gearapalooza

This past week I went to the Mecca of summer outdoor gear and, YEP, it was awesome! Every single name in the industry gathered for a week in Salt Lake City to show their wares to retailers, distributors and other gear geeks.

Lucy and I spent the days roaming the expo center checking out the gear, collecting free swag and meeting people. Every day at 4pm happy hour would commence and it seemed like every fifth 'booth' was giving away free beer/food/glasses/mugs.

To save some dinero I decided to sleep in my car. I know exactly what you're thinking... Somewhere along the road, the phrase "sleeping in my car" got a bad rap. If I was taller or my car was a 2-door hatch back then, yes, you should feel sorry for me. But I'm only 5'5" and I've got a car that can comfortably sleep 2 of me in the back when I put the back seat down- it was palatial! Every night I'd lay out my sleeping pad, throw my sleeping bag on top, put Lucy's bed next to me, open my huge sunroof, crack the windows and look up at the stars before falling asleep w/ my puppy cuddling next to me... THAT is what I mean by sleeping in my car. It's easier than setting up/taking down a tent every night and super comfy. So, please, try not to associate all car sleeping with negative thoughts and pity. End of my 2 cents :)

We got back home with tons of swag (water bottles, bamboo cutlery, travel coffee mugs, dog leash/bowl, visor, shirt, sunglasses, etc.), some of it pretty exciting, and having met a bunch of really cool people.

Notable neat things @ OR:

- Nemo Morpho 1p tent (air beams instead of poles- I'm getting it)

- Alite Designs (a fun gear company that's trying to make camping more accessible/affordable)

- Guyot Designs dog bowls (they fold up so are super easy to travel/hike with)

- Native sunglasses (I like their frames and lenses)

- ENO (sweet, packable hammocks)

a little fam reunion action

Me, my sister, my uncle, my cousin, my bro... I may or may not be doing the chicken dance...

My brother, sister and I flew to LA for the weekend to catch up with family that we hadn't seen in years... some 6 years, some 18ish years... It was a blast getting to hang out with everyone as 'adults' since most of us hadn't really spent time together unsupervised by our parents. We met new 2nd cousins (is that what you call your cousin's kids?) and enjoyed catching up with everyone else. In any case, we had a great time with everyone and hope to visit more frequently!

i missed colorado

Erika and I in Savannah, Georgia

You know you found the best home possible when you miss home on your vacation :) Erika (my awesome roomie and very good friend) and I spent a little over a week near Jacksonville Beach, Florida swimming, biking and hanging w/ her parents. We had a great time, but I'm glad to be home. OH, and we visited Savannah, Georgia- cool place- I'd never been to the South before but that overnight trip definitely piqued my interest in exploring more of it!

I celebrated my first day back home by watching the US lose to Ghana and then going for an exploratory mountain bike ride. We decided to try a new trail and quickly found it out was wayyyy beyond our skill level (crazy narrow, rocky and lots of suspect shrubbery on each side hiding snakes and rocks). After 15 mins on the trail we turned back and I almost fell into a creek :) Instead I managed to fall into spiny weeds and give myself some sweet bruises/scratches (do dudes dig battle wounds?).

We biked the Stone Creek trail instead and rode a new part of it that connects to Beaver Creek. The trail was tons of fun but had a few sketchy narrow parts where if you slid out or fell you'd end up falling off a steep face and getting stopped by a tree or rock.

It's cool to see how the trail has changed over the last month. All of the leaves on the trees/bushes are in and a full green (vs. light green and growing in), the wild flowers are sprouting up all over the place, the trail is getting dustier and I find myself sliding out on some of the tighter turns.

Welcome summer!

arches

Moab, UT- It only takes about 4 hours to get to Moab from Vail (how sweet is that?!) so Will, Dave and I took a quick trip to visit Arches National Park. We got really lucky and were able to find a campsite pretty quickly. Will, NOLS backpacker extraordinaire, managed to forget his tent so we all slept snugly in my 2-man (thanks Kentucky Deluxe!). It was a pretty warm and clear night so we got to stare up at the Big Dipper while we fell asleep.

We got up at 5am and miraculously were on the road to Arches by 5:15 (the beauty of car camping- just throw it in the car!). We got to Arches just as the sun was rising and managed to check out a few of the Panorama arches before the army of vest-clad photographers arrived at 8. We whipped out the camp stove and preped our breakfast burritos right there in the parking lot while watching a strange variety of people make their way to the arches (a family who spent 10mins putting on make-up before getting out of the car, a suped-up Jeep w/ infants in the back, German dude with leather jacket... ummm... it's the desert!).

After breakfast we did the Devils Garden loop (7.8mi hike) and saw another 5ish big arches, a few tiny ones and every type of desert scenery you can think of including: [insert pause for dramatic effect] the Dark Angel. The Dark Angel is by far the most inappropriately innuendo-named geological feature, trail, ski run, etc. I've ever heard of. We were thinking it'd be an arch that's a dark rust color and maybe the bases would resemble angel's wings... NOPE! Check out 'Dark Angel' below... ummm... yeah... Is it because the local community is so innocent they had no idea the giggles people would have?

We managed to scramble up to the top of an arch or two but overall the slick rock (and 90+degree temps) prevented us from getting overly adventurous. We finished up thirstier, hungrier (bag of chicken!) and much darker than we started. After sitting in the shade with a beer at Eddie McStiff's (their business card is basically a picture of the Dark Angel...) we headed back to Vail.

Click here for more picts!

The Dark Angel...