Arches National Park - May 2012

Around the middle of April, just after finals week, my parents took my husband and me to Arches National Park in Moab, UT.  The weather was beautiful as well as the scenery.  It was very nice to get to walk around again in the area I've decided to influence the environment of the novel I'm writing.  Most of it takes place in a desert-like area.  We went hiking on many of the trails and saw a lot of lizards!

My dad likes taking pictures.  He has a very nice camera!

Me and Balancing Rock.

Turret Arch.

Me sitting in one of the Windows.  My husband took the pictures.

Mandatory foot picture.  I liked how the orange-red dirt made my brown shoes look green.

And here I got touristy!  We ate dinner the first day at Milt's Diner.  If I remember correctly it's the restaurant that's been in Moab the longest?  It's off the main road in Moab and actually had some pretty good food!  Not that the food looks great in the pictures.  I had a very delicious cheeseburger and banana creme milkshake.

For breakfast and lunch the next day we ate at Zax's, a very nice pizza place.  They also make pretty good pancakes and have interesting decorations/condiment holders/napkins.

Pine Arch.

Landscape arch!  It's so amazingly thin!

But what I thought was really cool was that I found the same puddle-shape this trip as I did back when we visited the park in 2008!  Four years of erosion had certainly changed it, but it was still very recognizable.  I had my eye out for it.  It still looks like both a rabbit or a fish, depending on how you look.

2008                                                       2012

And that was my trip to Arches National Park!  I saw a lot of lizards and convinced my dad to get me Lizards of the American Southwest: A Photographic Field Guide when we left.  I've read part of the introduction so far and it's been very educational!  There are so many amazing, beautiful, and strange lizards!  I'm super excited to have it for reference.  I highly recommend it, and since all the same species of lizard live in all the northwestern states as well, the book is actually good for all of the western states.

Festival of Colors - Salt Lake 2012

This year I had the chance to go to the Hindu Festival of Colors in Salt Lake City.  The Festival of Colors is a celebration of life and happiness.  It was pretty cool, and a lot like an open-air concert with a live band.  It was a dark and drizzly day, and rained on us a couple of times, but the clouds only made the colored chalk more beautiful and bright.  The chalk dust they give you to throw is scented and comes in lots of vibrant as well as pastel colors.  We bought some Indian food, the strawberry drink we got was insanely good, and ate it while it rained.  Some of the pink color got thrown into B-man's eye and turned blood red.  It took us a moment to realize that the pink chalk just turns that color when wet and that he wasn't injured and bleeding.  Also, the chalk gets EVERYWHERE!  As we were walking to the event, there were people leaving from the previous color throw.  They were absolutely covered in rainbows of color and passing out hugs and chucking what was left of their chalk at the un-colored people.  By the time we arrived we all had at least a splash of color on us.  I wore a normal t-shirt and figured I was pretty good for not getting color in my underwear.  I was very wrong.  The chalk seriously gets everywhere.  One good toss from a stranger and my entire shirt, inside and out, was very green.

Overall it was a great experience!  I had a lot of fun with my friends, learned a smidgen about Hindu culture, and became a rainbow. :D  Next year I hope to go to the one in Spanish Fork where they have a legit, big, fancy temple and thousands of people show up.

Color color everywhere!

Mandatory picture of my shoes.  I think they were the most colorful out of the bunch of us.

Since we couldn't see them, we all had to take pictures of the tops of our heads!

I thought her ear was very beautiful and artistic by the end of it all!

I made a comic about it!  See more comics about me here!