Moab!!

Ever since Brian started mountain biking, he has wanted to go to Moab. It has always seemed like something we really wanted to do but could never find the right time to go there. This year I have really started enjoying mountain biking a lot more. And, now that we have Big Tom, it seemed like the perfect vacation for us. We planned on meeting my brother and his wife in Moab as well. We drove to his house in Smithfield UT and then the next day we caravanned to Moab. We slept at a trail head the first night. Below is a nice shot of both our vans first thing in the morning.

My brother converted his van on his own. He did an amazing job. We called it the "dodgemahal."

We saw a hot air balloon that morning as well.

Such a nice photo of Big Tom. We do love him so.

We headed off to our first ride, Porcupine Rim. We decided to ride to the trail head from camp. Ben told us it was a little bit of climbing but it wasn't too bad. I remember Jen disagreeing with him. I have to admit, Jen was right. (Sorry Ben)

Here are some photos from our suffering that day:

We climbed for 1.5 hours on roads that looked like this even before we got to the actual trail.

I crashed on this section. It hurt.

It was a really difficult ride. Fun, but more technical than I had experienced before.

The next day we had a little bit of rain so we took a tour through Arches National Canyon.

Ben, Spencer and Jen riding in style in Big Tom

After our tour, we set off to ride another trail called Kondike Bluffs. Jen had promised we would see dinosaur footprints. I was excited.

I took a picture of my foot so you could get an idea of the size.

The trail was very smooth and the views were lovely. Just what we needed as we were still recovering from our suffer-fest the day before. Thanks Captain Suffer! (Ben)

I just love this picture, I don't know why.

At the end of the trail, we walked into Arches National Canyon.

Jen showing off her snazzy new arm warmers.

Although the second day was a bit cold, we had a really nice time biking in the sun. I'll post more pictures of our next couple of days later. Enjoy!

Day 7 - Our last day......

Hillary was able to get the entire day off on Friday so we decided to rent a car. We were intrigued by the countryside and reports (in our guidebooks) of beautiful small towns and scenery if we traveled inland. I figured we could handle driving in France. I was really feeling brave. I took the train by myself, toured several cities and didn't get completely lost. We were feeling confident in our French (we had stopped responding in Spanish at this point). Why not?

Renting the car was easy and the price was reasonable. We picked up the car at 9am and needed to get it back by 6:30pm when they closed. No problem!

Here is a shot of our cute little Fiat:

We headed out to see a cute little called St. Paul de Vence. It was described in my guide book as the most visited village in France. It was gorgeous. Just absolutely perfect in every way.

Beautiful walkways everywhere!

Picture of the ground. So artsy!

We spent about 2 hours touring this little city and then decided to hop back in the ole' Fiat to continue on our way. One problem though, I couldn't get the car to go in reverse. It was a stick shift and I tried every way I could think of to put it in reverse. Push down, push the stick to the far right, swear at it, try it again. It seriously would not go into reverse. So, being the brilliant ladies that we are, I said to Hillary, "I think you are going to have to get out and push." And, she did!

We set off to find our next stop, I believe it was a town called Gourdon. On the map, it looked as though it was no more than 1 or 2 hours away. We drove up some beautiful mountain passes and saw gorgeous countryside. We were making good time, gabbing away and then we realized that we didn't quite know where we were. I guess we were feeling confident since we had a car GPS, two iphones, two guide books and an actual paper map. Who could get lost, right?  Funny thing was we knew that Gourdon was only a couple hours away, but every time we typed it into our car GPS, and it would tell us that it was six hours away. What? Fucking Gourdon.....

Anyhow, we drove and drove and continued to be lost. As frustrating as it was, we were still having a great time. Did I mention that I still could not get our lovely little Fiat to go in reverse? Ha! So, every time we decided to turn around Hillary had to get out and push. She was such a trooper! And, of course, I chose the most inconvenient times to say, "ok, I'm turning around now, go push!"

We stopped for lunch in a lovely little town called Comp. We brought our map into the resturant and asked the waiter if he could show us where we were on the map. He said, "oh, you aren't on that map, you are off the map." *&^%^%$@^# !!! It looked as though we would never find Gourdon. We had our lunch and decided that we need to skip the rest of our driving tour and start heading back to Cannes. We had to turn the car in by 6:30 and we didn't want to be late. The waiter helped us back track and we figured we'd eventually get to Gourdon. Right? Fucking Gourdon.

We cut off a portion of our driving tour, started to head back to Cannes and eventually found Gourdon. Unfortunately, in order to get back to Cannes by 6:30, we could only spend 15 minutes in Gourdon. Fucking Gourdon. We could have skipped it, but there was no way I wasn't taking at least a few pictures. I was making every minute count in this place.

It was cloudy at this point, but we snapped pictures as best we could

Ran into this guy. He kept saying, "I love you!" I'm pretty sure he was the town jester.

We headed back to Cannes and sat in a bit of rush hour traffic. As we were sitting there, I finally figured out how to put the car in reverse. I can't really explain how I figured it but it at least it only took me 8 hours to do it.

