the kind of love that lasts forever

it has been awhile. it has been so long awhile that i can't figure out the re-telling of all that has happened. love was promised, dreams came true, decisions were made, it snowed and fires burned.
extreme optimism was born and encouraged.


the kind of life moments that force your heart to get bigger to contain it all. they happened.

and they kept happening. we decided to put them first.
honestly, what job satisfaction trumps watching best friends get married on top of a hill in the forest?





we walked two miles in the snow to vote our guy into the white house. and then we cried because that hope that we had been daring feel was okay and real! then we started to feel something new: pride. again with the extreme optimism!
the sun set and rose and set and the days got shorter and colder and quiet.

there is nowhere else to look except up and forward. and that is a great feeling.

right back where we started from

what happens between utah and california??it's vegas!!!

which is so silly. and so fun.
and then you wake up, and realize you are so close to home, just a treacherous drive across the desert away from CALIFORNIA, so you get up and dash across that desert.
and look at that. 16,000 miles and three months later, we are back on the 101.

the promised land.

zion national park.it was the best of our trip: tubing, hiking, mind blowing vistas, delicious meals...


todd grew a beard for the occasion.
we hiked two astonishing things while in zion: the narrows and angels landing. perhaps you know of them?
the narrows is a 13 mile upstream hike through an insanely narrow canyon. there is no trail, you hike through the water, usually it's about knee deep.


it is preposterous!

angels landing is also preposterous. the mormons who first came through zion thought it was so high and trecherous that only angels could get to the top. it is a real test of one's ability to not be freaked out by 1000 foot drops on either side of you.
todd wasn't scared. i was though.



the end was in sight, todd could see it.
we gave our inner tubes to some french kids, who were psyched.

so, like, how are you?

southern utah is one of the loneliest places in the country. you can stop the car in the middle of the highway, make a sandwich, take some pictures and never be a traffic danger. i read that this was the last part of the us to be mapped, it was so remote and impossible to get through. now highways crack through canyons and teter on the edge of the colorado river.


southern utah is also unbelievably unlike anywhere else, i'd wager, in the world. it is like wandering around on another planet, how else does one explain the shapes and colors the rocks have taken on?


and then suddenly you pop out in a pine tree forest, and descend back into a canyon so narrow and devoid of life, it is like watching the earth age like a bell curve.