Day 8: Denver

Mark: Today was our last day except for a travel day back home tomorrow. I found this to be the most difficult day of hiking to date. We went shopping on the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver. Now I can hike all day in desert heat, up and down mountains, and long distances but walking around shopping is thoroughly exhausting. I don't know how the girls do it. Alli and Jessie both got some new clothes and we ate lunch at an open air sports bar/restaurant while people watching. The only scheduled event in the afternoon was a tour of the Denver Mint at 2pm. After a brief security check we were led inside to explore the museum before our tour started. We learned that the penny costs $.02 to make, the nickel $.09, dime $.04, quarter $.16, half dollar $.21, and dollar $.22. The penny is also 98% zinc and only 2% copper. We did get two free samples of the penny, one minted and one blank. We also got to see 1.5 million dollars worth of gold on the way out. That may sound like a lot but with the price of gold lately it was only three bars stacked behind bars in a safe. All in all the tour was about an hour long, worth it if you are ever in Denver and have a little time.

Back to the hotel for a little rest and then on to Coors Field to watch a Rockies game. We had club level seats just past first base. During the third inning a cute young lady walked up and down the aisle looking at open seats. She stopped and asked if anyone was sitting in the seat next to Alli. I was wondering if we sat in the wrong seats. We said no and she left. A couple minutes later she came back with another cute young lady and informed us that at the end of the forth inning Sasquatch (from the Jack Link's commercials) was going to sit there for a where's the Squatch bit on the jumbotron and that every one in the aisle would get a free bag of Jerky to hold up when the camera's found him. The whole thing was priceless but the beef jerky had a street value of $15, that's a $40 ballpark value. We took a lot of photos. The Squatch even wanted the camera to take a selfie of he and Alli. Alli also asked him to autograph her ticket. He obliged with a messy scribble in the middle of her ticket, pretty funny. The Rockies lost 4-2 but we had a lot of fun. Great end to a great trip.

Travel day tomorrow with a 3am wake up and 6am flight home.

Day 7: Skydiving

Mark: Day 6 may have been great but, according to the girls, day 7 was even better. Today started with 8am skydiving for the girls. Today is my day to write the blog so I'll start it off but the girls will also add their perspective since I stayed on the ground. First thing we had to do was watch a video that talked about the inherent dangers and risk of death. Very inspirational. The girls then spent about twenty minutes signing their rights away followed by a meeting with their tandem jumpers, Jimmy with Alli and Ian with Jessie. My main concern at this point came when Alli and Jessie were filling out the forms. The couches we were sitting on smelled like a beer soaked sofas you would find at a frat party. That, accompanied with the fact that all the staff were 20-something males gave me pause.

The girls geared up and before we knew it they were getting in the plane to jump from 10,000 feet above the airstrip. I watched as the plane rose to altitude and saw two specks emerge. Three or four minutes later and they were both safely on the ground. The girls were beyond thrilled and wanted to jump again. Both guides filmed the entire jump so we waited for about twenty minutes and bought the DVD's. can't wait to watch them!

After skydiving we had one more stop on our way to Denver: Colorado National Monument. I wasn't sure what to expect here as I did not do much research. I know, hard to believe. We stopped at the visitor center and got recommendations for hikes and overlooks. Only two short hikes totaling about 1.5 miles. We all thought this was a beautiful area that was definitely worthy of becoming a National Park one day. A 250 mile drive to Denver would bring our day to an end. On the outskirts of Denver we found ourselves in a mini Cannonball Run as a dozen elaborately painted Lamborghini's, a few Porsches, and one Corvette raced by our car. At first I thought I'd try to keep up but decided our poor little Corolla had been through enough. Tomorrow we will spend our last day in downtown Denver touring the Denver Mint and catching a Rockies game.

