The trip to Zion...the caterpillars from hell

Though I'm not completely new to this blogging thing, I still find it hard to gather my thoughts in appropriate order to create something comprehensible and enjoyable. So I apologize in advance if you find this blog, or blogs to come, none of those things (if you knew my parents, you couldn't blame me).First, I suppose I'll start out by updating you on my life. I sort of love where I'm at right now. I say sort of because there are a few things about myself that I would love to improve upon, but nothing that hinders my happiness. I love my job. I work in the purchasing department for a credit union service agency. The people I work with make me laugh every day, and I find that even if when I come to work in a sour mood, I'm never sour for very long. These people are so supportive and caring that you can't help but make a connection to each of them instantly. I first starting working here about thirteen months ago and it seemed as though everything fell into place immediately. I'm definitely in my element, which feels nice. The only problem is that I'm finding it hard to go to school. I find most things incredibly interesting and I can see myself doing a number of things. At the moment I'm majoring in Zoology, but I find myself being incredibly depressed and conflicted with the goings-on in the animal kingdom. I watch Planet Earth and can't help but cheer for the baby caribou to outrun the wolves, even though wolves are one of my favorite animals and need food just like everyone else. I think that if I were to do this for a living, there would be rewarding moments, but many, many sad ones. This is something I know that I would eventually love to do, but at this juncture in my life, I don't think I'm prepared for it. And then it always comes back to my job now. I love this job, I have it pretty good here, and I don't want to leave it for a while.

So, plan B, my work gives me tuition reimbursement for going to school in a field that's applicable to my position. Sweet! The plan is, go to SLCC and get my associate's degree in accounting. It probably sounds completely boring and uninteresting to most people, but there seems to always be a need for accountants. And, if I make more money, perhaps I can finally go on all of these vacations I've dreamt about my entire life. Plus, I think I'd enjoy accounting, I'm pretty good with numbers.

Ugh...I hate talking about school. It stresses me out. I'm getting this tight knot in my stomach just writing about it. Everyone around me is graduating and I'm still testing the waters. I'm getting impatient with myself...

I'm exploring some writing and art projects, none of which I think are amazing by any stretch of the imagination, but they give me something to do nonetheless.

I've recently ventured upon an amazing show, unfortunately in it's upcoming last season, and I'm fully addicted. I've watched all of the episodes thus far (7 seasons) in a matter a few months. Adrian Monk is my fictional boyfriend, I've decided. He's the perfect man. He only has eyes for one woman, turns his head at any immodesty, doesn't think about other woman sexually, is overly clean, and extremely intelligent. Okay, so perhaps the over-the-top OCD thing could get in the way, but I find him entertaining and absolutely lovable. If only he were real...(chances are, if he were real, there would be no way he'd go for me, my room's too messy). I suppose my current boyfriend will do for now =)

Speaking of current boyfriends, I have dated this one for quite a while now. We've been official for about 8 months now, but were pretty much together for a few years before that...he's pretty snail-like, not in looks, but in changes (maybe a little in looks, his eyeballs look like antennas and he leaves trails of goobers wherever he goes). Good ol' Todd, there's a ton I could say about that kid. I'm very much in love with him, he's an extremely important aspect of my life, and the person who knows me the best. We're both pretty difficult people, so I guess it's good we've found each other, because I don't know of anyone else who could put up with either one of us. Ultimately, I can't picture a life without him in it, and I don't want to.

Now, I'm tired of talking about my life. If you have any questions for me, I'd be happy to answer them, otherwise I feel like I'm writing a bunch of crap that no one wants to read (something I'll probably feel regardless). This last weekend, I went on a camping trip with my friend Laurie. We drove down to Zion National Park Friday, May 1, and didn't get there until about midnight. We set up our tent, which had no stakes, and attempted to put the rain cover on...it took a while, but finally we attached it...upside down. At this point, we were both pretty beat, so we laid out our sleeping bags, read for a little while, and attempted to get some sleep. As I lay there, I could hear unknown objects falling onto our tent, I assumed it was rain and thought nothing of it --except, of course, whether or not our upside-down rain cover would protect us from the rain. Oh, and there was a crying kid who sounded like a cat. Anyway, I was able to sleep for about an hour before I was awoken to the side of the tent blowing rapidly toward my face (this wouldn't have happened if we had freaking stakes). I thought perhaps putting some heavier items on that side would weigh it down...but, to no avail... Sleep finally took over around 3:30 am, and I awoke around 9:30 am. Laurie was already up, turned to me, and said "look up." Obeying, I looked up and saw about a dozen or more caterpillars on top of our tent. I thought it was awesome! Outside, my shoes were wet from the rain and covered with caterpillars. I tried gently removing them from my shoes but they wouldn't budge. The material of my shoes mixed with the velcroish-like legs they had didn't make for an easy removal. Realizing that I probably wasn't going to wear them anyway due to their sogginess, I gave up and just walked around outside without my shoes on. I couldn't believe the overwhelming number of caterpillars crawling everywhere. I tried my best not to step on them, but it was extremely difficult, especially since I have such flat, fat feet. Laurie noticed that on the windshield of our car was a registration notice which said "you must check in for this campsite by 9." Seeing how it was almost 10 am, we wandered over to the registration kiosk and did what they asked. While we were over there, we went to the visitor's center to get some information on some hiking trails. There was one that really intrigued Laurie and I..."The Subway." I don't know the exact number of miles the hike was because different sources say different mileage, but I'm thinking it's somehwere around 9 (this doesn't take into account the giant boulders we constantly had to climb over, though). After getting our permits, Laurie and I made our way toward the Left Fork Trailhead, as this would lead us to the Subway...in theory.

