... where she goes up the canyon.

Rod asked me if I wanted to join him and Rachel on a drive up Hobble Creek Canyon this past Sunday. Of course I said yes, because spending time with my family is important to me. We had an absolute blast.

Let me rephrase that. Rod and Rachel had a blast. I did, too, most of the time.

We went up the right fork, and the scenery was absolutely amazing. There were also free range cattle all along the roadway, which we turned into a game. I'll get to that later.

We got to a section of the road where it goes from being paved to dirt. Rod normally came up on his motorcycle (when he had one) to this point and would have to turn around. The road isn't that bad, but it can't be that great comfortable on a motorcycle.

Going around and up the hill was no sweat. The view? Breathtaking. Dense patches of evergreens were dotted with pockets of green fields. I'm sure on a good day you can see a bear or two going about their business. The air smelled clean. It even looked clean, for that matter. Since we had gone up in the evening, Rod said that he wanted to turn around so that we weren't going back down as it got dark. I had no problem with that.

And then we actually started going down.

The road we traversed was very curvy, almost like Buena Creek Road on some parts. On a few of those curves, there'd be a nice little drop off that I'm sure wasn't as bad as I thought it to be. When we came up to the first major curve, I sat as far back in the seat, clinching the water bottle between my legs, white-knuckling the door handle, and scrunching my eyes as shut as they'd possibly go. Rod noticed my unease and slowed down from 10 mph to two. The second turn we came up to caused the same reaction - eyes, legs, grip, seating. He completely stopped the Jeep and asked, "Are you alright? You look frightened." I said, "I'm absolutely petrified!" and started crying.

Like I said in my previous post, I love the beauty of Utah's landscapes.

I just wish it wasn't so painful.

As for the free range cattle game we made up, the goal was to tap one of the cows on the forehead. Every cow we pulled up next to would run away as soon as we put our hands out the window. We got to a really narrow section in the canyon and had every opportunity to tap cows. I practically hung out the window in effort to get one, and I was (obviously) the most successful. There was even a spot where a cow was facing away from us. I was spontaneous enough to reach out and give it a good slap on the hindquarters, causing it to freak out, moo, and run away. Good for a laugh to take my mind off the fact that while I thought I was in mortal peril just 4 miles up the road, there was no inherit danger.