Balabanova All Over

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[Mount St Helens National Monument, July 20, 2018] On the agenda for that day was a long drive (3+ hours) from Lake Quinault to Mt. Rainier National Park. We enjoyed our breakfast in the Lake Quinault lodge restaurant as much as last night’s dinner. I had the sweet potato pancakes, which were amazing. We realized that we would be passing by Mount St Helens and we couldn’t resist the detour, even though… Read More

[Flagstaff, AZ] Mother Nature gave us a rainbow and took away a sunrise. We woke up today to rain in Monument Valley, which meant we were going to do our sunrise tour with little chance of catching the morning light.

[Page, AZ] The post-half-marathon itinerary was a leisurely 74-mile drive to Page, AZ. We left Kanab to continue East on Hwy 89, and now we were skirting the southern edge of the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument. The giant “steps” that make up this area were now much easier to see.

[Boulder, UT] A few minutes before 7 am, my phone rang. It was David from Red Desert Adventures, who was supposed to take us on our 4-hour canyoneering outing this morning.”It doesn’t look good”, he said, “but I’ll leave it up to you.” The temperature was barely above freezing and it was raining, so it was definitely going to be a very cold and wet day out there. We opted to cancel… Read More