It took us EIGHTEEN years after leaving Utah to go back to Utah, as tourists, to explore. Eighteen!
I know we had all sorts of ideas for spring break this year but ultimately we decided to stay in the country. We have our trusty Amex Delta credit cards that offer us companion tickets each year, so basically we get two free tickets with two paid tickets within the states. And that's what we used to go to Utah.
I have to step aside from the travel story for a second and tell you that the morning before our flight, I was doing my physical therapy exercises at home. I was feeling so strong and confident, progressing really well with my non-surgical ACL recovery. It had been a year and a half since my "incident" when my knee gave out two months after the ACL tear. I had been hopping on one foot for months, cleared to run, play tennis if I wanted to, stuff like that. Anyway, I was hopping from a small trampoline (as part of my exercise) onto the floor landing on TWO feet and my knee gave out. It was horrible. Such horrific pain, I felt like I blacked out for a second, I rolled down on the floor and just cried and cried holding on to my knee. Mark and my mom were home, so Mark immediately brought me some ice and I had to sit elevating it for a while as it started swelling up very quickly. I was in the basement, texting my PT guy in Australia, who, like me, was totally shocked this happened as I was doing SO WELL! It was really disappointing and so painful... And we were going on a hiking trip that evening!!! I barely made it up the stairs with Mark's help and entertained the idea of me not going to UT at all. After back and forth with my PT guy and taking some pain killers (and remembering that if I cancel my ticket, I have to cancel the companion's too and they will not give it back to me), I decided that I will still go. As part of the perk of my Platinum status is that I get two free upgrades to First class each year, and so I used it to upgrade Robert and Alex for these flights, but in this situation, I ended up sitting in First class with Robert, icing and stretching my leg the whole time. I could slowly walk with a slight limp, so everyone had to be patient with me at the airport. And I am sure everyone was thinking it was going to be a LOOOOOONG trip.
Well! I'll jump to the very end and first tell you that we had a great trip and despite of my very disappointing incident, I managed to do ok!
And now to my actually picture story!
Imagine flying into SLC late at night, Robert jogging to the car rental counter at 11:30 pm, as our flight got delayed, to ensure we could get the car before we checked into an Embassy Suites hotel 15 min away from the airport.
And then imagine waking up and seeing that Utah was covered with SNOW!!!!
Views like these as you are driving only seem unreal when you don't live in this beautiful area.
We first drove towards Provo to quickly stop by and visit Katya.
She jumped out of her dorm, we gave each other hugs, took a picture and she ran back to her studies as she was in the middle of her finals. We knew we would be seeing her on the last part of our trip as well.
And then we headed South.
And more south where we saw the original Mater.
We drove towards Moab. Arches National Park was our final destination for the day.
It's crazy that this is the first time we were able to be here!
The plan was to hike to the arches without the shortcut, a full 3 mile hike.
The question remained, how would I be able to handle it.
Doing just fine...slow, very slow but steady. My knee actually was not hurting by then much, it was just still very swollen and stiff.
These two went ahead of us quite a bit as Robert had to hold my hand and support me quite a bit on the steep areas. At one point, a guy, who was probably five years younger than us walked up quickly from behind us and in passing said, "Awe...after all these years". We must have looked ancient and slow-hahaha!
I was for sure not doing running around like that for fun. But the boys had a great time!
Some parts had pretty steep drop offs at the very end of the hike.
And finally--this beauty!
It was SO windy at the top!
With Ukraine in our hearts.
I couldn't believe I made it (I knew I still had to walk back, and one chunk of really-really hard part was scaring me).
Traditional selfie! With crazy hair (as Robert would add, "At least you have hair!").
The boys went all the way under the arch!
It is quite amazing!
Such an iconic place to see!
It was a very busy too, despite the fact that suddenly even Southern Utah was living through a cold snap. Many people were hiking to the Arches for the sunset, but we hiked back to the car.
Such a different kind of place!
We saw a few of these driving back to the exit of the park.
I mean, it's incredible to think about how these earth monuments got created!
This was one of those places that was even more wildly beautiful in real life.
We drove to our hotel (technically a motel) that still cost us an arm and a leg...because it is Moab.
Lyana.
To Be Continued...
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