Amber, one of the cutest girls I've met here at BYU, and my fellow gimp, outside Arches National Park wearing our matching gimp shirts :) I am so glad she was able to come. She recently had ACL reconstruction surgery and is a trooper for coming on the trip. May I add that she was amazing!? Stuck with the group almost the whole time and never once complained. I sure do love this girl. She makes me laugh so much! 
Day 1 in Arches we didn't do any hikes we just drove around and parked at the different viewpoints. This is Balanced Rock. There is a small pathway that allows you to walk around the rock formation so this was the "toughest" hike of the day. From left to right we have Sini, Amber, me, Audge, Nalene, and Enni. We were having fun with pictures and in this one are imitating the rock and balancing on one leg. Not too hard! 
Day 2! We all were awake at 5:30am and had camp packed up by 6:30. We wanted to get a head start on all of the hikes we wanted to do b/c it was hotsy totsy in Moab! This is me at Delicate Arch. The arch that is pictured on Utah license plates. This was the only thing that I was determined to do while at Arches. It is actually the thing that inspired me to pick this park to visit for our vacation. It was absolutely gorgeous, and so much bigger than I expected. The hike was beautiful, and not too long! We made it up and back in about 2.5 hours (includes playing time) and we beat the heat on this hike. 
I am so glad that Audge was able to come on the trip with us. I sure do love her! It was so fun having her there and doing all of this fun stuff together. Here we are next to the arch. I am in red shorts (right) and she is in orange shorts (left). Look how big that arch is compared to us! Enormous.
Here is the entire group minus Amber under the arch! There is no way I can tell you who everyone is, but isn't this an incredible picture? I absolutely loved this trip and all the people who came with. It was neat to get everyone under the arch together. 24 people under 1 arch= one big arch!
Later in the day we hiked Landscape Arch which was gorgeous as well. About 2 years ago while some hikers were on the trail they heard a loud sound which they thought was thunder and come to find out part of landscape arch had fallen off. The arch at its thinnest point is only 6 feet thick! Who knows how long this arch will be there? It sure was gorgeous. There were some other arches past Landscape that had a tougher terrain. Half of the group stayed behind and wanted to take a rest while the rest of us hiked on. I was a little nervous about physically being ok and able to do it b/c the majority was bouldering. With the help of some very cute boys I made it all the way, but I do have to give myself credit and say that I did most of it myself. But it sure was nice to have the assistance if needed. Here we are under one of the arches which I forget the name. Audge, Nick, Darin, Bryce, me, and Trevor. What a great crew!
Hike over? No! Mike Degener, a member of the Gimp club, whose number on his shirt is infinity b/c he has been injured so many times wanted more adventure. We lost the trail and climbed up the rock to the highest point we could find, and It was the highest point around. I did it! It was absolutely gorgeous! Here are some of us on top of Arches National Park pretty much. We are so far up that if you look down to the bottom left corner of the picture above you can see landscape arch and we are well above it. It was the best hike of the day and a priceless experience. I wish I could explain the beauty of the scenery around. It was breathtaking. 
Here I am looking out over the view from on top of the Park. It was gorgeous, once again. I had to get a picture of me on top of it with my gimp shirt b/c I needed proof that I climbed to the top with a handicap! I like to joke that this picture is of me contemplating how in the world I'm going to get down- that was the real challenge. I told mom when I initially got hurt that nothing would keep me from going on the trip, and even though I had a reinjury I still accomplished my goal and nothing held me back from enjoying the experience. Gimp or no gimp it was a great trip!
This is the last picture I got of the trip. The last arches we visited were the 2 windows. They were gorgeous and we were tired. We opted to walk half way up the trail and take a picture from a distance. Still got to see them! This picture is a rememberance of all the water we drank. Nice, warm, pool water. What a great treat ;) haha, lets just say we were excited to get to some clean bathrooms and cold drinking fountains- heck, they could even be cool drinking fountains. That would be refreshing. After we visited these we headed out of Arches to go eat lunch in Moab and then head home. What a great trip it was, and I am SOOO proud of myself for pulling through and really doing it! No more sitting around wishing we could do these things, we actually did it! And it was an experience to remember. I will also add that it was only a $20.00 trip for everything! Affordable, fun, and filled with friends. What more could you want?My next blog entry will be about the family reunion. I have to upload those pictures. Hope you're looking forward to it!
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