We flew to Atlanta a day after the first phase of heavy snow storm had hit Minnesota. We boarded the plane on time, but our plane sat on the tarmac for an hour waiting to be de-iced. Once we arrived in Atlanta, we drove 4+ hours through heavy rain to Gatlinburg. By the time we reached there, it was already dark and we had trouble locating our secluded (but awesome) vacation home in the mountain. The mountain wind was unusually strong that night. We got up a few times in the middle of the night due to the loud howling winds and the noise of things flying wildly outside and we did wonder whether our vacation home would get blown away or not.

We had to readjust our trip schedule on the following day because parts of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park were temporarily closed due to the damage done by the strong mountain wind from the previous night. The scenery in Cades Cove was spectacularly beautiful, calm and relaxing. We did a 9-hour 2700-foot in elevation hike to Mount LeConte and a 4-hour 1300-foot elevation hike to Chimney Tops in the national park. Most trails were treacherous and incredibly dangerous because they were mostly covered with snow and ice. Further, the strong mountain wind at the higher elevation was freezing cold. Even though most parts of the park were closed due to the winter season, we certainly enjoyed our time there. This national park is different from other national parks we have been to in the sense that it has lots of waterfalls, streams, trees and historic structures such as houses, barns, mills, etc. Although this national park has one of the highest concentration of black bears living in the wild, we were VERY disappointed that we didn’t encounter any throughout our stay.

During our drive from the national park to Atlanta, we stopped by at the Lookout Mountain, which is located at the border of Tennessee and Georgia, to visit the underground Ruby Falls and the Rock City Garden. These attractions were pretty touristy, albeit interesting and unique. Our stay in Atlanta was an enjoyable one, besides the fact we had meals from different countries. This is one trip where we learned a lot about the American Civil War and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We visited CNN Center, World of Coca Cola, Georgia Aquarium, Atlanta History Center, Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site, Atlanta Botanical Garden, Atlanta Zoo and Stone Mountain. Most of the attractions were included in our CityPass tickets. The main reason we bought the CityPass tickets is because these tickets covered the Georgia Aquarium where the gate price alone is $50+ per adult. So, it was a no-brainer to get the $69-CityPass tickets. The Georgia Aquarium is dubbed the largest aquarium in the world. Although we were cautious with that “largest in the world” claim, that building does house one of the largest aquariums we have ever seen so far in the states. The botanical garden and the zoo were at a fairly pathetic state in the winter. The outdoor plants were virtually nonexistent and the animals were sleepy and hiding at warm places. Thankfully, we didn’t pay for these admissions individually.

Although it rained a few times throughout the trip, the 30F weather over there was certainly much better than the -20F snow blizzard in Minnesota. This is one trip where we tried to see as much green grass and leaves as possible before departing because we would have to wait for another 4 months to see some greens in Minnesota (besides our money).

P/S: A special thanks to Andy and Jenny for allowing us to crash at their place a day prior to our trip departure and for sending us to/from the airport.

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It seems like we have been consuming a lot of food each time we go to the cities. This time, we had Korean food, Chinese food and Thai food. I gained a couple of pounds, but it was worth it. 🙂

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It has been good to see Marie in person, and she seems healthier and more cheerful than before. The guests came pouring in fast and in just minutes, the house and the garage were packed with people. I ended up yelling at pretty much everyone I spoke to because it got really loud in the house. SURPRISE!! Are you surprised this time, Marie?? A lot of food was prepared for the dinner and the “BBQ on the bun” was tasty. Finally, Roger carried the huge birthday cake out precisely at 6:44 PM and 44 seconds (or at least that’s the time captured by my camera). Awesome carrot cake, by the way.

Great hospitality, great food, great event. Happy 50th birthday, Marie!

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The hoodoos in Bryce Canyon NP are truly breathtaking. It is certainly a big difference seeing them in the photos than witnessing thousands of them in front of our eyes. Some of the hikes were pretty strenuous and the weather was incredible hot at the bottom of the canyon. During the first day of our hikes, we had already seen a few injured hikers that required treatments from the park rangers. We also came across a few hikers at the bottom of the canyon who were undecided the best way to get back up to the top of the canyon.

During our journey to Zion NP, we stopped by at Cedar Break NM. It was FREEZING cold there with the elevation above 10000 feet. Anyhow, we managed to do a very cold 2-mile hike with only our light sweaters we nearly lost our fingers and ears in the midst of the coldness. Based on our research, while Cedar Break NM is much smaller than Bryce Canyon NP, the hoodoos are more spectacular here because they are more concentrated in one place.

