A Longing Fulfilled Is Sweet To The Soul - Surprise Birthday Trip to Utah

Anyone who truly knows me knows that I’ve never really cared much about material things. For me, life has been much more about the experiences I accumulate and the memories I make. I’m usually the one planning the trips for myself and my family, so for my entire life, I have dreamed of being surprised with a trip that is all planned out for me. Well, my sister is awesome and she “gets me”. She knows that my love language is “Acts of Vacation” so for my 40^th birthday, she surprised me with an all-expense paid trip to Moab, Utah! She knew I wanted to go somewhere totally different than I had ever been before and this hit the nail on the head! After spending 3 years literally living on the water, it would be night and day spending the week in the desert, and I was pumped! Karly paid for our flights, the Airbnb, the rental car, everything! She also booked us a fun activity to do out in Moab that I will get into later. It was such an extremely generous and well thought out gift and I could definitely feel the love! 😊

We decided to drive to Chicago the night before our flight since it would’ve made for an extremely early morning if we had waited to drive over the morning of our flight (we live about 3 hours from Ohare). I had booked us a room at the Hyatt near the airport which was part of a Park/Sleep/Fly deal as my way of helping out with things. That night on our way to Chicago, the skies grew quite ominous looking. A storm rolled in and it started to thunder, lightning, and downpour.

When we arrived at our hotel about 30 minutes later, we walked in to find an extremely packed hotel lobby, almost to the point where it was a little unbelievable. There couldn’t possibly be that many people in line to check in! We followed the winding line to the eventual end, where we became the 81^st  and 82^nd  people in line waiting to check in! No joke, it was crazy!

As we listened to the conversations around us, we learned that several flights had been cancelled that night due to the storms and entire flights of people were turned out on the streets to try and find lodging until the airlines could rebook them. One guy that we heard said that this was the 3^rd hotel where he had waited in lines like this with no luck!  We instantly felt very grateful that our flight wasn’t until the morning and that we had booked ahead and had a guaranteed room waiting for us. That is, until a few moments later, when my sister’s phone got an alert to notify her that our flights had too, been cancelled. ☹ Apparently over 2500 flights ended up being cancelled that night and had a domino effect into the next day. Karly called American Airlines and was told that they could not rebook our flight for 2 more days! We were so disappointed because we only had 5 days of vacation as it was and this would eat up 2 of them! We asked about other possible flight routes and the airlines were of no help at all. We got all the way up to the front of the line and hadn’t figured anything out. We decided to go ahead and check in anyway so that at the very least, we had a quiet room to sit and try to figure out this debacle ourselves.

Once we got up to our room, Karly called American Airlines again. Our original flight was supposed to go from Chicago to Phoenix to Moab. We made a list of all of the surrounding airports near Chicago and even checked as far as Detroit, and also made a list of all the airports near Moab. The airline said there would be an hour wait to get anyone on the phone and by this time, it was starting to get late. Karly pushed the callback option and hung up. I was tired of the horrible customer service we’d received thus far, so I called back repeatedly until someone finally answered. We finally reached a woman willing to help and she was able to rebook us for the following morning leaving from South Bend, IN to Dallas, TX to Grand Junction, CO and then we would have to rent a car in Grand Junction and drive the remaining 2 hours. This wasn’t ideal since we would have to sit in Dallas for 7 hours, but it meant we could still go, and that was all that mattered! We hopped in bed, happy to still be going on our trip, got a good night of sleep and then got up and drove 2 hours to South Bend, IN. 

We had forgotten about the time change and ended up having to rush out the door that morning, but made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

We boarded our first flight and were happy to see that we had extra leg room since we were in an exit row!

Later that day we arrived in Dallas for our long, 7 hour layover. We had lunch at Applebee’s upon arrival and then decided to ride the Sky Tram around in circles to sightsee for lack of anything better to do. After touring the entire DFW airport twice, we realized that we had voluntarily crammed ourselves into a small hot box with tons of other humans, and decided to get off and go find our gate.  Just as we were about to exit, the tram stopped in the middle of the track, before the doors. The tram was unmanned and being controlled remotely, so we were at the mercy of the machine. Pretty soon, a robot voice came on the speaker and advised us not to try and exit. The sound and lights started glitching out a bit, and then the tram took off full speed ahead. The next exit was very near and for a moment, we thought it was going to fly right by it but then the tram came to a screeching halt. We decided that was enough fun for one day and promptly exited before we got stuck again!

