Another beautiful spot...finally some rainbow trout to cook! They were delicious! Joe buttered them up, put some trout seasoning on them, wrapped them in foil and put them right on the fire. Fell of the bone and were very tasty.

End of June and hot hot hot most places yet near Brian Head we found SNOW!!! San Diegans do this in the snow...without a whole lot of experience you forget how cold it is I guess....snow angels in flip flops and board shorts!

Leaving the Forest and trying to find civilization. Leaving and entering where? No clue but it was beautiful, lots of antelope and deer, and cows. Not much else for nearly 20 miles or more.

Again at the lake, very remote place, and Bear country. We were at about 10,000 ft at this point and it got pretty cold in the evening. Joe had a small hatchet and went to town on anything that might burn to not only keep us warm, but provide enough crazy fire to keep the bears away....there might have been a couple moments where we thought maybe we'd burn down the Dixie National Forest...headlines of "San Diego Fireman burns forest down" went though our minds. Didn't happen, and the bears stayed away to our knowledge (although we swear we HEARD some).

Fishing in Navajo Lake in Dixie Forest. Very shallow overgrown lake, no luck at this spot but had fun tossing the line in.....

A right turn on a very inconspicuous dirt road 5-6 miles past the town of Escalante, UT (a very weird little town...) will bring you to this place...Box Death Hollow. Picutures don't do it justice. This bridge, the only half way finished piece of road along the 30 mile stretch around this gorge, is large enough for maybe 1 car and under this bridge is a 300 or so foot drop to the bottom. We didn't see a single other car along the whole route. The road, called Hell's Backbone, winds around this gorge into the Dixie National Forest. It was a little scary, but very very cool.

We hiked a 3-4 mile loop inside Bryce Canyon which was very cool. There are only a couple places in the world that can form these types of spires called hoodas or something like that and Bryce is one of them. Again, breathtaking.....HOT....and VERY HIGH ALTITUDE. We were breathing pretty heavy by the end. A little different than the sea level air we are used to in San Diego.

Don't think you can see them well on this picture but we drove along a remote unpaved/dirt "road" for about 17 miles past our campsite and ran into tons of deer, cows, and possible elk, we are debating that. We nearly ran into a few deer and cow....

Fishing on a resevoir in an area that parallels Bryce Canyon. I caught one!!

driving through Zion National Park. Zion has gotten VERY crowded. In addition to it being about 110 degrees there, you had to board buses with all the tourists to see any of the park, so we stayed in our car and drove through, it's a pretty breathtaking place.

So Joe and I recently returned from a very cool little vacation to Southern Utah. We camped, fished and hiked around Zion, Bryce Canyon, Escalante and Dixie National Forest. We were amazed at how beautiful and varied our country can be. I had the mindset prior to this trip that there was nothing new or amazing to travel to unless I used my passport....well I realized I need to look closer to home because I think we spent 4 days in some of the most beautiful country on the planet. We spent time in some remote areas, some of our coolest exeriences were in places away from the tourist spots. We took some pretty romote roads to some of these hidden spots and I was more dirty than I have ever been in my life due to dust, fishing and lack of running water. We finished the trip off in Las Vegas to attend the wedding of some close friends, won a little cash gambling, stayed up too late, danced, ate, and in true vegas fashion lived in excess and gluttony. We left there as always, never wanting to go to vegas again.