Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Memorial Weekend With the Stubbs


This weekend was pretty epic. Not so much that we did anything super hardcore but we did fit in a ton for a three day weekend.

Friday night we headed out to Lake Mead. Despite being a holiday weekend we got a great camp site on a beach. We had some of the Colonel's original recipe and talked until we ran out of firewood. Another thing that we enjoyed were devil's food cake donuts by Entenmanns. I typically don't enjoy donuts but these things were sweet ecstasy. The lake was great that morning, we got in some wake boarding and some wake surfing. Wake surfing is where you start about 6 or 7 feet of the back of the boat and then when the wake builds up you can let go of the rope and surf the wake. It was a blast!

Around 12 we cleaned up the boat and headed back to Vegas. We regrouped and packed for the second leg of the weekend.

That afternoon we took off for Zion. A quick stop for dinner in St George at Cafe Rio was delicious. We all had the pork in some form. If I remember right Anthony and I had pork burritos and the ladies had pork salads. Much like the Colonel's original recipe, Cafe Rio must have some additive that makes the pork highly addictive.

That night we camped out at a spot right outside of the park for an early start. That early start happened around 9:00 am, I think everyone was pretty tired from the day before. Anyway we got our permit for a slot canyon called Pine Creek, it's a Zion classic. I don't think the pictures do it justice but it is beautiful. When you enter the canyon it fairly narrow, there are sections that it's only wide enough for one person to walk through and the sandstone walls can be well over 100 feet tall. There are different part where you have to rappel and you're in and out of water the whole time. Laura and Krista did great despite the water being absolutely freezing; some of these pools of water never see the sun because the canyon is so deep and narrow.


















I was especially proud of my cute little wife for being so brave there are a couple of rappels that could be pretty scary even if you had done it before. The last rappel in particular was the biggest challenge for her. I will admit that while it's 100% safe it can be mentally tough. This last rappel you have to hook onto the rope and then swing out over the edge. By the way it's a 200 foot drop and there's nothing but air under you. This may have been a bit much for her first time ever rappelling. I love her for being so hardcore.






That little dot at the top of the rope is my scared wife. She was frozen there for a bit but she made it down.


That night we made it back to Vegas and slept like zombies. It was obvious that I haven't had a weekend like that in a while because I was beat. Monday we made it to 2 different barbecues which was the perfect end to the Memorial Weekend.

3 comments:

Morph This said...

I have to tell you that this was my first memorial day in 20 years that I wasn't at the Lake. It was bad enough that I wasn't there, and now you had to rub it in my face that you were. Tasteless Ben.

trout said...

Hey Ben. I stumbled on your site through Dee's old Hodge site. Just wanted to say hi. Your trip sounded great and how fun that you still see Stubs. FYI, you are right Cafe Rio does use an addictive ingredient; it's called Coca Cola and they use a grip of it. I just found 3 Cafe Rio recipes on a friend's blog - seattlerecipes.blogspot.com. Check it out...the salad dressing is fabulous. -Brooke M.

Morph This said...

If you want those recipes.. I have them too. Just let me know. Baker has asked for it at least once a week since I got them.