DAYS 2 - 5: COLORADO, UTAH & ARIZONA

Horseshoe Bend, AZ

This week we made up a new word, Kerouac-ing (v). - to be on the road, and on the road, and on the road some more...

We woke up on day two and attempted to climb this ridiculous looking spire called Independence Monument. The hike in was beautiful and it felt so good to climb again. I had started calling this past summer “the bummer summer.” A self-inflicted two months of staying far away from rocks and strange bushes and anything that could induce bruises, sprained ankles, weird tan-lines or more poison ivy…all for the sake of lookin’ good in the white dress. And man, did it feel good to finally slide up against some sandstone without worrying about the scrapes it left on my shoulders.

We made it through the 3rd pitch of the spire, before looking at the fourth and final pitch and deciding that the rusty sparsely placed bolts, (which this old guy named Otto had placed who knows how many years prior) looked a wee bit sketchy. So we called it, rappelled down and got caught in a sweet little rain storm on the hike back to the truck. 

After another three hours on the road, our next stop was Indian Creek, UT - a spot known for its infinite number of crack climbs, which for those of you who aren’t familiar, are basically long “slits” in the sides of a mountain, where you have to shove your fists and toes and any other body part you can wedge in there in order to create a jam and hoist your body up. And then you repeat that like 30 or 40 times to the top. I’m generally not a fan of sticking any of my body parts into mountains, so I thought I would kind of hate it, but it turned out to be amazing. We were the only two souls at the bottom of these giant (and when I say giant, I mean giiiiiiiant) buttresses. And the climbing took some huffing and puffing, and yes, body part jamming, but making it to the top was an unbelievable rush. 

We spent our two nights in Indian Creek at a gorgeous BLM campground. Again, we were lucky enough to have the entire place mostly to ourselves. We set up our camp backing up to a garden of scraggly tooth rocks and giant mesas, cracked open a bottle or two of wine, picked wild flowers, cooked fantastic dinners (it’s amazing how much better broccoli and mac+cheese taste when cooked over a campfire), enjoyed the sunsets and gave our battered bodies a rest.

On day four we woke up early to get one last climb in before again, getting on the road and driving 4 more hours to Arizona. Once we crossed the border, we parked ourselves in the sands of Lake Powell, took some sunrise photos at Horseshoe Bend, SUP’d around giant rocks, jumped off cliffs and explored the innards of slot canyons. For those of you traveling to AZ - opt for Waterholes Canyon instead of the classic Antelope. You’ll save $50 and it’s still damn beautiful. 

The rest of our days have been filled with reading (I actually finished a book this week - definitely a personal record) and writing, pretending we know how to meditate and attempting to lead our own yoga sessions. We’ve googled a lot of things - like why does the moon affect the tides and the geological history of the area we’re in. We also bought a new camera and have been playing around with that quite a bit. DSLR’s are tricky, tricky little things. Hoping we’ll figure out how to navigate between the aperture and shutter speed and ISO gibberish before this is all over. 

Tomorrow we’ll spend grocery shopping, laundry-mat-loitering and stocking up on supplies in order to get ourselves ready for the next adventure: Six days of backpacking through The Grand Canyon. I’m sure we’ll have a few more stories to tell after that one. 

Until next time.

-Kenze 

Indian Creek, UT

INDIAN CREEK, UT

INDIAN CREEK, UT

INDIAN CREEK, UT

INDIAN CREEK, UT

WATERHOLES CANYON, PAGE, AZ

WATERHOLES CANYON, PAGE, AZ

LAKE POWELL, UT

DAY 1: COLORADO NATIONAL MONUMENT

View from Saddlehorn Campground, Colorado National Monument.

Our wedding was magic. It was simple and beautiful and filled with so much love. We danced the night away with our favorite people in the world. We took shot-skis. We ate Taco Bell. We woke up the next morning and sat by the pool with extra spicy Bloody Marys.

And now it's all over. The dust has settled. The guests have gone home. And we're officially honeymooners. TheFirst365 has begun.

And instead of laying on a beach in Hawaii and getting dressed up for dinners at a fancy hotel, we're making turkey sandwiches and setting up camp in the back of our truck overlooking the Colorado high desert and I couldn't be happier.

I've had a lot of time to prepare for this moment and to imagine what it would be like. But I think I was so busy with the wedding, and packing, and work, and trying not to lose my mind that it never really sunk in.

But now It's actually real. We have the next year to ourselves. No jobs or obligations. We get to explore and adventure. And my head is spinning with all of the possibilities of what it will bring.

I hope we meet crazy people.  I hope we get lost. I hope we watch the sun set and rise over places we had never dreamed existed. I hope we learn about things we otherwise wouldn’t have time to learn about. I hope we get pushed to the edge of our comfort zones and that our perspective is a little different when we're done.

I'm a little nervous about what it will be like to not have a home. I can't imagine how unmanageable my hair tangles are going to be after 3 weeks without a proper shower. I'm sure I'll miss the occasional Netflix binge and sleeping in my own bed.

But I've got the person I love the most, a can of coldish beer and the view from here is pretty spectacular.

So cheers to day 1. And to the feeling of freedom. And the unknown.

Excited to see what the next 364 days bring.

-Kenz