Moab Adventures!

I had the opportunity to take a quick trip from Idaho down to Moab, Utah. Thank you to the Jones family! The two days I was there is filled with many, many adventures! It was Thursday morning at 11:20 and I had just walked into my apartment from working out and my phone was ringing. The conversation went like this:

Angel: Rachel! I found a ride to my house and then I'm going to drive to Moab where my family is on vacation! I'm just going to do it! 

Me: No way! That's going to be so fun!

Angel: And you're coming with me, our ride leaves at 11:30.

I had the worlds fastest shower and packed a bag. The drive there was so much fun! Angel and I missed the exit in Provo (by the way, always super weird driving through Eric's mission) and took the "scenic route" there. We were just fine with it! With each new canyon we drove through and as we came around each bend to see a beautiful view our reactions went like this, "Oh my gosh!!".. "Seriously!".. "Is this real life?" We got to Moab that night around 9 and went out to eat for mexican food. It was the best mexican food I've had since leaving Texas, so I was very happy haha!
Now the real adventures begin. Mostly told through pictures :) 
We had a lot to fit in the one full day we were there! We started out by visiting 'Dead Horse Canyon.' The story goes a stamped of horses ran off the side of the mountain into the canyon. The views were absolutely breath taking. umm... not any views of dead horses haha.

Love this shot

Angel and I became true tourist and bought hats and t-shirts.

 

Getting these last two shots was a little tricky.

I told myself just go sit on the ledge! How many times are you going to get to hike to the edge of the mountain and sit for a while and look at Earth's beautiful creations? Make the most of life's moments. 

Next we went to see the national arches. There is just so much to see and do. There will definitely be another trip to Moab to spend more time here and hike to the famous 'Delicate Arch.' 

Balanced Rock. I don't want to be there when it falls.

In the afternoon we took a hummer tour. We weren't quite sure what we were getting into... We were just told that we absolutely had to experience it. At this point I thought this was the craziest thing I had ever done. We spent 2 hours climbing over all the mountains and exploring. It was crazy!

Our hummer.

Taking on Hell's Revenge course. Wish us luck!

Climbing our first mountain, the 'Devils backbone'. 

This mountain here is called the 'Lions back'. It doesn't surprise me that some people are dumb enough to drive their cars up and down it! There used to be lines of people in their cars waiting to try it. A few years ago they finally put a stop to it.

*WARNING* 

this video is a little frightening, but the couple in the car came out with a broken wrist and ankle. 

(search 'moab crash' on youtube for more videos)

found all the dinosaur tracks.

Just one of the mountains we climbed. 

See?! Absolutely crazy! But so much fun! Definitely better than a roller-coaster! Our tour guides name was "Crazy Mike"! The scariest moment was when we were about to go up another mountain, our tour guide says "We've been up so many similary mountains. Why don't we do something different?" We say all right, sure! Thinking we would take another route. He then turns the hummer around, puts it into reverse and we go backwards up the mountain! I did a lot of screaming on this trip. But it was amazing the things that are big hummer could do. 

We're on top of the world!!

We ended the hummer tour by doing donuts in an empty parking lot. I've always wanted to do that haha. Here are some videos from the tour. 

That night we had a delicious dinner.

 Watched some of the Olympics opening ceremony and waited for it to get dark for our last adventure. We set out for night swimming and cliff jumping in the canyons! It was me, Angel, Marley (Angel's sister) and a friend named Ryan. I got to wear one of those fun lights on your head haha. We had that light and the light of the moon! We hiked about 3 miles into the canyon. It seemed like it was taking forever! We passed a beautiful waterfall. But that wasn't where we were supposed to be. We kept hiking. I was thinking this jump better be stinkin awesome! I was about to just pick a rock and jump in off of it. But that probably wouldn't of been very safe. FINALLY we were at the spot! The spot was so pretty, it was worth it. Perfect place to jump. There was a great little, deep pool of water and then a mini water fall and at the top was the cliff to jump off of. So we decide to climb the mini waterfall to get to the cliff. Now, I know you're probably thinking this is completely unsafe. And you're probably right. Especially at night! ha! But you're only young once! :) First up went Ryan, then Angel, Marley and me. Ryan pulls Angel up onto the cliff. Next was Marley, but she slipped on a slippery rock and the waterfall caught her and down she went. I felt so hopeless not being able to do anything. There was no where I could go but continue going up. Marley hurt her ankle really bad when she hit a ledge of rocks at the bottom of the waterfall. Now Angel, Ryan and I are on top of the cliff. It normally would of taken me about an hour just to get myself the courage to jump, but we didn't have that time because we needed to help Marley! So I just JUMPED! In the pitch black. Off a cliff. Into the water. Scariest, craziest thing I have ever done! It was awesome! I would do it again! We spent the next couple of hours getting Marley out of the canyon. It was a long 3 miles, but we were all in a good mood and focused. We had one encounter with a scorpion. None with snakes, thank goodness. It was a huge adventure for sure!

The drive back to Layton, Utah was it's own adventure. Angel and I decided to go back home the way we came because the views were so beautiful! We stopped at EVERY view point, and there was one about every 1 mile. (It took forever to drive the 100 miles through the canyons) We should be banned from all Southern Utah view points. We ignored all "stay on designated path" signs and went for our own hike and explored.   

I'm really grateful for the opportunity to go on this mini vacation. It was such a fun time, new experiences and it really feels like summer now. Angel and I should be more spontaneous and just go! I've seen lots of rocks for now, I'm ready for a beach now:)