My weekend with my man and no boys…Fantastic! We had such a great time and our backpacking trip was easily one of the best trips I have taken, and I’m no stranger to trips. We went to Paria Canyon which starts in Southern Utah and crosses the border into Northern Arizona after about seven miles.

We left late in the day and got to the trail head long after dark. After parking we didn't bother setting up a tent, just tossed out the sleeping bags and crawled in. We talked for a while watching the stars. There we so many in the sky it almost looked like fog. It was a great way to fall asleep. Not so great waking up at three am to 25 degrees and the need to pee.

The next morning we started hiking. The scenery was uneventful for the first two hours, but it was so nice to have an uninterrupted conversation with Jay. So often it feels to me that we jumped straight into being a family without really getting to date. Our second date was at my house after the boys were asleep. This trip Jay and I got to spend some real quality time together. We only saw 12 other people over the three days in the canyon and no one for more than five minutes.

After lunch the canyon really started to narrow and become much more dramatic. The canyon walls were very red making the clear blue sky really stand out. There was the occasional bright green of a cottonwood tree adding to the stark contrast. I’ve never understood people who cannot see the beauty in the desert.


This picture does not do justice to the color of the canyon walls.



About eight miles into the canyon and set up our campsite. We spend the rest of the day hiking farther down the canyon and back. Here is probably a good time to mention that the last major hike I’ve done was about two years ago. My pack weighed about thirty pounds and my waterproof boots were fantastic until they got water in them from the top. Then they weighed five pounds each. I made it to our campsite, but just barely. And yet, after setting up camp I still wanted to hike and see more. That is how amazing it was.




Here is Jay and our campsite. I couldn't get far enough away to get the top of the canyon wall in the picture. It's still about 300 hundred feet above this shot.

We spent the next day hiking up a side canyon that was simply amazing. My vocabulary was significantly reduced to ‘Wow,’ ‘Amazing,’ ‘Beautiful,’ and a couple other single word statements.




The walls were eight hundred to twelve hundred feet high and in many areas I could touch both sides of the canyon at once. I could have easily spent all day there and we took tons of photos and stopped often to just stare. It was simply perfect.

We stopped back at our campsite and then went down canyon again to refill our water supply. There are weeping springs along some canyon walls where thick moss and ferns grow out of the walls and drip water pretty much year round. The water is absorbed into the sandstone at the top of the canyon and takes three to four thousand years to filter through the rock to weep from the bottom. You can’t get water any cleaner than that.

Sunday morning we starting hiking out of the canyon early and since we were on a schedule we were moving pretty fast. We got back to the car in about four hours and happily cleaned up a bit before heading home. I was very happy to see the boys, especially since we were out of cell service for two and a half days. That always makes me nervous.

The boys also had a fantastic weekend getting spoiled at Grandma’s house. Bike riding, hiking, new toys, all the fun Grandma stuff so I don’t feel too bad for them. I feel renewed and refreshed and am a much happier mommy and girlfriend since the trip. And I wasn’t even that sore after so much hiking, go me.