Backlog Blog
Hello and welcome back to the blog! After several weeks of what felt like nonstop traveling and adventuring, I now have a free weekend to make this long overdue blog post. The space bar and several other keys have decided to start sticking in addition to my laptop generally being on the fritz, but we will get though this together! Then you’ll be all up-to-date on what the heck we’ve been doing out here to make us be MIA for almost three months.
August
August was the culmination of our summer of running with not one, but two half marathons. That’s a whole marathon if you add the two together and are fishing for compliments ;)
The first half marathon was the inaugural Rock N Roll Half in Salt Lake City, which was fitting as it was that race’s first event in SLC and our first half marathon too. Rock N Roll puts on races all over the country, as well as a few international locations. It’s also a double play on words because it’s rock-n-roll themed in a musical sense (there were local musicians AKA high school bands stationed at various points throughout the course) and because it encouraged folks with disabilities to particiate in special running strollers (the “rollers”).
This race was TOUGH. The first 6-7 miles were almost entirely up hill, and the last few miles just dragged on and on forever. The course was near the state capitol building and the University of Utah, so it was quite pretty but also SO HILLY. As someone who couldn’t even run a mile until about five years ago, I’m very proud of myself and also Ian.
Half the reason people run these races is is for the medals. These are awesome.
The second race was about an hour south in the Nebo loop, which is a pretty canyon and an almost entirely downhill course. This was exactly one week after our first race and was a downright breeze in comparison. Don’t get me wrong, running that long is still hard regardless, but we definitely did not miss the six miles of constant uphill on this course.
Hard to see in the photo, but these medals are also cool. They have a big leaf in the middle.
We were going to run another half later this month (a Halloween themed Haunted Half), but the medals are creepy clown faces and we were not about to spend our time, effort, and money on scary swag like that.
September Part I: Arizona
September was BUSY. First, we spent a long weekend over Labor Day in Phoenix, Arizona. Yes, it was hot, but we happened to be there during a cool spell where it was only 95-100 degrees instead of 115. As long as you did what you needed to do outdoors before lunchtime, it was perfectly fine.
The genesis for this trip was that the O’s were in town playing the Diamondbacks (RIP the O’s postseason, but I am still proud of what they were able to accomplish this season). However, us being us, we packed a ton of adventure into this trip. We hiked in the mornings, ate a ton of delicious food, and went to the baseball games at night. We saw Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, Tuscon, and checked another national park off the list (Saguaro National Park outside of Tuscon).
Some highlights include:
Seeing more cacti than you could ever dream of
The Desert Botanical Gardens
Quintessential Phoenix leg-burner Camelback Mountain
Staying cool in the heat at the Phoenix Art Museum
The O’s winning two of three games that weekend
Driving past a monstrous tarantula
Delicious cocktails at the hotel bar (ever had a sweet potato cocktail?)
Fantastic breakfast at the coffee shop across the street from our hotel
Witnessing a haboob (a crazy dust storm) during our first night in town (Arizona State had a football game that night, so the haboob was on TV too)
So many cool cacti!
Cacti look so sad and floppy when they die.
Green mountains = cacti forest
A baseball field with a roof is so weird.
A brief aside about self-driving cars:
The car you see below you is called a Waymo. It’s like Uber or Lyft except IT HAS NO DRIVER AND IS A SCARY ROBOT CAR. Currently, Waymo is only available in select cities (LA, Phoenix, and I think Austin, TX), so the robo-cars haven’t taken over the world just yet. But, man, these things were freaky. They have cameras whirring and spinning all over, and they’re all the same model of white Jaguar. Call me old-fashioned (many do about some things) but these things are weird.
That lady is riding shotgun, not driving the car. NO ONE is driving the car. Still freaky.
September Part II: New Jersey
After getting back from Arizona on a Tuesday morning, working from home Tuesday afternoon, back in the office Wednesday and Thursday, we took a red-eye Thursday night to Philly for Ian’s stepbrother’s wedding in New Jersey that weekend. You see how busy we’ve been?
We spent Friday morning in Philly, enjoyed wedding festivities Friday night and Saturday, then flew back to Salt Lake bright and early Sunday morning. Fortunately, we were informed ahead of time that our flight was delayed coming back out west so we were able to get two whole hours of sleep instead of pulling a complete all-nighter.
My dad says things like “oh to be young” when I tell him about all of our traveling/adventuring, but man, am I tired. I think 28 is the new 30 and everything is starting to fall apart. But I’m stubborn and won’t let that stop me now!
Anyway, the wedding was a ton of fun, so much delicious food, and it was great to see Ian’s family.
We spent a very humid morning in Philly at the art museum with the Rocky steps.
This was the first and the best authentic Philly cheesesteak I have ever eaten.
Beautiful venue
Delightful date :)
How does the saying go? Red skies in morning, sailors take warning?
September Part III: Hiking, Hiking, and More Hiking
After our whirlwind two weeks of travel, we continued with our can’t stop won’t stop attitude and spent several weekends hiking with friends. The fall colors are peak right now, and the hiking has been phenomenal. It rained for two days straight this past week and therefore snowed at the higher elevations, so the high alpine hiking is almost done for the year. We’ve taken full advantage of the fall, though, and it’s been a blast.
See the moose?
See two moose? The bull moose with antlers is on the right.
October Part I: Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Park Coming Soon!
After all of our running, traveling, and adventuring over the summer and into fall, we kept the good times rolling with a long weekend trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons. Only five hours north, we’d never been and it was so worth the trip. This is our weekend off, then next weekend Mom and Sam come to town!
Thank you for reading this long overdue and therefore quite lengthy post. All the October updates coming soon!
Love and miss you all,
Chloe