This trail was confusing to say the least. It looked like there were a million different trails leading to a million different places. So, needless to say, Laurie and I took a couple of dead ends. But after about an hour of wrong turns, we finally made it to the right trail and continued our quest to reach the bottom of the canyon. There were a couple of steep parts going down that we knew wouldn't be so fun going back up, regardless, without hesitation, we finally made it to the river. Now here's where it got really tricky. Because there were so many rocks to climb over, there wasn't a very defined trail. You could only make out the muddy footprints people left on the stones, follow those, and hope they weren't left by a lost soul. Anyway, this part was a lot of fun. We had to walk through the stream at least a dozen times to find the trail again, and lucky for us, people left cairns along the way to guide us, unfortunately, they were few and far between, so anytime one of us would spot one, we'd shout for joy. Along the way, there were all sorts of little critters: lizards, frogs, spiders, water-skeeters, fish, tadpoles. Laurie would shriek like a little girl from excitement over every frog she saw. I think she took about a thousand pictures of each one. We tried catching them, but they would kamikaze off of the boulders to get away from us, which in turn, would cause Laurie to feel sad and worry that they were hurt or dead. This sadness would last a short second, then we'd be off again to explore the seemingly uncharted territory that lay before us.

So we walk and walk and walk, until we come to this cascading waterfall. It's not really rapid or anything (look at the pic to the right), but the rocks are extremely slippery. Feeling adventurous, Laurie and I ventured up the side of the waterfall. There was barely enough dry ground to the side, so we were able to stay out of the waterfall for a second. But it got to a point where there was no choice. We either climb up through it, or turn back. Well, we came this far, there was no way were were turning back. I was behind Laurie, and all of a sudden, I see her lose her footing, fall on her shoulder, and start sliding down the waterfall. Now, the water isn't that deep or fast, like I mentioned earlier, but there was a pretty big drop off at the end that could've done some serious damage. Luckily, she was able to stop herself before flying off the edge. But then I see this look on her face like something's wrong...then she said "can you help me up?" So I slowly walk through the waters over to her and ask her what she hurt. I was praying to god that it wasn't her ankle, foot, or any part of her leg. I definitely didn't want to have to carry her over all those rocks on the way back, then up the steep slope. On top of that, we were running out of time to get back before dark, I couldn't imagine trying to find the trail with no sun. I thought for sure we'd get lost. My prayers were answered when she told me it was her shoulder. It still sucked, but this was something we could work around. We stopped and ate our squished sandwiches, which were delicious, and started heading back soon after to try and be out of there before dark. The longer we walked, the more lost we thought we were because nothing seemed familiar to us, and we couldn't remember the last time we saw a cairn. Not one minute after I expressed this fear, we saw a lovely pile of rocks, which we knew marked the trail. Both giddy out of our minds, we started walking faster and finally made it to the trail that led us back to the top.

On our way up, however, we could slightly hear some people below us. They were yelling, but we couldn't make out what they were saying. So we continued to walk intermittently between rests, as this was the steep incline we had to walk down earlier (not so much fun walking back up). They, about 5 of them, were able to catch up to us, which didn't make me feel so hot. ***Now, to understand the next part, I'm going to have to explain something to you about this wonderful trail we went on. There are two ways to take this trail. You can repel from the very top, starting AT the subway, or you can do what we did, which is take the left fork trailhead TO the subway. But, if you're going to repel, you need a buddy to park their car down at the trailhead, and then drive up to the top to do your repelling...keep in mind that this hike is REALLY long, but repelling takes even longer*** Well, it turns out that the buddy who parked his car down at the trailhead left his keys in his buddy's car at the top. If we hadn't been there, they would've had to walk ten miles up the road to get to their car...in the dark. So they asked us if we could drive them to the top to get their keys. I told them it would be no problem as long as they didn't rob us, which is something I wasn't really worried about, they seemed like really decent people. They followed us to the top and we took them to their car. Happy ending!! By this time, Laurie and I were beat. We went back to camp, started a fire, and lazed around for a few hours. Then we went to bed.

Packing the next morning was a nightmare. Caterpillars had made their cocoons EVERYWHERE!! We had to take sticks and scrape them out of the tent pole sleeves. It was nasty. We were only there for 2 nights!! Ick. Anyway, I'm sure we managed to take some home with us. On the ride home, I still had some crawling on me.

So there you have it. My wonderful experience to Zion National Park! I had a blast, so we're going back there on May 29. =)

Anyway, if you made it this far, thanks for sharing my journey with me.

Love you long time,

Samantha