Soon enough, we boarded our flight to Grand Junction, Colorado. We got to see a gorgeous sunset in the clouds as we were departing Dallas, and one of the clouds also had an isolated lightning storm in it, which was so neat to watch!

Watching a lightning storm from our plane window!

After a quick flight, we arrived in Colorado. Grand Junction has a nice, small airport and we picked up our rental car and were in and out in less than 10 minutes!

Our drive to Utah was beautiful that night! There are miles and miles without light pollution and in fact, many of these areas have laws against it. The skies were crystal clear and we could see the Milky Way so vividly!

Just after crossing the state line into Utah, we saw a vehicle pulled over to the side of the road and a man was standing there trying to flag down cars with his lighted cell phone. We were out in the middle of nowhere and not about to stop and end up in a trunk, but I did call 911 to let them know he may need help.   I found it comical that within my first 5 minutes ever in Utah, I called the police! We also saw a coyote standing on the side of the road as we drove by. 

A couple of hours later, we arrived at our Airbnb. Karly had rented us a gorgeous townhome in Moab and we each had our own master suite with king sized beds and attached bathrooms, a fully stocked kitchen, laundry, a nice patio outback overlooking the mountains and a pool! I hopped into bed that night after a long day and slept like I was on a cloud. Here is the link to the Airbnb if you are interested in booking it: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/45751181?c=.pi80.pkYm9va2luZy9ndWVzdC9SZXNlcnZhdGlvbkNvbmZpcm1hdGlvblRlbXBsYXRl&euid=6747cc8d-0d6b-ee8d-df12-5c3ebc3d46dc&source_impression_id=p3_1760381704_P3M7GR6UNyd5lCpE

The next morning, I was so excited to see the view that we had missed because it was dark when we arrived! I jumped out of bed and threw open the blinds and had this magnificent view of the red rock mountains all around us. I went downstairs and made a coffee and sat out on the patio to enjoy the view. Soon, Karly woke up and joined me. It was already hot as heck out and was forecasted to be around 105-110* throughout the entire trip!

For our first day in Utah, we decided to visit Arches National Park and do some hiking. Karly had purchased a National Park Pass which allowed us unlimited entry to all of the National Parks for one set fee! We drove around the park to see some of the Arches first and then hiked to a few of them for better views! We started at the visitor’s center and saw all of the main areas including the Windows, Balanced Rock, Devil’s Garden, Broken Arch, Sand Dune Arch, Tunnel Arch, etc.

We tried to go hiking at the Fiery Furnace, but upon arrival learned that we needed a permit and there was a 2 day waiting period in order to get one, so instead, we stopped and hiked to several of the arches.

We were very glad we had purchased camel back water pouches prior to our trip as they proved extremely necessary in the heat!

We had been researching what kind of predatory animals lived in Utah and made a list for what to watch out for. At the top of our list for things to avoid were bears, scorpions, rattlesnakes, tarantulas, and mountain lions. Karly had shown me a video of the sound that mountain lions make and it sounded very much like a bird or small animal like a mouse. At one point, we were hiking through a narrow, steep corridor on the way to see an arch and stopped for a photo together. One thing about Utah is that it is completely silent when hiking around because there are very few trees or water sources to make any noises. You could literally hear a pin drop. As we were posing for the camera, a raven appeared out of nowhere and squawked so loudly that Karly and I both screamed and fell over. We were already a little leery of what might be lurking around the cliffs, so this caught us completely off guard. After we realized that it was only a bird, we started cracking up, both shaky with adrenaline.

We read that there were some petroglyphs in part of the park near the Wolfe Ranch, and this was also the trailhead for one of the most iconic arches in the park, Delicate Arch, so we decided to head over that way. The trail said it was only 1.6 miles each way, which would normally be no big deal, but it had reached 107* by that point in the day and the trail was basically straight up the mountain! We decided last minute to throw on our UV blocking sun shirts and boy were we glad we did! The sun that afternoon was intense! The petroglyphs were roped off to keep them protected and were a little lackluster if I’m being honest, but were still neat to see.

