Lagoon and the drive to Texas

Right before we left for Texas, we had some good times with the Weed family and went to Lagoon! I made it about 3 rides before I got motion sick and had to sit out for a minute or two....but it was so much fun! We went on all the big roller coasters and some other rides, our favorites being wicked, the spider, and that rocket blast off one that I cant remember the name...

Then we left for Texas! It was a long drive, well three days, at least 8 hours of driving each day, but we had alot of fun. Our first stop was in Vernal, where we were to see the cool dinosaur fossils at the park, but as it turns out the building was falling in or something and so they closed it to remodel. We could have waited for a shuttle and then hiked in to see some stuff, but we decided to just take a picture by this real looking dinosaur and leave.


Next stop, Colorado! We stopped, after passing through some pretty cool park city like resort towns, in a well resort town of winter park Colorado, stayed in a motel manned by a guy who spoke a language I didn't understand, and ate some pretty good BBQ. Oh and too bad we didn't plan more time, the city was full of mountain bikers, apparently there are alot of good trails here in the summer....next time next time. This picture is in the restaurant we ate at. It had some pretty cool decorations, along with this guy sitting at the bar. We took a picture with him.


Next stop, Rocky Mountain National Park! This was pretty cool, we drove on a road that went to the tops of the Rockies, literally! The highest elevation of the road we drove on was like 12,070 feet or something. Wow! It was cold up there! Anyways, there were some really cool views of the Rockies, overall a very pretty park.




Next in Colorado, we went to the Denver Mint. I didn't remember that there was a mint there until too late, so we did not get to take a tour (you have to schedule 2 months in advance), so that was a bummer but it was fun to go see the building!


Well the rest of the trip we didn't really make any exciting stops, just to stay the night in Kansas...but the drive through Kansas was out of control! We drove through the biggest thunderstorm I have ever been in. It was non-stop, no exaggerating, lightning for an hour and a half. It was constantly flashing and lighting up the road all around us. It was crazy! We were thinking maybe there would be a tornado or something....thankfully neither of us woke up in Oz.

Anyways, now we are in Texas and will be posting pics of our apartment and College Station as soon as our moving truck gets here with our stuff.

Shakespeare and Zions National Park

Well this weekend was alot of fun! My mom, sister, Caitlin, and I went down to Cedar City on Friday to see a Shakespeare play, the Merchant of Venice. It was a pretty good play, but very anti-Semitic. For those of you who have not seen it, one of the main characters is Jewish, and he really does not like Antonio, but Antonio needs to borrow some money for his friend, so he lends Antonio the money with the deal that if he does not return it in a month he gets to take a pound of Antonio's flesh in return. There are many derogatory references to the Jewish people throughout, and then at the end the money is not returned and a pound of flesh is required, and the moneylender does not like Antonio, so he requires the flesh hoping to kill him, but they discover a loophole and suddenly the moneylender is on the wrong side of the deal and looses all he has. Which is fine, except for as part of the ending of the play he is forced to become Christian, which with that plus all the other comments and jokes in the play about him and his people, it makes you feel kind of sorry for him. I mean you shouldn't force someone to become a Christian. Anyways, if anything it just is an interesting history lesson about attitudes towards Jewish people at the time that the play was written. Or at least Shakespeare's apparent opinion. But, maybe he is not anti-Semitic....I don't really know Shakespeare that well.



The next day, Saturday, we went and hiked part of the Narrows in Zion National Park! It was pretty cool. We got into our campsite at like 12 am, set up our tents, and tried to sleep a little, but it was so hot! Anyways, hiking the Narrows was so much fun, it is a hike that goes up the Virgin river. There are small sections of trail at points on the side of the river, but for the most part you are hiking in the water, sometimes up to your waist. Caitlin and I decided we needed to go swimming on the way back down, and even though we were not wearing swimsuits, just our hiking clothes, we jumped in the river in a few deep parts and let the current take us down the river. It was pretty fun! It was a very wet day after that, at least until we got back to the campground and changed our clothes. It was fun though! Next time we will be more prepared with hiking shoes (instead of flip flops which Caity almost lost down the river) and hiking poles for better balance. It was alot of fun, even mom hiked up the river quite a ways with us and almost went swimming but did not have a change of clothes! It was a pretty fun trip!

Bahamas

Well here we are still trying to catch up to where we should be so I decided to write a quick post on our honeymoon activities! We ended up having a really long honeymoon, starting with a 4 night cruise to the Bahamas!

We had 3 stop on our cruise, the first being in Key West. While there, we rented bikes and rode around the town, seeing the beaches and neighborhoods and the cool houses that line the streets. Because we were on bikes, we were able to get across the island alot faster than those who were walking, and as a result we were able to see several things before all the cruise crowds got there....like the southernmost point in the United States!



While there, we also saw lots of beaches, a cool old fort used in wars, and we are the best key lime pie and shake I have ever had! The pie tastes so much better than the key lime pie I have had up here. Anyways, the next day we went to Nassau, Bahamas, where we did a little shopping and toured the Atlantis Hotel, which is very pretty. The hotel itself is amazing, and then to top it off they have amazing pools and beaches and aquariums etc...it is easily the nicest hotel I have ever seen in my life.



That fountain is what greets you as you drive up to the hotel. You are actually supposed to pay like 30 or more bucks a person to see more than the lobby of the hotel, but we were walking and before we knew it we were out on the grounds past the point where we were supposed to have paid. But we fit right in and no one was there to stop us, so we saw most of the hotel for free! Caitlin got sick this day, so it was a bit of a rough day for us (I had to leave her in the hotel lobby while I searched for some sort of medicine for her, which I found and it helped).

The next day we went to the private island of Coco Cay, which was alot of fun. We did kayaking, snorkeling, we laid out in the sun (bad idea after going snorkeling, we got sun burnt so bad!) It was a really fun day, and was the day that we did most of the water activities on our trip. The snorkeling was especially fun, and after I got Caitlin convinced that we were not going to be eaten by sharks we were able to swim normally and enjoy the coral and the fish and the very warm water. We swam over by the lifeguard stand that was out in the water where people were snorkeling and we kind of sat down for a minute, and the next thing we knew Caitlin was getting attacked by fish! They where swimming all around her legs and jumping in her lap, and she was a bit freaked out...until we noticed the lifeguard guy above us throwing fish food right where Caitlin was sitting. It was pretty funny. Kayaking was also fun, we saw a shark and several conch shells, and it was just gorgeous clear blue water. We loved it! hmm no pictures of kayaking though, we didn't want to get our camera wet and we hadn't bought the underwater one yet.



It was overall a really fun cruise, we loved it cause it was just so laid back. Almost no work for us, and it was a great honeymoon! Unfortunately we both came back with really bad sunburns, although those faded after a week or so....I suggest if any of you go snorkeling that you put on sunscreen before, even if you put some on earlier in the day. Oh I would show pictures of snorkeling, but we bought this little underwater camera and used it, and have the pictures printed from it, but the problem is we accidentally opened up the back of the camera before winding the film (who uses film anymore? Not us, which is where this problem came from) and we over exposed all of our pictures. So....some of them are lost completely, some of them are overexposed, and some made it though ok. Anyways, that was our cruise, there are so many more pictures and stories but that is the overview.