Jessie: At first I was nervous about jumping out of the plane, but after listening to Ian talk about the basics I realized that it was very unlikely for something to malfunction and that all I had to do was jump and let gravity do the work. It also didn't hurt that Ian was cute and very easy to talk to! He gave me a tour of the surrounding area on the way up and then before I knew it we were jumping out! The initial feeling of freefall was pretty nerve-racking but after a couple seconds that nervousness changed to exhilaration. It was so exciting, I even got to steer the chute, but even through my excitement I still looked pretty nervous on the camera footage and pictures. Even so, it was the best day I've ever had and I can't wait to do it again.

Alli: BEST DAY OF VACATION EVER!! Skydiving was absolutely amazing! Granted, I was a little uneasy about it in the beginning. There was more than one occasion when I asked one of the instructors if my harness could be tightened. Dad and Jessie both seemed to get a pretty good laugh out of my nervousness. To make matters more interesting, my diving partner, Jimmy, was very flirtatious, calling me pretty and beautiful on more than one occasion, as well as sharing some sexual jokes on the plane. I'm sure my responses weren't the smoothest, as I was preoccupied with the possibility of becoming a human pancake in the next 5 minutes if things took a turn for the worst.

I was first to jump out of the plane, and all I could think seconds before the jump was how much farther down everything looked with the plane door open. Jimmy went over the formations one last time and helped me scoot out onto the ledge under the wing of the airplane. Everything seemed to play out in slow motion: looking down at the ground below, leaning forward, and suddenly plunging 120 mph to the ground. There's no way to describe the feeling of free falling 10,000 feet above the ground. I wish I could come up with some eloquent description other than it being awesome, but the whole thing left me speechless. Well, not counting the parts when I was screaming my head off. After what seemed like forever, Jimmy pulled the parachute, and we spent the next couple minutes getting doing sharp turns and flips through the air. It was so much fun! The closer we got to the ground, the easier it was to make out Dad standing at the edge of the landing field. Finally touching back down on the ground, Jimmy and I exchanged high fives and last minute pictures before we walked back to the main building. It was such an amazing experience - and one more thing to cross off my bucket list!

Day 6: Rafting on the Colorado River

Alli: Where to begin? Day 6 was AMAZING! By far the best day of the vacation, and I dare say all our trips so far. Not only did we get to sleep in, which was a glorious luxury in itself, but we spent the majority of the day white water rafting on the Colorado River. Our guide, Nathan, was very entertaining. Not to mention soft on the eyes ;) He was a hottie with a body. On the bus ride down he pointed out rock formations that looked like really specific images such as "John Wayne hitting on two underage girls" or "Winnie the Pooh's cousin wearing a beret." We were able to see most of the characters no problem but it wasn't until the ride back, when we were sun-drenched that we were able to make out Winnie the Pooh.

Our bus ride ended at Hittle Bottom, were Nathan and Jay prepared the raft while we waited in the shade of a tree and watched other groups begin their journeys down the river. Before we embarked, Nathan went over safety guidelines: how to sit and paddle, and what to do if the boat the flipped. The speech was quick and simple, and within no time we found ourselves sitting on the raft with a paddle in hand, and pushing off from the sandy shore. 

Lucky for us, the river was much higher than usual - 34,000 cfs. Nathan explained to us that the normal range was between 20,000 and 30,000 cfs. Because the river was so high, we didn't have to do as much paddling. This was nice because it gave us the chance to enjoy the scenery. With cliffs on one side and a view of mesas and mountains on the other, it was a spectacular sight. There were a few spots before the actual rapids that acted as "practice" sections. At first I thought these waves were something to take note of, something that would rock the boat. I was wrong. Nathan said it best when he joked "those are something you take your baby on." Coming around one of the riverbeds, our eyes grew wide as we saw the real rapids. The rushing water seemed to move in every direction, with waves roaring and popping up as though they were trying to reach up and engulf the boat. There were 4 sections of rapids: Onion, Professor, New, and Rocky. I think it's safe to say that we underestimated both the size and force of the waves, because when we went through Professor rapids, the first wave that struck us head-on nearly knocked Jessie and I out of the boat. We only managed to say in because our feet were locked under the inflation dividers in the center of the raft. New rapids were probably the most chaotic, though also the shortest section of rapids. Last was the Rocky Rapids. By now we new what to expect, and tried to minimize the flailing of our paddles when we were hit by an oncoming wave - which only seemed to get bigger the further we got.