We continued up the path in the direct sunlight. We each had to stop about a million and a half times and it was kind of awful because there wasn’t anywhere to go to get out of the sun or heat. We were so thankful to have our Camel Backs, however, it was so hot out that the water that was in the hose between the pouch and the mouthpiece got extremely hot in between use. Each time we’d take a sip, it was like drinking a hot tea for the first few sips and ended up tasting like chemicals. We decided that night, we would freeze the packs so they stayed cold longer the next day.

Eventually, we made it up to Delicate Arch and it was a pretty cool arch to see. This is the arch that is on the license plates for Utah, so we figured we had better not miss this one, and it was worth the hike.

We snapped some photos and then headed back down to the car. Both of our faces were flushed red from the heat and exerting ourselves so much in the higher altitude. I literally live at sea level, so being out there definitely messed with me a little bit and made me much more tired than I usually am.

Neither of us felt like doing anything after that, so we decided to stop at the grocery store on the way home and just made food at the condo that night.

The next day, we woke up refreshed and headed out to Canyonlands National Park. On the way there, we stopped to take some photos of the buttes and there was definitely an impromptu dance party to our own rendition of “I like big buttes and I cannot lie” :D

Canyonlands is divided by water into 3 main areas, each with a different access point. Island in the Sky, The Maze, and the Needles. Island in the Sky is the easiest to access and the closest to Moab, so we went with that option.

We stopped near the Visitor’s Center and walked across the street to see the iconic view looking down at Shafer’s Trail. You can see the road twisting and winding all the way down, about 1400’! It’s a very cool view from the top!

We then went to the Green River Overlook. The canyon looks like the land has been sliced with a knife and is flat across the top with all sorts of veins of water carved canyons thousands of feet below. The river is actually green and was an eye pleasing contrast in the vast expanses of red rock.

After the intense hike we had experienced the day before, we were pretty content to just sit in our AC and drive around to the different viewpoints in the park that day to see the sights, listening to fun music all along the way.

These signs were all over Canyonlands, which cracked us up because there were pastures all over, but no cows to be seen anywhere. No wildlife at all really! Maybe they did get abducted, lol!

After getting our fill of all the beautiful locations in Canyonlands, we drove to nearby Dead Horse Point State Park.  There was a large canvas photograph of this park in the condo we were staying in, and we wanted to see it firsthand!

We drove to the overlook and then there is a short walking trail to the viewpoint. To the east, you can see these ponds below that are a beautiful scale of blue and turquoise. These are actually solar evaporation ponds for potash mining, and the blue comes from a dye that is added to speed up evaporation. The resulting product is then used in fertilizer products and batteries.

On the other side of the overlook lies the famous spot where Thelma and Louise drove off a cliff in the movie. This is also where the opening scene of Mission Impossible II was filmed with Tom Cruise rock climbing. Karly and I crawled down below the viewpoint to get a better vantage point and ended up with some really beautiful shots of the canyon and river below. As we were leaving, we saw a bunch of other people crawling down where we had been. We started a trend! lol.

After Dead Horse, we drove to Mill Canyon Rd to a spot where I had read that we could see dinosaur fossils and tracks.

For some reason, we kept saving our hikes for the hottest part of the day, and once again began our hike in 106* temperatures.

We had to drive on a slightly precarious road to get out to the trail head, but our Trailblazer did the job and got us out there without getting stuck! We were the only ones around for miles, so we grabbed our water, knives, and rattlesnake bite kit and headed out to explore! There was a nice little trail with plaques that labeled the different types of fossils and pointed out other areas of interest such as the packrat habitats.

Apparently, “packrat” isn’t just a derogatory name people are called when they hoard too many things in their homes – it is an actual animal and they collect everything within the vicinity of them and stuff it into their lairs. The signs were warning people not to touch them because they carry an incurable respiratory disease. Comforting.

After seeing the fossils, we stopped and saw dinosaur tracks on the way out. The skeptic in me still isn’t completely sure they were real, but the state had fences around them to protect them so maybe there is some truth to it. Who knows!

