Day 16 – 8/18/11 Sunrise Photoshoot and ATV Trip

Waking up at 5am wasn’t easy, but that’s what you have to do to take pictures of the sunrise over the Tetons with the SmugMug crew. So worth it! I loved getting out there in the dark, cold morning and watch everyone pick their places and set up their cameras. Lots of neon green Smuggie faces everywhere! Around 7:00am, the sun began to light up the trees around the Tetons. We took our last few photos and headed to McDonalds for a quick snack.

When we got back, we found this cool blue and black bird chilling out by the condos. We picked up the Go Pro (video camera) for our ATV trip later that day, and headed back to our condo to get ready for the ATV trip. We brought our quads and trailer down to the ATV rental place to get our quads onto their trailers and drop off out camper/trailer so we can drive everything back later. We made sure everything was all set for our trip and headed back to the lodge to pick up the riders! We had 11 quads (2 were ours, 9 rented-1 side-by-side), 13 people (2 kids, 11 adults)! What a crew.

It took forever to sign the paperwork and go over all their safety stuff, but once we did, we were ready to hit the trails. We looked so awesome as we towed all the gear the 30 min to the trail head. We headed back to the trail we already explored on Monday…by Slide Lake. We spoke to each rider, making sure they had maps, water, and for the most part knew what they were doing. I led the pack up the windy dirt road. I decided to take the faster crew in the front, and Zac stayed with/behind the beginners. We stopped occasionally to catch up to each other and make sure everyone was okay.

Within the first 30 min, we had our first flip. One of the riders took a turn before a bridge too fast. I guess he was trying to keep up with me, but wasn’t quite ready to go that fast. Luckily he was fine..just a few scrapes, but the bike had over $1,000 in damage. YIKES!

The rest of the ride up to the top of the mountain went great. The views of the valley and the forest fires that occurred there years before were overwhelming. We ate lunch at the top, gave a little safety speech on how to get down the mountain, and headed off. I couldn’t believe how fast everyone was flying down the mountain. I had Trevor on my bike and I wanted to take pictures, so I was riding slower toward the back of the crew.

We made it almost down the entire mountain when I saw one of our riders waving to slow me down around a blind corner. Apparently two crashes had occurred in front of me. First, one person had took the turn too fast and went flying deep into the woods and flipped, and then another rider stopped in the middle of the road around the blind corner causing another rider to have to slam on her breaks. She went skidding to the side of the trail and flipped the quad onto her leg.

Luckily all accidents turned out with minor injuries. Luckily I had a winch on my quad and was able to pull the quad that went into the woods out. What a crazy and intense experience that was. Such a fun day! We did a total of 50 miles in about 3 hours. We washed up and headed out to another nice company dinner. 🙂

Day 15 – 8/17/11 – Engagement Photos and Tire Breakdown

Nick Wrzesinski, a friend of Zac’s who also works for SmugMug, offered to take some engagement photos of us today. He told us about this gorgeous place where the Teton Mountains reflected in the water. So we washed up our quads and truck and set off with Nick to Schwabacher Road to start the photo shoot. What a fun time that was! Nick is such an awesome guy and an amazing photographer. We took a ton of pics, on our quads and then dressed up with the mountains behind us! I think we know who will be taking pictures at our wedding!

When it was time to leave, we noticed that one of the trailer tires was low on air. The crazy bumpy road we had to drive down must have been too much for this poor tire. We put a little fix-a-flat in the tire and headed back to Jackson to get Nick to his white water rafting trip.

Unfortunately, we were a little late getting him back to the hotel, so we had to bring him back downtown to meet up with the white water rafting crew at the rafting rental place. Just before we pulled up to it….only about a block away, our tire blew completely. Zac decided to put our doughnut tire on…even thought the jack was incredibly difficult to get out of the truck. I almost went it to the rafting place to see if I could borrow a jack!

Finally, we got the tire on and headed a few miles down the road to get the tire fixed. Luckily they had a used tire for $35 and changed it in 15 min! Awesome. Zac was a little late to get to work, but he made it. While he worked his 3:00-10:00 shift, I uploaded photos and relaxed!