If there is one national park we can highly recommend in Utah, it will certainly be Zion NP hands down. In Bryce Canyon NP, we view from the top of the canyon whereas in Zion NP, we view from the bottom of the canyon. The views are really beautiful, not to mention we got to enjoy nice fall colors in the park too. We had successfully hiked all the way up to the Angels Landing, a trail that took us a few months to psych ourselves up before hiking it. During this hike, we moved along the narrow rock fin with dizzying 800 to 1200 feet drop-offs on both sides. The last mile of hike is almost vertical where we had to hold on to the installed chains and climbed the rocks to get to the top. There were a few hikers wondering if we would be able to get all the way to the top since I was carrying almost 20 lbs of bag and tripod. Nevertheless, we made it there. The view from the Angels Landing was stunning. Most of the hikes we did in Zion NP were very exhausting because most of the trails are covered with inches of sand. It was almost like hiking on the sandy beaches. The temperature difference between the shaded and non-shaded areas can be as astounding as 20 degrees. So, we frequently wore and removed our jackets throughout our hikes. Another memorable hike we did was the river hike at the Zion Narrows. We didn’t rent any wetsuits (because Asians are tough), but we did have our hiking poles and neoprene socks (heh!) to prevent numbness on our toes. The water was freezing cold, and at one point, the water was at chest level high and our entire body almost numbed up (okay, maybe Asians are not that tough). We didn’t hike too deep into the canyon because it was getting late and unbearably cold.

Antelope Canyon is one place we REALLY want to do in this trip. We purposely took at farther route to Arches NP because we wanted to visit this place. Antelope Canyon is dubbed as one of the most breathtaking and most photographed slot canyon in American Southwest. We visited the lower part instead of the more popular and prettier upper part of Antelope Canyon. Unlike the latter, we were allowed to move leisurely without having a tour guide rushing us from one place to another because there are usually less visitors at the lower part of Antelope Canyon. The entrance to the slot canyon is basically a long narrow crack on the ground where we climbed 20 to 30 feet below the ground pretty insane. Our tour guide played his guitar where the melodic sound was echoed throughout the slot canyon so that we knew he didn’t left us there to die.

We passed by the Monument Valley before heading to Arches NP. Arches NP is home to the world’s highest concentration of natural sandstone arches with more than 2000 arches. Standing under most of these arches always makes us, already tiny Asians, even smaller. Some of these arches seem to be very fragile and some are bound to collapse in near future. The Wall Arch is one perfect example where it collapsed on August 4, 2008. It was 71-feet wide and 33.5-feet high and it was ranked 12th in size among over 2000 known arches in the park. We were kind of disappointed that we didn’t get to sign up for the ranger-led tour to the Fiery Furnace since hikers are not allowed to hike there without proper permits. The sunset view at the Delicate Arch was pretty spectacular although the hike was fairly long and tiring.

We spent half of our day in Canyonland NP even though it wasn’t in our original plan. However, since we were done covering entire Arches NP, we decided to spend a few hours in Canyonland NP covering the viewpoints and overlooks in the park. Canyonland NP can be broken down into 3 parts, each with different park entrance: Island in the Sky, the Needles and the Maze. We visited only the Island in the Sky section. The view is pretty extraordinary. It was like viewing the Grand Canyon, the only difference is the canyon seems to be embedded into the ground. It is one of those places where we just had to put down our camera and camcorder to absorb the beauty of the place for a few long minutes before capturing them.

Our drive back to Salt Lake City was equally beautiful too. We enjoyed the peak fall colors where there were explosions (really) of striking colors on the mountain walls, the neighborhood, the parks everywhere. We even had free personal tours given by the sisters at the Temple Square because we had to catch our flight back home in a few hours time.

So, 11 days, 63-mile hike, witnessed 6 sunrises and 7 sunsets, countless of red bean cans and ramen noodles, gallons of water and Gatorade, numerous time to the restrooms (and nearby bushes), several scratches on my camera and tripod, broke my trail GPS, 62 GB of HD videos and 6000 RAW photos… these sum up our entire trip. It is unimaginable that we hiked that much. Sure, it was tiring, at times, very exhausting because most of the hikes we did were fairly strenuous and dangerous, but we were up for it and we managed to see more spectacular views than most typical tourists do in just 11 days.

P/S: There are ~500 photos in this web album and they are geo-tagged. The photo captions are prefixed with the following to indicate the location it was taken:-

• AC: Antelope Canyon
• ANP: Arches NP
• BCNP: Bryce Canyon NP
• CBNM: Cedar Break National Monument
• CNP: Canyonland NP
• MV: Monument Valley
• SLC: Salt Lake City
• ZNP: Zion NP

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This 3-storey museum has many different art collections, from Asian art to modern sculpture to ancient art to contemporary art and many more. We spent ~4 hours there until the closing hour and barely covered 2 floors. We were allowed to photograph most of the artworks as long as they are not loaned or lent by other institutions/artists due to the copyright issue. We met up with Jenny/Andy at the museum and headed to the nearby Lake Harriet for an evening walk.

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We left for Austin at noon, which is about half hour away drive from the Oxbow Park. We had our lunch there before heading to the SPAM museum. It’s amazing to see a museum dedicated to this particular brand of luncheon meat. I must admit that I love SPAM. They go well with everything. There is no entrance fee for this museum. This museum is pretty informative and interesting. There are many types of SPAM products that we don’t see at the local stores, such as Garlic-flavored SPAM or Cheese-flavored SPAM, and they are actually sold at the gift shop… pretty weird.

