Valentine's Day Down South

Today is Valentine's Day.  Today is also Tuesday.  Robyn and I decided that the weekend is a more convenient time to celebrate.  Thus we had our Valentine's Day celebration this past weekend.  I told Robyn that I missed nature, and she agreed to spend time in nature if I took her to a place where aforementioned nature was warmer.

We decided to spend the weekend in St. George.  It is conveniently located near Snow Canyon which happens to be a part of nature.  It also happens to contain the last temple in Utah that we had not been to.  So I was able to accomplish an important item on my bucket list, which is to visit every temple in Utah.  We spent the morning in the St. George Temple, then spent the afternoon exploring nature.

As we drove into Snow Canyon park, there was a Wildlife Crossing sign that had a picture of a Gila Monster.  From that time forward, my entire goal was to see a Gila Monster.  Unfortunately, we saw exactly zero venomous lizards.  It was very sad indeed.

We hiked an area where there had been an ancient volcano.  I thought the volcanic rock looked super cool.  I stopped to touch it.  (Touching things is important)  As I knelt down to touch it, I exclaimed, "This is soo cool!"

My exclamation frightened Robyn.  She made a small yelp sound and backed away.  I didn't understand why she was so frightened.  She told me that everything I think is cool is generally gross or dangerous.  I think those are her special words for things that are awesome.

See?  Neither gross nor dangerous

As we kept hiking I found more cool stuff.  I discovered these cholla cacti.  Remember how important it is to touch things?  Robyn made fun of me when touching them hurt.

Perhaps these are dangerous.  But not gross.

They may be dangerous, but next to me they're precious.

We got to frolick in nature.  We discovered a few more awesome things.  I came upon this pit of death.

I'm pretty sure pit of death is a technical term

You can't see how deep it is but it was a few hundred feet down.  I was too afraid to stand close enough to get a good shot because I had tripped and fallen like three feet away from it.  I was fearing death at that moment.  (Perhaps I understand why Robyn thinks all the things I like are dangerous.)


We came upon a giant rock (or petrified dune, or something)

When you see a giant petrified dune you climb it.  I'm pretty sure that's one of the rules of nature.

We got to the top and discovered a beautiful view of Snow Canyon.

This is also a beautiful view of Robyn.

All in all it was a great trip. I was able to recharge in nature. We were able to spend some quality one on one time together. I even got to cross an item off my bucketlist. It was easily one of my favorite Valentine's Day celebrations. But don't worry. Robyn still got flowers today.