Tuesday, March 1, 2011
SNOW!
It was so cold by this point in time that if it was even close to safe enough, I was running on the trail, just trying to stay warm. This trail was pretty cool because it was snuggled up to the mountains... but as we were going into this canyon, you could only barely see them! Beautiful. Purely beautiful.
Heck of a climb
Steve took this series of pictures becasue neither one of us could believe that we actually made it up this rock face. If you look behind me in the first shot, you can see the main trail... which explains why my legs were a little trembly the next day
Our own little caves
Steve and I each found our own little caves, sized just for each of us. And, it's a good thing - check out that snow that's headed our way...
Red Rock
I like how spring is starting to peak out in lots of places in the canyon
Steve trying to kick over a bee-hive rock (heh!)
The first few flakes of snow coming down
Steve in a tight place!
Saturday hike in Red Rock
So, the trip to see the shuttle launch was really amazing - but it was one heck of a whirlwind trip. No matter how you do it, it's about 9 hours of flying, with some layover in there just for fun. Steve and I had remarked all day that we were surprised it wasn't any more crowded to watch the shuttle... and then we tried to leave Cape Canaveral. The launch was at 4:50 and we got to a hotel in Orlando at about 1:15 am. We then got up at 4:45 the next morning, and started flying. Needless to say, Friday was a sleep day.
Saturday was a wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed day, and it was so pretty we decided to take a good hike in Red Rock. Amazing day for it. It was in the 50s on the strip, so we headed out in jeans, flannel, and sweatshirts and light jackets. By the time we got to the canyon, the wind had picked up and was absolutely howling. There was also a huge snow squall up in the mountains. Not wanting to get caught too far out on the trails, we decided to stay fairly close, but do a lot of rock scrambling.
Partry on the Pier
We watched the shuttle launch from Jetty Park, and we decided to go all the way out to the end of the pier to claim our perch. The down side is that we were out of earshot of the radio com broadcast, so we didn't even know there was a problem at launch until Laura texted (thanks!!) but, it was a good group, and we had good entertainment watching the pelicans and turtles and rays and... lots of fun critters. Steve snapped the picture of me when I was returning from my hour-long bathroom jaunt (oy - had it been just a little warmer, I would have jumped off the end of the pier and all problems would have been solved in 60 seconds). You can see that the pier was crowded, but not overly so, and the people were awfully nice. And, I loved the sand shuttle this girl had made on the beach. I was kind of amazed that there were so many people hanging out on the beach... it was downwind of the rocks where about 500 pelicans roosted and man, was it foul. Fowl foul.
Lift Off!
Finally! We're back home (well, I guess that's what this hotel is...) and here are some more pictures of the Discovery launch. Absolute delight to get to see!
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