Mark: Jessie at I were on the front of the raft. At professor rapids we went down into a swell and hit a wall of water head on, I don't know how it looked from anyone else's perspective but I think Jessie and I were completely under water for a second or two. When we emerged Jessie was thrashing about enough to interfere with my paddling. Both of us considered ourselves lucky we stayed on the raft.

Having survived the voyage down the river, we paddled to shore and disembarked with our legs still shaking. We then enjoyed a delicious lunch consisting of wraps, carrots, chips and cookies while watching other boats attempt to take on the rapids. After we were done eating, it was back on the bus to town.

We spent the remainder of the day downtown, walking from shop to shop, buying even more souvenirs. Getting everything home is going to be quite the challenge. All in all it was an awesome day. I can't wait for tomorrow's skydiving adventure, as it's hard to imagine this trip could get any better!

Day 5: Canyonlands National Park

Jessie: The day started with Alli and I arguing in the local grocery store about which bag of chips and granola bars to get for lunch. After the initial battle we continued on to Canyonlands National Park, hoping for the day to get better. It didn't. Not knowng which hikes were best for the time we had we went to the Visitor Center to ask for advice on good hikes. Alli and I found a binder which we found very helpful. The title: Short hikes in between 0.3 and 3.0 miles. Alli and I feel in love with this binder and picked out a few hikes we found that would be acceptable. Not to be outdone dad decided on Chesler's Park Overlook, a six mile roundtrip trail out into the middle of the desert. Not only were we not on the same page we weren't even in the same book when it came to acceptable hikes.

Oh, how the death marches continue. There were three things I noticed when we started the hike. One: there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Two: they trail had very little shade. And three: it was stupidly hot. The trail itself was pretty level at the beginning, but even so, 15 minutes into the hike Alli felt queasy and off-balanced. We took a 10-15 minute break in the shade we found, letting her recover. Alli decided she would stay in the shade and dad and I could continue the hikeand meet her on the way back. 

Dad and I hiked up until we were 0.6 miles away from Chesler's Park and then decided that we didn't want to leave Alli by her lonesome any longer. We hiked down the slope of the canyon 0.2 miles before crossing paths with Alli. Apparently she was feeling better, but I must say I was not excited to backtrack the 0.2 miles up the side of the canyon we had just come back down. In terms of effort, this was one of the times when I was not happy to see my sister. But we continued on, and now it was my turn to feel queasy. The last 0.2 miles of the trail up to the overlook was the worst part of the hike. But we all made it to the overlook where the view was pretty amazing, though I was just happy to sit in the shade face first in the heavy breeze. It was the best feeling ever. 

The good part about the hike was that it didn't take long to get back to the car, though that was probably because Alli and I had more motivation that time. I have to say seeing our car in the parking lot was almost as beautiful as the overlook we hiked to. We were all thankful it was finally done. Not wanting to do any more hikes we decided to stop at Newspaper Rock on our way to the hotel, an overlook of Petroglyphs that was right off the road. It was only fifty feet from the parking lot, but even so that was plenty of a hike for us. When we finally got there though it was pretty cool. It was just a slab of rock covered in ancient petroglyphs dating from B.C. times to 1230 A.D. It was really interesting to see the stories and lifestyle of the peoples through their drawings, except for the current-day jerks that added their own names and dates into the rock face.

We didn't stay long however, we wanted to get to Moab, UT and visit a few thrift shops and Wendy's. Both Alli and I approved of this plan as Alli got what she was promised: shopping, and I got what I was promised: Orange Soda. We filled up on souvenirs, food, and may I say the most delicious drink of all time. We returned to our hotel, relishing in the fact that we didn't have to wake up until 10:00.