As we returned or rental car, we mentioned the fact that we could not get the car to go into reverse. Their response was, "why didn't you call us?" Hmmmm, yes indeed that would have been the way to handle it I suppose.  But then I wouldn't have had so many memories of this hysterical day. Good times. It makes me smile every time I think about Hillary pushing the Fiat.

Our last day in France was amazing. I had such a great time and feel bad that it has taken me this long to complete this post. Life certainly sped up a bit when I got back home. I am definitely going back to France in the near future. Can't wait!

Day 6 - Nice

I had received several comments from people about how much they liked the city of Nice and was excited to set out on my own to explore. My Rick Steves' book had a walking tour of Old Nice. I figured I couldn't mess it up if I just followed his map. Well, sure. Of course I can get lost due to my horrible navigation skills. To me - North is always straight ahead. South is, you guessed it, behind me. West is left, East is right. It doesn't make sense but unfortunately these are my navigational instincts. I'm "touched" in this department.

So yes, I got lost, but was able to backtrack to the train station and stopped into the tourism booth to get an actual map. I was on my way to Old Nice!

Carnival had just happened the previous Sunday. I was amazed to see their beautiful plaza and the gigantic floats.

The first thing I needed to accomplish on my walking tour was to find an olive oil store. My guidebook mentioned this store and I was on a mission to buy olive oil for me and some for Hillary. Due to my fantastic navigational skills I found it right away!

I was so excited that I found it I went right in and purchased 5 bottles of olive oil. There was a film crew inside this little store. I was hoping to see Rick Steves. It wasn't.

Anyway, me and my five bottles of olive oil began exploring Old Nice. It was great! Except for the fact I had five bottles of olive oil with me. I'm not sure why I bought them right away. I guess I was so pleased with myself for actually finding the store that I figured I'd never be able to find it again.

I walked all the way up to that big grey thing up there.

This was a really pretty church. I ate a nice lunch in this plaza. Life was grand!

I loved the colors of the buildings in Nice. You can definitely tell there has been an Italian influence in Nice. Well, that is what my guide book told me and guide books never lie.

I started walking up to the big grey thing on the hillside that I referenced a couple of pictures ago. Lots of stairs, lots of walking but the views were breathtaking.

Here is the big grey thing that I thought would be a castle or something. Turns out it was just big and grey.

The views from the top were amazing. Here a few of the shots.

It was up here where I had a special moment all to myself. Before my Mom died, I always thought that my brother and I would take her to France or Italy on vacation. I never told her I was thinking of taking her and I regret that very much. I think she would have loved France. No doubt about it. I've felt guilty for years about that and a lot of things with my Mom. Up here, I took an opportunity to release my guilt and say my final good bye. It was a tough one and there were tears involved but it felt very very good.

Did I mention the beach is nice in Nice? Ha! I didn't even try to write that - nice in Nice!

I just sat and stared at the ocean and the sun. Loved it!

Me and my five bottles of olive oil made our way back to the train station. On the way I saw this creepy site.

The cats were real and the guy was just standing there talking to the crowd. He wasn't like one of those "frozen" people in Vegas. It was creepy. Those cats had to have been drugged. I know French cats - they bite.

Day 5 - Exploring Cannes

After being on the go and touring cities for 4 straight days, exhaustion finally set in. It was Wednesday and I was really really tired. Instead of taking the train to a new destination, i decided to stay in Cannes and explore the city a bit more.

There are two small islands that can be seen from Cannes. One of them we toured on Sunday, the second one, St. Honorat I toured today. It is inhabited by Monks and there isn't much else on the island. This doesn't mean the photo opportunities are any less. The island was really beautiful.

I had a really lovely nature walk and was enjoying my time by myself when all of a sudden I turned the corner and saw THIS:

I was mesmerized, I just couldn't stop taking pictures of it. It is the old monastery and it is literally right on the water. I just had to explore this old building I was so intrigued!

The view from the very top. This is where the monks live now.

I really loved this place. So amazing.

I hopped on the boat and headed back to Cannes. It was a bit of an overcast day but it was still quite nice outside. Here are some more shots I took from the boat.

The white building on the left is where they hold the famous Cannes Film Festival. Apparently the city of Cannes turns into a crazy town during the festival. 

This was our building!

I made it back to the apartment and was absolutely exhausted. I guess after 4 days of walking and touring it all caught up to me. That and the fact that I'm not a good sleeper at night. I took a nap and woke up just in time for Hillary to get home. 

Hillary and I decided to go to a seafood restaurant around the corner. As an appetizer, they brought us this:

Escargot! We had a hell of a time trying to get those little buggers out of their shells. They were quite tasty but a lot of damn work. Our meal was very very good. Hillary ordered a whole fish (scales, eyes, fins) and I ordered prawns. They were huge! My prawns (like Hillary's fish) still had eyes. It was a bit creepy. I tried playing with my lovely prawn's eyeballs but was quickly chastised by Hillary. Bad Ann!

It was a meal to complete a really nice low-key day.