...although I did want ice cream.

Thankfully I have an amazing hubby that won't take no for an answer. He told me he was taking me somewhere and I was gonna have fun dammit! Even though I threw a fit like a 4 year old, he made me get out of the van, get dressed with "the right shoes on" (hmph), he made me get on the bike, he made me go.

We stopped briefly at the general store to check some emails and facebook, which was nice seeing all of the love from my friends and family pouring in. (I think this was part of his plan all along!)
After getting out of my funk just a little tiny bit, we decided to go into the park and do a hike. At the entrance gate Jamie asked the ranger which hike would be a good hike with interesting views but was pretty short, he told us Queens Garden Trail would give us all those things...so away we went.

We made our hike our own by taking pictures and goofing around with one another, but definitely got some huffin' & puffin' in due to the steep angles of the trail...ain't no joke!

Queens Garden Trail was a great hike for us, we were able to walk alongside hoodoos and spires and could make the hike as long or as short as we wanted. There was a lot to look at on this trail...we didn't get much hiking in.

 I loved the trees on this trail. If they conquered the elements and everything that went with it to still be here chugging along...I could do it, too.

 By the time we spent about 30-45 minutes here, we decided that was enough...it was time for ice cream!!
We drove out of the park and down the street, it's literally 3.5 miles, to the rock shop where the ice cream parlor is. This place was hopping!! With how packed the line was, I kind of felt like I was in that Seinfeld episode of the soup nazi, (no soup for you haha) but I got my ice cream and my scooper wasn't messing around...one scoop of ice cream looked like 3, it was awesome!!

We were able to snag a seat outside, close enough to the stables to smell the horse poop...happy birthday! 

All in all I did have a great day. Thank you to my love who knows me well enough to make me get out and enjoy my special day. I also got to talk to my momma and even got a special note from my bestie, Aussie, that I don't get to talk to nearly enough. Thank you to all who wished me a great day and sent their love, the small things really added up for me today.
Oh and Jamie did get me a present...a new, bright headlamp!! 125 lumens people!!! Now I can walk the dogs in the dark and be able to see my surroundings...and those eyes shining back at me!! Yikes

Happy Birthday to me.
PEACE

Don't forget!!!

 Go to our YouTube channel

 to find out more about how to live a better life.

ENIGMATIC NOMADICS YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Like and Subscribe

Part Deux: Anniversary at Bryce Canyon

Back for more, eh?
Bryce Canyon National Park is such a beautiful and interesting place, why wouldn't you be back!?
Inspiration Point leads to a view overlooking Bryce Amphitheater, the picture you see on most Bryce Canyon maps or booklets. It's pretty awesome! The trail to view this incredible feature is quite steep but short. I had to put my knee brace on for this one.
Inspiration Point at 8,100 ft. 

After Inspiration Point, we were both getting to the point where we wanted to do a short hike and call it a day. We looked at the map and saw there was a 1/4 mile hike (just my style), where you walk stream-side to a waterfall. The point is called Mossy Cave and although on the map says it's a part of the park, you actually cannot access it from the park. We figured at this point Mossy Cave would be our finale for the day, so we hopped on the bike and drove the 7-8 miles to our destination.

This was definitely my favorite part of the entire day. Instead of looking down on and walking "on top" of the hoodoos, we were on a trail under the hoodoos! We had a whole different view point from underneath, it was just so cool and whoa, what a view! Plus, we were able to walk beside a beautiful fast flowing stream...something we haven't done this whole journey.

The trail led to a fork where you could turn left to go to the cave or turn right to go towards the waterfall...we turned right!

We hiked up that trail!!!

After checking out the waterfall and hiking up this super steep & scary hill, we decided to go back the other way to see the cave. It wasn't much of a walk but it was a little bit of a climb, the trail just angles up.

We were expecting a much larger cave...but there was moss in it!

We were having more fun at the waterfall, so we went back to play in the water.

And of course had to get in that waterfall somehow...even if it felt like a million of the strongest hands slapping you down to the bottom of Earth! 

Sizing it up

Feeling that energy

Success!!

I didn't have the right shoes (yes, again) AND I had both cameras so I didn't get under the actual fall, BUT I did go behind it...that was crazy! The sound of the water was deafening, you could definitely feel the force of it just being behind it.

Swan Dive

Best day everrrrrr!!!!

Happy 7 & 10 year anniversary to us!!

If you want to see a short video of our day, click the video below.

PEACE

Don't forget!!!

 Go to our YouTube channel

 to find out more about how to live a better life.

ENIGMATIC NOMADICS YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Like and Subscribe

Anniversary in Bryce Canyon National Park

It was a great time to be around Bryce Canyon National Park not only because the rain had stopped and the temperatures were still amazing but July is our "celebration month". We have both of our anniversaries (date & wedding) and both of our birthdays to celebrate. Usually we try to do something special (to us) like going out to eat at a restaurant or doing something we normally wouldn't do (due to saving money). Being around Bryce Canyon gave us both of these options. 

I researched on Yelp the couple of restaurants around Bryce Canyon City to see where we would go for a Lovers Lunch on our anniversary. It came down to Ruby's Inn or The Lodge inside of Bryce Canyon National Park, both have lunch buffets. The reviews on Yelp for Ruby's Inn weren't great, not that The Lodge was any better, but we figured it would be fun to eat inside of the park, then do some hikes & sightseeing afterward.  The Lodge has a lunch buffet for $14.15 per person, but is pretty limited; a very small salad bar, a soup or two and hot & cold deli styled sandwiches. After we ate, we thought we would have been better off ordering from the menu but we came for the experience and we were full, with a sandwich to spare, (I had bags in my backpack...hey, I paid for it).

After our Lovers Lunch we drove to the furthest point in the park, Rainbow Point. We figured we would work our way from the back of the park to the front, that way if we wanted to come back in we wouldn't have to drive so far. The drive from the entrance to Rainbow Point is about 18 miles.
I'm sure there are amazing lightning shows when it storms here, you could see for miles and miles and with the dark clouds looming over the mountains in the distance we could see why they called this Rainbow Point...I'm sure they're quite spectacular here.

If you've never been to Bryce Canyon or seen pictures, it's a very interesting place. It has hoodoos, spires, fins, canyons, windows, bridges, arches...it's like all the parks combined into one awesome sight. This was our first look at the incredible forces of nature that have taken place over thousands of years and it's simply breathtaking. I hope you enjoy the pictures, because there will be a lot of them!

Next on the map was Ponderosa Point at 8,904 feet.

Next up: Agua Canyon at 8,800 feet.

Working our way down to the next point was Black Birch Canyon at 8,750 feet.

We did a lot more sightseeing than hikes, so most of our time was spent driving from one overlook to another. We still had a great day though, there is so much to take in at Bryce Canyon.
I feel like I should have some kind of explanation for the pictures but I feel the pictures do themselves enough justice...so excuse me for not writing more in this blog post, I just thought you'd like to see lots of great pictures instead of me blabbing away. 
So here are more view points we were able to see...

Here you will see Natural Bridge, even though technically an Arch

I will do a part two to this post next. There was just way too much great stuff to see and lots of pictures were taken so I've got to do more digging to get the best shots for you!!

'til next time...
PEACE