JHole ATV trails

One of the activities I set up for our company trip was a half day ride into the national forest area of Jackson Hole, WY. There were a total of 11 ATVS – 9 were rented and 2 were ours that we brought from NY. It was such a blast! Bobbi and  I had to train some new people in how to ride safely.

Unfortunately not everyone took our safety briefing to heart… There were several crashes but nobody was seriously hurt – just a few bumps and bruises.  I don’t have any photos of the trip yet. I’ll update the blog when I find some! There were some sweet videos too!

-Zac

Day 14 – 8/16/11 – Whitewater Rafting Trip

We had to meet at 12:00pm for the Whitewater Rafting trip. This is one of the trips I was looking forward to the most! We signed our wavers and hopped on the bus for out 1 and 1/2 hour ride to Snake River. The whole way, we talked to the tour guide to find out how we can get the most extreme ride possible. He was a great match for us. He ended up being the tour guy for our boat, the extreme adventure/crazy/try to tip us over boat.

Even Anton even joined our boat to get some awesome footage. He came prepared for the extreme splashing by bringing the thinnest plastic bag to keep his Canon 7D (really expensive camera) in. He trusted us to keep it dry. Luckily it was water resistant, so everything was still in perfect working order when we ended the trip.

We had one great ride. The river was made up of some great class 3 rapids with quick relaxing calm parts between. We even made the slow parts fun by playing games like Rafting Rodeo. This game is played by having one person stand on the front of the boat. He/she had to try to stay the boat while the rest of the crew rowed in one direction or the other depending on the guides orders. Awesome! Dustin went first, and then Zac tried it. The part that made this game the most fun is the fact that neither one of them actually wanted to fall into the water because it was pretty cold. Good times!

When we got home, we cleaned up and headed out to dinner with Nancy and some SmugMuggers to the Snake River Brewery in town. Some more great food and they even had a delicious “campfire smore” for dessert!

Day 13 – 8/15/11 Jackson Hole – Jenny Lake

What a much needed relaxing day. Zac had to work all morning, so I had plenty of time to relax. I began the day by doing all my laundry and cleaning up, getting breakfast for Zac and I at the Atrium restaurant, then took a wonderful 2 HOUR bath in the jacuzzi tub with the jets on.

When Zac finished working at 1pm, Andy, Nancy, Zac and I went to Jenny Lake to scope it out. We were on the lookout for animals, hoping to get some good shots of cool wildlife. There wasn’t much wildlife, but when we arrived at Jenny Lake, we were able to make ourselves into animals with the park rangers antlers that he found! Nancy became a unicorn. 🙂

When the rain came, we decided to head back to town and grab some lunch at the Tavern, which served me the most delicious cheeseburger but the most terrible mai tai! We hung out at the condos and relaxed until going to the SmugMug dinner at the Atrium Restaurant. The steak I had was awesome. The evening was filled with many more laughs and fun with the group back at the lodge.

Day 12 – 8/14/11 – Jackson Hole – Rididng, Alpine Slide, and Company Dinner – by Bobbi

The first full day in Jackson Hole was pretty cool. We were able to sleep in a little in an awesome comfy king size bed! Then we headed over to Andy’s room to relax with Andy, Nancy and Trevor.

 

We took Trevor to the Alpine Slide which was right at the resort we were staying at. I had never been on one before, so I was a little nervous. Apparently one of the Smugmuggers was able to go fast enough to send it off of its tracks. So knowing this, I made sure to take a nice and somewhat gentle trial run down the mountain. You can really cruise on this thing! I videotaped this first run. So fun! The view of the Teton Mountains was really nice as well. AND…I actually made it up the chairlift without whining too much.

Next, we decided to do a test run of the place we were taking the SmugMug Crew on Thursday. Plus, we wanted to take Trev for a ride. We loaded up and headed to the place where everyone is renting their quads from to get maps and info on the trails. We grabbed some lunch at the gas station and headed north to the trails. We saw some bison on our way! We had a little trouble finding Slide Lake, but when we did, we quickly unloaded and hit the trail. It was more of a dirt road with much more traffic then the trails in Utah. We rode for about two hours. On the way back, I let Trevor drive my quad. He did such an awesome job! Yea, Trev!

