On not hiking the Subway

I met up with friends in St George last weekend to hike the Subway. We had a permit for 8 people but 11 showed up. Blake has hiked it before, so he bowed out. I, of course, went with him. In the end, I'm so glad that I did that. I'm a little afraid of heights, and when I saw the pictures our friends took on the hike I was so glad I didn't go. There were some rappels in there that would have scared the tar out of me if not something worse.

I still had a wonderfully relaxing day, which was nice after the craziness of my first week of graduate school. Blake and I got to help our friends out by driving them to the trailhead and then leaving a car for them at the trail end. Then we had an almost-running-out-of-gas adventure. Thank goodness for the Chevron in Springdale! We laid out a blanket on the sandy banks of the Virgin River and took a much needed nap. Not going on the hike also gave us some time alone to have some very important conversations about the future of our relatinoship. (And we might have kissed, just a little.)

After our nap we went to the park entrance and had lunch: dino-sammiches and bananas and gold fish crackers and beef jerky. Mmm . . . beefy! Partway through lunch I looked around and realized that there were three other couples around us also enjoying lunch. We were the youngest by a solid 40 years. It was great! We rode the shuttle up to the Temple of Sinawaba and hiked up the Narrows backwards. It was so fun. We also stopped for a shark fruit snack snack. Mmm . . . sharky! And, we got to meet up with the group at Famous Dave's for some delicious eats. I LOVE brisket. I didn't realize the amazingness of the beef brisket until my mission in Texas and wondered where it had been all my life. I'll never be the same. Mmmmm . . .sweet sweet brisket.