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After paying $9 per person at the entrance gate, we did the self guided tour by departing from the visitor center and strolled as aimlessly and leisurely as possible for 3 hours. There are many unusual flowers/plants and they are properly labeled, which is very helpful to English-challenged folks like me who only know generic terms, such as “a really big yellow flower” or “a little less big red flower” or “weird looking plant”. Some of the Dahlias are just spectacularly beautiful and odd. We did the 3-mile drive at the end of our visit and we realized there were whole lot more things to see in detail… oh well, we were already hungry for sushi at that point. Nevertheless, we will definitely come back here soon.

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Richard is one year old now and he can walk on his own, albeit a little clumsy. At times, it seems like his knees buckled and he fell on his butt, then looked around in his confused face on whether to cry or not. He seems to be a book nerd. With so many of his toys around, he would constantly pick up a book, flip it, point at the pictures and speak a language that is only comprehensible to him. I also think Richard is currently on the “heavy” side, and he might want to do some workout at home.

On Saturday, we did our strawberry picking at Afton Apple Orchard, Hasting. We were glad to at least made it there because the strawberry picking season ended that week itself. There were lots of tasty strawberries and they were pretty cheap compared to the ones sold in the grocery markets. On Sunday, we headed to the Dragon Festival at Phalen Lake Park, St Paul, to watch the dragon boat race. There were about 25 participating companies from Twin Cities and Andy represented his company, Best Buy, in the race.

We somehow ate several different types of food while we were up in cities this time. We had Cambodian, Szechuan, Korean and Western dishes… awesome food.

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We purchased the CityPass booklets that cover five attraction spots: Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum, Adler Planetarium, Museum of Science and Industry, and Sears Tower Skydeck. Among those five places, Shedd Aquarium is the most interesting one. It has several different exhibits that contain many weird species. Best of all, we got to see a massive anaconda and a few piranhas… and some kids dressed in penguin suits. While Museum of Science and Industry offers lots of different things to see, we didn’t really enjoy it that much simply because we have seen most of the planes and space stuff in a larger scale, such as The Museum of Flight in Seattle or NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Nevertheless, this museum houses the one and only one captured German U-505 submarine in the states. The story behind this U-boat is even more impressive where the Allied cryptanalysts had successfully cracked the special “coordinate” code in enciphered German messages found in the captured U-boat to determine the precise locations of other U-boats. I have read the stories and watched the TV documentaries many times, but to witness the U-boat in person was definitely a big treat.

And by the way, Sears Tower recently unveiled the 103rd floor Skydeck that has the glass balconies, only just a few days after we have visited it… a BIG duh! Plus, Sears Tower will soon be called as Willis Tower later this summer. We were only at the 99th floor when we visited the Skydeck… but whatever, the view from John Hancock Observatory’s 94th floor is much better than Sears Tower’s Skydeck.

The trip to Chicago wouldn’t be complete without having a Chicago-style hotdog and a deep dish pizza. We had our hotdogs at Superdawg because this restaurant was featured on the Travel Channel. However, seriously, they weren’t really that great because I think my homemade cheese dog is so much better than that. We went to Lou Malnati’s for the deep dish pizza, and wow… it was certainly one of a kind! So, apart from the fact that the credit card company placed a temporary restriction on my credit card and that my watch died on the first night, this trip was certainly an enjoyable one.

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Everyone of us was obviously not very good with canoeing. You would think it was impossible to crash into the river side or low tree branches with the river that wide, but somehow we all managed to accomplish that at some point of time. The funniest moment was to see Gina freaked out when Kurt’s canoe crashed into the river cliff and a bunch of spiders jumped into their canoe. The river is fairly shallow for the most part and at one point, we heard a loud grinding noise from afar and Joe’s canoe was apparently stuck in the river. We canoed to a point where we decided to build a mini catamaran by holding on to all canoes with our hands and floated aimlessly down the stream… and taunted some California happy cows above the cliff while chugging our beers. This was supposed to be 2-hour canoe trip, yet it took us 3 hours to complete this journey… that was only after everyone complained about hungry stomachs and we decided to paddle really hard for the last one mile or two.

We headed back to Kurt’s place for dinner. Angelina and I prepared 30 veggie kebabs and a big pot of dessert drink while Corey and Liz prepared a fruit salad and a rhubarb cake. Kurt grilled several T-bone and sirloin steaks and they were certainly some of the best steaks we ever have.

Overall, a wonderful trip and a wonderful dinner… so, here’s an awesome boat song written by me:-

Mike rows the boat ashore, hallelujah
Mike rows the boat ashore, hallelujah

Corey naps a lot in the canoe, hallelujah
Corey naps a lot in the canoe, hallelujah

Kurt’s canoe has a lot of spiders, hallelujah
Kurt’s canoe has a lot of spiders, hallelujah

Joe runs into the bush to pee, hallelujah
Joe runs into the bush to pee, hallelujah

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