We made it back just in time to get ready quick and go to the company BBQ at the top of the Alpine Slide in the picnic area. We ate dinner and socialized, then you had the choice of riding back down the ski lift, or riding the Alpine Slide. Most people took the slide, but boy did that get out of hand!

When you take 100+ very outgoing people and put them in a line to go down a slide that you can control the speed on, and you need to make good decisions to stay on the track, you can only imagine what happened!! We had 3 wipe outs(that I know of)…..two from Andy and one from Toni, and laughs that have gone on for days from this one ride! How does one guy fall 2 times on the same ride? Don’t you learn from the first time you fly off the track? We love Andy! 🙂 This whole company is awesome….funny, kind, and so much fun!

Day 11 – 8/13/11 – Drive from Moab to Jackson Hole, Wyoming – by Bobbi

We woke up with the sunrise so we could head off to Jackson Hole asap! It took us about 9 hours to get there. Zac loved the windmills that we saw. I had a chance to paint my fingers and toes with diamond nail polish! We drove in and out of Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho as we dove to Jackson. At one point, we were actually driving right on the border of Idaho and Wyoming…Idaho was on the left and Wyoming was on the right of the road!

We made it to Jackson around 5. We freshened up at Zac’s dad’s condo and headed to Nikai for dinner with Trevor, Nancy, and Andy. When we finally made it to our condo, I couldn’t believe it. We knew we were in the master bedroom, but we had no idea which one it was. I went into the first bedroom and saw how awesome it was…”This must be the master bedroom.” NOPE…I went to the second bedroom in the suite and thought the same thing…NOPE….the master bedroom was on the other end of the condo and was soooooo awesome: king size bed, huge bathroom with nice shower and jacuzzi tub, huge walk in closet, balcony and an awesome view of the Teton Mountains.

I love it here! Check out the pics! After we were settled in our room, we went over to his dad and Nancy’s condo to have a few drinks and meet some Smugmuggers! What a great time!

Day 10 – 8/12/11 – Adventures in Moab, Utah – by Bobbi

Riding to the light of the full moon was really cool. I was up most of the night taking pictures from the camper of the moonlight shining in. Finally, around 5am, Zac told me to zip up the windows and get some sleep. Sunrise here was gorgeous again….I couldn’t stop taking pictures! The way the light reflected on the red rock was incredible. Zac set the camera up to take some cool silhouettes of us.

Then I made some yummy french toast for us while Zac worked. We packed up the quads and the cooler and made our way to Gemini Bridges. The people in the office strongly recommended this ride. 20 miles there and back and then we had plenty of other trails we could take to get some extra riding in. We drove beside some seriously high cliffs and rocks with more incredible views.

When we finally made it the Gemini Bridges, Zac went running right to the edge to check it out as I hung back to watch him and get some pics. This was well worth the ride out! Zac worked hard to get me to walk over these incredibly high up, scary, and beautiful bridges. It was so hard to capture any part of this on camera!…especially while holding on to the nearest tree. Zac actually tied the camera in a tree to take some shots of the two of us on the bridges. So fun!

On the way back, I started getting dizzy. Knowing that I drank at least 8 water bottles, I couldn’t understand why I was dizzy. I was so happy when we made it to the office of our campground. I hopped off my quad and ran into the AC. I ended up sitting on the floor for a few minutes to collect myself. I drank some Gatorade and ate an ice cream sandwich on bench outside the office as we watched the hummingbird get his own drink. I tried to hop on my quad and gun it to the camper, but I ended up getting too dizzy. I somehow made it back to the camper with Zac and took about 2 hour nap.

Later on, I found out that water is not enough to hydrate you. The people in the office informed me on how much you NEED to drink electrolytes on days that were that HOT! Either way, I survived and had a great time. Later on, Zac and I went down to the pool so I could get a refreshing swim. We didn’t get back out for a night ride, but at least we got some nice sunset shots.

