The last two days, and my love of Combos

I've been abstaining from carbs and sugars for months now. Despite all of the hiking, I was really good during the trip. The second to last day, I hiked three miles (of pretty strenuous trails), and I fucking DEMOLISHED a bleu cheese bacon burger with chimichurri fries from a brew pub local to Zion Canyon. Three miles may not sound like a lot, but these trails weren't smooth, they were essentially deep leg lunges up and down. It felt brilliant, but I was famished when I was done. I may have also eaten a small bag of Pizza Combos in the car. I didn't have to, but they're crunchy, and I like the taste.

Zion was amazing. My dad said we should do the Emerald Pools hike, but warned me that because I was sick, I should probably just take the shuttle around and do the smallest, smoothest hikes.

He's not the boss of the world.

This is at the end of the Emerald Pool loop we took (Kayenta Trail, to Upper Pool loop, to middle pool loop, to the lower pools, and back to the shuttle). I tried for ages to get this picture correct. The framing, the shadows, but I couldn't get it. This was the best I could muster.

This is at the middle pool. It's so snide of me, but there was a couple taking photos of the exact same spot, but they were using the built-in flash of their Nikons. Nikons that were arguably bigger than their superficial skill allowed. I'm a shit for chuckling at that, as I was that person a few years ago. I can only imagine the awful glare off of that pool, and the hideous, washed out quality of the background. I'm obviously not as good as I'd like to be, but I'm certainly not using my flash. I'm metering and adjusting accordingly. Which is hard. I still don't have it even close to down. But I digress. The point is, I'm an asshole.

This is the other side of the canyon at the end of the trail. I can't even imagine how cold that dude in the river is. I can't say I blame him, however. I was hot and sweaty, and I had the exact same inclination. Just not the follow through.

We saw this little dude sunning himself in the fading glow of the afternoon on the walk back to Jasper. I didn't really see any wildlife, aside from the exceptionally large crows, so his presence on the rock made me happy. What made me even happier was how many people got out of their cars and pulled out their cameras when they saw Derek and I hunched over the sidewalk, HUGE lenses in tow. What are they taking pictures of?? Oh, a lizard? Fuck that. And then they'd put their cameras away, get back in their cars, and drive off. Joke's on them, this lizard is fantastic.

I take at least one picture like this every time I go on a photography adventure. I don't always post them, because I can't always get the look and feel I want. This time, I did. This was leaving Zion. I was so sad to go, but I was exhausted and I didn't have any energy to even think about doing any of the other trails. Not even the easy ones.

Initially, we had decided to swallow the last day in Bryce Canyon and head to Glenwood to get back in touch with civilization (not that nature isn't great, and to clarify, if Bryce Canyon had had even ONE full service gas station that didn't belong to Best Western, I could have stayed FOREVER, going out and taking pictures of everything I saw that delighted and amazed me) and maybe go back up to Crystal or Hanging Lakes. But I was so fucking blasted that driving five hours was the third least appealing option in the world to me, and I went back to the hotel, went for a quick swim, had three very substantial drinks, and crashed the fuck out.

I had planned on taking one more crack at sunrise photos. I threw my phone when the alarm went off and went back to sleep. I told you, my temper tantrums are legendarily ugly. Instead, we woke up at 8, packed up, had breakfast, and made the long journey back home, with plenty of photography stops along the way.

These are almost in order, but not really. When we got to Arches National Park for the last time, a storm wasn't even threatening to roll in. So, these were the last three photos I took in the park before we left. Where I also told off some silly bitch and her equally silly husband in front of their children.

Woman: HEY! You're off the trail.
Me: (I turned around, but then kept taking pictures)
Woman: YOU'RE. OFF. THE. TRAIL.
Me: Ok, great, thanks.
Woman: Don't be like that woman, kids. Don't just think you own everything, don't be like her. She's a terrible person.

And that's where I felt slighted. You don't know me, you ridiculous cunt. Don't use me as some example to your ugly kids. And I may be a terrible person, but walking into nature is hardly indicative of why I'm such a shit. In fact, this activity was one of the more wholesome of my life.

Me: HEY! Hey. Who told you it was ok to be so fucking passive aggressive?
Husband: What did you just say in front of my kids?
Me: Yeah. This is an extremely cool story, but really, I have to go. Have a very nice day.

And then I turned around and kept taking pictures. Was I off of the trail? Yes. Yes I was. Not that this is any excuse, but I was literally less than a foot away from the road, still on the very same sand the trail was made of, and I hadn't crossed a single sign telling me I couldn't be where I was.

The storm had more than rolled in at this point, and I think this is actually the very last picture I took in Arches National Park. I am simply wild about the colors.

I couldn't get the interesting shapes and textures and contrasts present here the first time we came through, but I think the darkness of the clouds really helps. To share a fun fact, I had laid down in the dirt for this picture, and when I came up, I had at least a pound of sand in my pants, shirt, and bra. I  have no fucking idea how that happened. I wasn't rolling around or anything like that. But I guess these things just happen.

Obviously, this is the same scenery, just from a different angle. I'm not sure which one I like more. So I'm putting them both up here.

This is how it looked when we first showed up. Clear blue sky, gorgeous. This is maybe an hour before the pictures up there were taken.

I have no idea where in Utah we were when we stopped to take these pictures, and I don't remember what made us stop. I think it was actually the canyon view, of which I couldn't get a good picture, but this one I like. Particularly because of that sun. Holy fuck. I promise promise promise I didn't add anything or fuck with anything in post to get it to look like that. This is the picture as I took it. 

This rock was on the other side of the picture above it. It looked like this wonderful locomotive made of one solid rock, and I loved it. I loved it all.

We listened to Serial on the way home. I loved it. I loved it so much. I was immediately sucked in and enthralled. I just finished it an hour ago, actually. Focusing on that podcast really helped me not hyperventilate myself to death during the snowstorm we hit in Vail that made seeing the roads next to impossible.

I'd be lying if I said I were thoroughly satisfied with the amount of pictures I took versus the amount of pictures I was happy with. I'm not. However, I WILL say that the quality has stepped up tenfold. I'm actually really looking forward to the wedding I'm shooting in two months. I feel...I feel confident about it. There are a bunch of pictures I didn't post on here, and with good reason. They're not for anybody else.

I'm exhausted. It's way past my bedtime. Frubs is up next to me, at his desk, writing. Allen is downstairs with a girl (she seems nice, and he seems to like her quite a bit. So much so that I will actually refrain from gossiping about it. For now, at any rate), and he's going to suffer for it tomorrow when it's time to wake up in four hours to go to work, but this is what people do in the initial courtship stages, and thinking about it makes me happy for him. My house is fairly quiet, aside from me listening to Ben Howard, and I'm pleased. I'm ready to go to bed.