Before I delve into all of the details of the trip down to Arizona for President's day I want to quickly update what's been going on within the last month.
Firstly, remember how I said that I was thinking of running a race sometime this spring summer? Well I have finally committed and will be running the Wasatch Ragnar at the end of June with a friend and some coworkers. Wish me/us luck... This is my first long distance race and i'm hoping that I can keep up my training schedule without slacking and that 200 mile relay won't be as horrible as i'm thinking it sounds. It's all for good fun though right?
Secondly, the need to travel has struck again... and I semi-spontaneously booked a flight to Seattle in March to visit my friend Melissa. I can't wait to see her and check out a place i've never been before (and possibly check out University of Washington Pharmacy school).
Now on to the good stuff.
A weekend in AZ with my Valentines! And did I mention weather in the 70's?
The Rocky Mountain Mule Association had a ride planned this weekend down in the Virgin River Gorge, only about 30 minutes or so outside of St. George. Our original plan was to make it down ASAP so we were going to leave right after I was finished with an exam Friday morning at 11am. I was so excited to get away for a weekend of riding and warm weather that I had a really hard time studying Thursday night. To compensate for the lack of studying the night before I woke up around 5 and headed to school to get some studying in before my exam. Needless to say my morning started very early... I finished my exam and headed home to find the hood on the truck up and my brother and dad laying under the trailer... Long story short the electrical on the trailer had something go wrong when they were picking the mules up and it had blown all of the fuses in the truck. After cutting wires, running around town picking up fuses, and 3 hours later we were ready to go. Traffic was horrible and we didn't arrive in camp until around 10:30 pm Friday night.
The next day we went on our first ride, this was also my first ride with the Mule Club. It is both crazy and amazing what you can get the animals to do in places like that, they had the mules jumping off big boulders and scaling steep mountain sides. I never appreciated what mules can do compared to horses until now. The ride was about a 5 hours long and we had just enough time to get back to camp take a little nap and then make it over to the BBQ provided. We had a big bonfire and sat around with all of the cowboys. Never a dull moment.
The next day we went on what was supposed to be a "less difficult ride" which part of the ride included us sending the mules through a rock chute that i'm quite certain no one had ever been to before. I wish I had my camera handy at this point to prove just how crazy it was. It was another beautiful sunny day and we were all in Tshirts. The rest of the day was pretty much a repeat from before; nap, dinner, bonfire, sleep.
We packed up early Monday morning and were on the road by 7am. It was a long drive home but the weekend made it all worth it. Being in the desert with no cell phone service with a bunch of old cowboys for the weekend made me feel like I was back in time. You kind of forget that that kind of lifestyle even exists anymore.
Back to the city grind, until next time.
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