It was a sunny day in May of the year 2000 in Zion's National Park. I had just started along the trail to Angel's Landing. I was there as part of the annual camping trip my church group made to Zion's. It had already been a pretty fun trip so far. I had gone on my first canyoneering hike down a slot canyon called Pine Creek that had involved nine rappels and swim through water holes where the canyon was only a few feet wide. It had been a blast. And now a bunch of us were headed up to the top of Angel's Landing.
There were seven or eight of us, most who I knew, a few who a didn't. One who I didn't know was this chit chatty red head girl. She had never done Angel's Landing before and was like "What is it like at the top", and I was like "It's like a 1000 foot drops all around you, and to get there you have to walk on these narrow ledges and they have chain you have to hold onto" and she in her mind was like "Is he trying to be funny or scare me or what?".
Well we all kept walking up the steep switch backs and talking and trying to guess were different people we came across came from (because there are always a lot of foreign tourists at Zion's) and eventually this girl is like "My name is blah blah blah" and I am like I'm like "I'm Kevin, and I think I have been trying to get a hold of you". Now you might think that sounds like some kind of weird pick-up line and if you did, you be totally wrong, because I don't think I ever used a pick-up line in my life, except to someone I already know and who would know I was just saying it to be stupid. In addition, I had specifically decided before coming on this trip that I wasn't going to try to meet any new girls, because I was a little tired of the whole dating process and didn't want to ruin a good trip with stress and frustration. So anyway, the reason I said "I have been trying to get a hold of you", is because I actually had. I was the executive secretary for the Bishop of our church group and so was in charge of making appointments for him and he had been trying to make appointment with her. So then red head girl was like, "Yeah, I go home a lot on the weekends" and so on a so forth and we talked about where she was from and such.
After a little while we finally go to the top part of Angel's landing and she was like "Hey, there really are chains here!, I thought you were kidding!" and I was like "nope". So then we are hanging out at the top of Angel's Landing and she starts feeding some of the squirrels that are running around. And I, using my super suave womanizing skills am like "Dude, didn't you read the sign, you not supposed to feed the squirrels, people food makes them sick". She was a little embarrassed and I felt bad, but someone had to speak of for those poor neglected lazy fat squirrels.
So then, we are hiking back down and some people in our group are like, "Who want to go to the bottom of the Narrows and hike up for a ways?" and I was like "I do, that sounds cool" and red head girl was like "I want to too" and I was like in my mind "I wouldn't mind that"
So we hike up the Narrows for a few miles and get to the bottom of Orderville Canyon and decide to hike up it for a ways. There is a lot little waterfalls and ledges you have to hike up in Orderville and red head girl is keeping up with all the guys and I am starting to think "red head girl is kind of cool". Well after a few hours we all decide to turn around.
For those of you who never done Orderville Canyon or the Narrows, you are basically walking in a river running through a narrow canyon. The river at this time was about knee deep and there are lots of slippery rocks. So anyway as we all are hiking back down, one of red head girl's Teva's straps breaks. This makes it very hard for her to walk through the river. So we all consult together and someone comes up with the idea to give her one of their socks and put it all the way over the teva to help hold it on. This works pretty well, but it is still pretty hard for her to walk on the slippery rocks and she starts to fall behind. Well, noble gentleman that I am, I stayed back to help her along. Sometimes, just to make sure she didn't fall, I held her hand for a little bit, you know, just to give her some extra stability. She seemed to appreciate the help.
Eventually, we made it to the bottom. It was getting late and some of us had to work the next day, so we all piled into some cars, and somehow me and red girl ended up in the same car sitting next to each. As we were driving home the driver cranked the radio up to help him stay awake. A Ben Folds Five song came on and I was like "I like this song" and red head girl's like "I like this song too, did you know it was about blah blah diddie blah da blah?" And I was like, well chalk up another cool point for red head girl. We got home sometime late late at night and we all went our separate ways. But I said to myself, "Self we should hang out with red head girl again sometime".
And I did.
So that was day that Ke(vin) and Co(nnie) that would some day make the world renowned keco productions blog met.
