Road Trip 2015: Southern Utah

I said the Colorado part of the drive was beautiful. That's true.

When leaving Colorado, there's a sign that says something like "Leaving Colorful Colorado." That was also true. It seemed like immediately upon crossing the border into Utah, the landscape changed to this:

Fortunately for Utah, brown desolation quickly turned to colorful rock swells.

I hadn't planned on going to southern Utah, but I hadn't seen my cousin Melissa for a few years and even though it was out of my way, it was much closer than in Indiana! The extra drive was worth it! She and her family live in Orderville.

I went running the two mornings I was there. The scenery there is much different than my urban landscape in Indy!

I had so much fun hanging out with Melissa and her family for a day. We went to see their garden and their property where they plan to build their dream home. It's gorgeous! This woman is amazing to me. She is a literal domestic goddess - cooking, sewing, gardening, chicken-raising, photography, crafts - you name it, she does it. And she does it well. Her website BlessThisMessPlease.com is super successful and I'm so proud of her. On top of all of that, she's an amazing, intentional mother. I want to be like her when I grow up. Well, in the mothering part. And the general superwoman part. I actually have no desire to have anything to do with a hobby farm.

They raise chickens, which I wouldn't even dream of touching, but check out that lady's headdress there in the middle! The girl was a diva, let me tell you. Every time I'd try to take her picture, she'd scurry away. You'd think with fanciness like that, she'd be trying to show it off.

While we were at the garden, Melissa's third child, Kimball, disappeared. She wasn't worried, though. She knew he had gone over to her in-laws' house next door. She said he regularly does that - he'll just disappear and she almost always finds him in their house, stealing food. When we went over there we found him with a frozen waffle with syrup on it. Still frozen. He'd gotten the waffle out and put the syrup on it while it was still frozen. I was dying. So, so funny.

Melissa's husband Thomas came home from work early that afternoon and we went to Coral Pink Sand Dunes. These pictures just don't do it justice. These dunes were bright red and so stunning! We had a great time playing there before we got some pizza and went to a park in Kanab to play.

Henry, Kimball, and I spent a lot of time building this mound by packing the sand on little by little. They were both DYING to knock it down, but I wouldn't let them until the very end.

Melissa and I were best friends growing up, clear through to our college years at BYU. We haven't lived close to each other for the past several years so we don't talk nearly as often, but when we do, things are exactly the same. She's one of the few people who I feel 100% safe with. I know I could tell her anything and not only would she still love me, she wouldn't be worried or concerned. I feel like she sees through to my core and sees the eternal nature of my soul. Like she can see my spirit for the grand, eternal being that I am, stripped of all the worldly stuff. She's one of my dearest friends and I'm so glad I made the trip to see her.

After we got back from the park, we went over to the city pool for water aerobics. Apparently this small group of mostly older ladies, plus Melissa and her 18 year-old sister Karina, get together every night to do water aerobics. They've done this same video for the past like, I don't know, twenty years or something. It was awesome and harder than I'd like to admit, to be honest.

The next morning I went for a run before saying goodbye. Those hills are no joke!

My drive back up to northern Utah was smooth - four hours felt like nothing compared to my last couple of trips! I saw this sign on the way and texted it to Dominika to show to Holden. She said he was so happy - he announced it to the whole play group they were with. :)