Goblins

Sorry I have been away from my blog for so long - but lots to catch up on!

Last weekend we went down south mainly to visit Goblin Valley.  We rented an SUV (it had heated seats - lovely!) on the Friday and left work early so we could get on the road and not arrive to late.  We stopped in Price for dinner and ate at the Silver Steakhouse.  It  looked like it was quite a new place and that the building used to be a bank - the safe was still in the middle.  The food was very good and we arrived at our hotel in Green River ready for an early night so we would be refreshed and ready to explore Goblin Valley and Little Wild Horse Canyon.

We woke up to sunshine and set off after a nice breakfast for Little Wild Horse Canyon.  The slot canyons are amazing but not for the claustrophobic.  There was some climbing involved as well and I discovered a muscle on the side of my leg just above the knee that must only be used for  and obviously never gets any other exercise.
Here are some pictures:

We took Gary's new GPSr and tracked down a geocache on the way.  They are fun to find and leave a message for others when they find it and also to take something and leave something in the box.

After a bit of a picnic we decided to turn round and hike back to the car so we could spend the afternoon in Goblin Valley itself.  While we were doing that the sky turned from this:

to this:

It was then we thought about the full potential of flash floods and the power the water exerts on the landscape - luckily it didn't rain and we didn't experience it first hand!

It was quite windy when we got to Goblin Valley, but we hiked round the Carmel Canyon trail and then took pictures of the goblins from the shelter of the picnic area:

In the evening we ate at Ray's Tavern where I had an excellent halibut steak and some homemade apple pie.

The next day we started on our journey home via Nine Mile Canyon where, with the help of the GPSr and a guide we found loads of great petroglyphs made by the Fremont tribe.  This was the best one:

We also saw lots of oil wells in the area.  We spent most of the day exploring those canyons and discovered that despite its name it was actually 47 miles long and all unmade road - lucky we had the SUV!  We eventually got back on to real road and got home in time for dinner

At work lots of us have joined in a Wellness Program offered by the company and we had our initial assessments on Thursday.  My cholesterol, blood glucose, blood pressure etc are all great but I am a teensy bit over the healthy limit for body fat percentage.  I felt like one of those packs of ground beef that are labelled 85/15% fat - except no one would buy ground beef made from me because  they wouldn't want to eat as much fat as I would provide.  After the assessment we were allocated a coach to plan goals with.  Mine are to drink more water, an extra 16 oz a day to start with, and get more exercise by taking Charlie for two 20 minute walks each weekday.  I also plan to eat more fruit and veg.   We have to track our progress on line and talk to our coach at least once a month.  It will be really good to have someone to help me this way and to have to keep track.  They are all about positive goals towards a healthier life rather than talking about losing wieght etc.

Talking about goals - I haven't personally bought any chocolate - but I can't control what others do when they visit the supermarket and I am afraid a small amount of chocolate has found its in to the fridge - not nearly as much as before though.  I will still be sending the full amount to a charity anyway as it wasn't actually me that bought it.  I haven't got a new For Dummies or Idiot's Guide to anyhing this month either and I still haven't found any time to learn to spin either

Last night we watched Pay It Forward for the first time and it was good up til the end - just goes to prove "No good turn goes unpunished!".  It also reminded me that I owe three people their Pay It Forward gifts and I promise it is  still my intention to do this so please continue to be patient with me.

Finally it was our nephew Luke's 21st Birthday during the week.  Sounds like he had a great party!