Day 9 – 8/11/11 – One Last Ride in Marysvale and then to Moab, Utah – by Bobbi

So many more quads of different shapes and sized came in today for the Jamboree they had this weekend. Zac and I stopped and stared many times at the options we can buy in the future! We packed up camp today pretty early so we could hit the trails before the Jamboree began. A long chain of these side-by-sides were lined up to take over the trails at 9:30. We hit the trails by 9:00.

We went a similar way we went the first day, but this time turned toward the direction of a 60 foot waterfall that you needed to hike up to. What a hike that was; only 400 yards, but a very rocky, steep, scary hike. It was so worth it though! We hit the 3,000 mile mark on our way to Moab, Utah. At this point, we had driven for about 62 hours! The roads were again amazing; full of great views and huge rocks and mountain! I love the red rocks!

When we got to Moab, we decided to go down into the town to check it out first. We at at Zax’s and hit the visitors center before heading back up to the Arch View Campground to set up. Our view from this campground was by far the most spectacular. The sunrises and sunsets here were absolutely the most beautiful on these red rocks. Everyone here was so helpful and awesome as well. It was much hotter in Moab than anywhere else we rode.

Before we set out on an evening ride, Zac checked out the map while I updated my travel journal. Once we left, we noticed we were riding with the full moon above. Between the moon and the gorgeous rocks, Zac was able to take some awesome shots of our quads. We tried to stay on the Sovereign Trail, but we ended up on a wash instead.

We drove down the desert sand until we came to the gorgeous spot where the sand rippled and the sunset began. More pictures flooded my camera. Zac wrote our names in the sand and then we headed back to camp. This Moab trail was pretty cool. It was like riding on huge rocks covered with some desert sand.

There were some more difficult spots that you had to climb up or down with the quads and others you had to just slow down because the rock was so bumpy. We like these trails, but we still likes to Paiute Trail System in Marysvale, Utah better.

Day 8 – 8/10/11 – More Awesome Riding in Marysvale – by Bobbi

I know I haven’t updated this in a while, but I have been attaching comments to most of my pictures in the SmugMug galleries before.  So, when you are looking at any of the galleries before Day 8, you will see a comment under each picture only if you click on it and look it on the right side of the screen.  This can kinda be a pain for you, but was fun for me to describe what was happening in some of the photos.   From now on, I am just writing a description about each gallery on the SmugMug site – click here!

*All you need to do is go to this site, click on a gallery, or day that you want to look at, and the summary of our day will be right at the top of the page above all the pictures.  You can’t miss it!  I will also copy each and post it here.  Also, I know there are a TON of pictures, but feel free to just look at the small pics and scroll through each of the pages, and only click on the pictures you want to see bigger.

P.S.  I am so excited to see everyone in person and show you my ring and give you hugs when I get home.  I also have a bunch more pictures of my ring, but I don’t want anyone checking it out too much on the site….I want to show you in person!  🙂  Miss you all!

 Day 8 – 8/10/11 – More Awesome Riding in Marysvale

Marysvale is so far one of our favorite places to ride. We were able to take a 50 mile trail through the mountains and loved it! We even took a trail that was specifically created for only ATV’s smaller then 50 inches wide. It was awesome! We also found a spot in the trail that looked like a speedway!

There was a nice overlook further up the trail, so we took pictures and videos of each other blasting up the switchbacks of the trail! I bought new goggles and we bought dust masks to keep the dust out of our faces. I love how Zac was my tour guide. He looks so cute with a huge map in his hand in the middle of a desert!

I couldn’t believe how many people owned quads and side by sides here. We saw them everywhere in town, but luckily only ran into other riders once in a while. The 300+ miles of trail really spread everyone out.

I especially loved seeing the riders who brought their dogs. You will find some of those pics in this gallery too. If you get a chance, come here! It’s the best trail system and campground we have seen on our trip! Lizzie and Charlies Campground also has a website if you want to check it out.