More hiking!

And I'm so prompt about blogging it! We just went/got back this weekend.

This was a ward activity for our Singles Ward. We left Friday night and drove down to Meadow where our bishop has a family house. (Meadow is just what you'd picture for a "suburb" of Fillmore.) When we pulled up it was already dark. We stepped out of the car and immediately these two little black kittens came running up. Both were purring and suuuper friendly. They loved being pet! I wondered where their mommy was though because they really were tiny. And they had little pot bellies. So cute! I got to pet them for about 15 minutes before the across the street neighbor came out calling the kittens. We gave them back. Oh well. They were fun.

The bishop's house was a good size. We had 32? of us staying the night there-- girls upstairs, guys downstairs. Mitch and I had just assumed we'd each sleep on our respective floors of the house but we ended up getting the master bedroom/bathroom because we were the only married couple. We felt like we should share our room but for some reason nobody wanted to sleep on our floor or anything. It was nice though because we were tired before everyone else and we were able to go to bed in our room while everyone else stayed up because all the lights were on.

Oh, also, that night we went out to the hot springs. It was my first experience with a hot springs and I'm sure most people had a great time (Mitch did!) but I was so tired by then and I hadn't planned on taking a shower so I didn't want to get my hair wet. That made it less fun. Now I've been in a hot spring though!

The next morning we were up early. We'd planned on being up at 7:30 to start making breakfast but everyone else started getting up way before that (we're talking like... 6:15-ish) and doing all the work so we just got to enjoy breakfast and socialize. It was nice. After breakfast, everyone made sack lunches for our hike. Then we packed up, cleaned up, and moved 'em all out.

Needless to say, it took way longer than most people thought it would to actually get to the trail head. We had a long drive, then we waited for everyone else to catch up.

Then we took the first city shuttle to the park. Then we waited for the second shuttle group. Then we waited to get in the park.

Then we took the park shuttle to the trail head. Then we waited for the second shuttle group. Then we started hiking.

We were doing the Angel's Landing hike in Zion National Park. It's five miles round trip. I know that's nothing compared to the Grand Canyon but I don't think that I'd recovered from that yet. Oh. And I went to Pilates Friday morning (and it's harder than it looks). On the way up, my part where my legs attach hurt bad. Mitch stayed with me and we made it but I was slow. Half a mile from the end is Scout's Landing. I'd planned all along on stopping there because the last half mile is wayyy harder. You have to hold on to chains. And climb rocks. No, thanks. I don't like heights. Mitch did it though.

When Mitch (and the rest of the group) got back from the last half mile (well, mile round trip), we headed back down the trail. By then it was raining (you can tell in the picture that I can't really keep my eyes open because of how hard it's raining).

On the way down, my knee hurt. Like really hurt. I couldn't bend it most of the time. We made it though. And then, when we got to the bottom, we waited some more (an hour and a half) for everyone to come out. Once everyone else had made it out, we took the shuttle back to the main entrance and then the city shuttle back to our car. And then we drove home.

All in all, it was a good trip. Lots of waiting. (Lots of waiting.) But fun. It was a big group. We had fun with the people in our ward and we had fun (most of the time) hiking. By the time we drove home though we were all exhausted. It was so funny to see people at church today. We were all still tired and several people mentioned that they were having a hard time focusing their thoughts. So true, so true.