After another fun day of exploring the desert, we went home and cleaned up and then headed out to Sunset Grill, which is a great restaurant with a view perched atop a cliff that – you guessed it – offers great views of the sunset. When asked if we wanted to sit outside or inside, our natural inclination is usually to say outside, however, we knew it was 102 degrees out so we hesitated, mulling over in our minds if we already wanted to sweat again after just showering. We decided to sit outside anyway because the terrace offered the best views. It’s funny because I’ve always heard people say “oh but it’s a dry heat” when talking about a warm place out west, and I’d laugh to myself like “I’m sure it is still sweltering.” But you know what, they weren’t lying! Dry heat is so different than humid heat.  We didn’t even break a sweat that evening in 102 degrees and even had a wonderful night sitting on the terrace while we enjoyed our Prickly Pear Margaritas and the views.

We had a great dinner and before we left, we had hatched an idea that we were going to go on a night hike to one of the arches to try and get great photos of the arches with the starry skies.  I’m sure the margaritas had nothing to do with this plan, hahaha.

We stopped at the condo and changed into hiking clothes and grabbed some gear and then hopped back in the car and drove about 20 miles out of town to Wilson Arch. When we arrived, there was not a soul in sight.  The trail head was straight off the highway and almost immediately started on an incline towards the arch. One thing you’ll need to know about me is that I am not a huge fan of being out in the dark. At all. Random semi trucks would drive by and we’ve seen one too many thriller movies like 'Joy Ride' or 'Big Sky' so each time we’d see headlights approaching in the distance, we would quick shut off our flashlights so that there was no evidence of anyone on the hillside. That meant standing in complete and utter darkness on a steep hill where we knew there was a possibility of mountain lions, bears, scorpions, rattlesnakes, and tarantulas. Every time we would switch the flashlights back on, I half expected to see a mountain lion staring me in the face and it made me shudder. After about 10 times of doing this, I was starting to get anxious and rushed my sister up the hill.  We snapped a few photos that didn’t turn out as well as we would’ve liked, and then ran back down to the car before our luck ran out. Only later did we learn that most of these predators are indeed nocturnal, and we were in their homes at precisely breakfast time.

Thank you GOD for always protecting us when we get these hair brained ideas! LOL. Thankfully, we made it home unscathed with a heap of adrenaline and a good story to tell!

The next morning was the one we had been waiting for. As part of my birthday gift, Karly had booked us tickets to jump at the Moab Rope Swing. This isn’t just any rope swing though, and it definitely isn’t for the faint of heart!  It is a free fall jump off of 500’ cliff and is sort of a mix between zip lining and bungee jumping. We started off by meeting our guide at the Seven Mile Campground where he picked us up in an open-air, off-road Hummer and drove us along a wild and rocky road deep into the red rock cliffs.

He was playing fun upbeat music along the way to get everyone’s energy high, as if it wasn’t already from knowing we were about to intentionally run off from a cliff!

About 45 minutes later, we arrived at our jump site. The guides gave us a quick safety briefing and basically said “if you die or get hurt it’s your fault, not ours, so jump however you'd like”, and then asked for volunteers to go first. I raised my hand along with 2 others and ended up getting assigned number 3. Karly would've definitely raised her hand too, but she was nice and let me go first since it was my birthday gift. She waited back a little bit because we wanted to jump far enough apart from one another so that we could be sure to film each other jumping.

One of the guides helped me into my harness and pulled it so tight that I could hardly breath, which made my already pounding heartbeat even easier to feel. 

I purposely waited to peer over the edge of the cliff to see what I was getting into until it was my turn to jump because I wanted my expression on film to be pure and genuine.  They have each person walk up to this tiny ledge where they double check your harness and clip you into the swing. My hands are getting sweaty as I write this just from simply recalling the feeling in my mind, but I was honestly more excited than scared.

Karly had paid extra for a drone to follow us during our jumps to properly document the experience. Soon the drone appeared in the air out in front of me over the canyon and the guide began a countdown. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and then it was go time! I took 2 steps and then jumped off the cliff for the ride of my life! I let out an excited scream almost effortlessly as I free-fell into a rocky canyon.

My Jump

When the swing caught at the bottom, it bungeed me upwards and back and forth a few times. I let go of the rope and extended my arms out and felt so free! It was a truly amazing experience that I will never forget!

At the end of my pendulum swings, I was hoisted back up to the top of the cliff by a generator powered crank and then the guide threw down a flexible ladder that I had to grab and pull myself back up onto flat land. What an experience.  I still think I was probably more afraid the night before when we had been hiking in the dark, which is hilarious to me.

After I jumped, it was Karly’s turn, and I sat on the edge of the cliff cheering her on and filming her jump.

Karly's jump

Both jumps went perfectly, and we were ear to ear smiles on the ride back.

Afterwards, I think we both had an adrenaline dump and ended up going back to the condo to take a nap LOL.

That night, we had planned on carrying the adrenaline theme into the evening by going on a sunset side by side tour of Hell’s Revenge, a precarious run that requires some expert level maneuvers. However, when we arrived at our tour starting point, we were told that there was a pregnant woman on the tour and they wanted to do the easy run so that she didn’t get jostled all around. Karly and I were very disappointed because we hadn’t paid to do the easy course, so the company was kind enough to rebook us for the following morning.

We decided to make use of the afternoon/evening and drove along Hwy 279/Potash Road which is a really pretty road along the Colorado River.

We spontaneously found some more petroglyphs along this road, and these were much more impressive and realistic looking than the first location we saw them in the park.

We hiked a short portion of the Poison Spider Trail and then drove to try and see the Corona Arch. 

It was quite a hike into the wilderness to get to the arch, and we decided we weren’t going to have enough time to get there and back before sunset, so we just sort of meandered on and off the trail, taking photos of the beautiful scenery and enjoying just being together and talking! We haven’t been able to spend a lot of one on one time together in the past 3 years, so this trip was absolutely wonderful!

On our way back that night, we stopped in at the Blue Pig in Moab for some BBQ pulled pork, mac-n-cheese, cornbread, fried okra, mango margaritas and blues music. This place has live music 7 days a week!

For our last day in Utah, we got up early to go for our side by side adventure that had been rescheduled from the night before. We met our tour guide, Richard, at Canyonlands by Day and Night, a tour company in Moab. He drove us to the Sand Flats Recreation Area nearby and we finally got to ride through Hell’s Revenge. There were some very steep climbs, drives along narrow ridges, spins in the sand, and reminded us a little bit of stunts by Johnny Utah from the remade Point Break movie.

We had been given the option to drive ourselves in our own side by side while following a guide and after experiencing some of the obstacles with a guide, I think we definitely made the right choice to have a pro drive us around! Not that I wouldn’t do it in the future, but I think I’d like to learn on flat land first! We had a good time and were very happy that the company had let us go on the more extreme tour.

After our side by side adventure, we drove into Moab and had lunch at the Moab Food Truck Park. They have all sorts of delicious options available, but we opted for savory crepes and coffee and then took a stroll around town, checked out some of the local shops, and picked up some souvenirs.

With our bellies full, we headed out to drive the La Sal Loop, which circles through the La Sal Mountains, offering a vastly different perspective of Utah. Utah is referred to as the “Land of Contrast” and for good reason! There is one road where you can drive and see red rock mountains and buttes on one side, and towering pine dotted mountains on the other. The colors are different, the mountains are different, the plants are different, and even the temperature is different.

Up in the La Sal mountains, it was about 15 degrees cooler that day, and sometimes reaches a 30 degree difference, which I imagine is quite nice for the locals when the temps are north of 110 degrees down below! Everything in Utah is named after hell or the devil or poison or something scary and undesirable, but in reality, it is a really cool place to visit. I don’t think I’d ever want to live there, but it should definitely be on your bucket list to visit!

On our way back to the condo, we found another beautiful road that follows the Colorado river through a canyon and the views were absolutely gorgeous! We found a little spot to pull over that had a short trail down to the river and we couldn’t resist stopping for a quick dip in the water. We had our swimsuits in the back, so we very awkwardly changed inside the car, one in the front seat, one in the back, in hopes that no one would drive by and see us, and then we ran through the hot sandy trail that followed the bank down to the water. The water was nice and refreshing but there was a lot of current! We decided not to go too deep so that we wouldn’t get washed down river with the rapids! It was a great little impromptu stop after several days of being hot and dusty!

The Colorado River in Utah

That night after a week full of adventuring, we sat on the back patio of our condo, sipping some margaritas, laughing, and enjoying our last views of the red rock cliffsides.

It even rained a little bit, so now we can say we’ve been rained on in the desert! LOL.

All in all, the trip was absolutely amazing, and the one-on-one time together with my sister was priceless and something I’ll never forget!