Spring Break

We had a great spring break! We went to the library, planted some of the garden, celebrated Iy's birthday, watched Bolt, walked to the playground for a picnic, mom went to the temple twice, we did some cleaning,... The best thing of this spring break was our trip to Capitol Reef National Park. We left Friday morning and arrived (via back roads, Dad's preference) in Torrey, Utah around 11:00 am. We checked into our hotel and then headed out to the park to start the fun. We started at the Visitor's Center where we browsed the store and picked up maps of all the hikes. Then we went to the park and ate lunch. We were in "nature" of course and there were deer droppings in the grass at the picnic spot. This drove Ev to distraction. She vigilantly watched her step and everyone else's: "N watch out, you don't want to step in these. Et--LOOK OUT--Oh no! (Et said, "What? Oh well." In fairness to him most all of this stuff was quite old--like rocks, really) Iy, be careful...." Finally Dad said to Ev that it just didn't matter and she shouldn't worry about it. About 30 seconds later Ev said, "I can see why they tell you to NOT feed the deer!"

After our picnic we went on our first hike, which included a walk down Capital Gorge and a climb to The Tanks. We saw the pioneer wall, which had names and dates from 1885-1915. That was pretty cool. It was a little more than 3 miles total and when we got back Iy and N were not interested in hiking. Poor N insisted on wearing shoes with major holes in them which resulted in him having sand in his shoes all the time. These shoes also had no traction so he worked harder than any of us. But we couldn't get him to wear different shoes and aside from the sand he did pretty well. We dropped dad and Et off at one end of a hike called the Grand Wash and picked them up at the other trail head. In the meantime, we looked at the old Fruita school house, Fremont Indian petroglyphs, orchards, and the Behunin Cabin. The Cabin was probably about 12x12 inside and a family of 10 lived there. I found it ironic that legally we couldn't have our family of six stay in one hotel room (bigger than this cabin) that night... How times have changed! After we picked up Dad and Et we hiked up to Sunset point and then drove back to the hotel to drop off our luggage and then went to Slacker's Burgers for dinner. Good dinner and the best surprise was seeing some old friends, Stacy and Tom! We had a fun dinner together! We also ran into one of Dad's coworkers and his family. Then we went back to the hotel where Dad took the kids to the pool, afterwhich we had popcorn and then went to bed.

Iy woke up at 3:30 AM for breakfast! I made her go back to sleep. Then she woke up at 5:00 and I made her go to sleep again. When she woke up at 6:30 we just went to breakfast. Hotel breakfasts are almost as exciting as hotel pools! We checked out early from our hotel and took a drive to the Surprise Canyon trail head. This hike entailed walking through a small narrow canyon and climbing up, around, over rock obstacles. Over most of them Nathan would stand on top, throw both hands in the air, yell "Annabo!" (Cannonball!) and jump off! After we hiked Surprise Canyon Iy got in the car and announced, "I am not hiking ANYMORE! I am staying Right Here!" We took advantage of our four wheel drive and drove in the back country (Muley Twist Canyon) to hike to the Strike Valley Overlook. Of course Iy had announced that she was not hiking anymore and when we told her she had to she made objections like this: "I SAID I was not hiking anymoooooooooorrrrrrrre, I don't waaaaaaaant to hiiiiiiiiiiiike anymooooooore, this is tooooooo muuuuuuuch hiiiiiiiiiking, I don't even liiiiiiii Wait. Did you say candy? Let's go!" Yes, we shamelessly bribed her and said that when we got back to the car we would give everyone a treat. It was a great hike and it was our last. Our kids were great troopers! Ev, Iy, and N hiked around 6 miles Friday afternoon and Saturday morning and Et hiked about 8. Probably more for him because he would run up and down the trail because we (N) were too slow! He's our mountain goat. Although as we were coming out of Surprise Canyon the girls got out of eyesight of the boys and I happened to be with them and they decided to beat the boys out and ran almost all the way out of that canyon. I was impressed--they had to vault over rocks and fallen trees and they were fast! We had to wait about 15 minutes for the boys to catch up!

At this point we left Capitol Reef and drove the Burr trail (named after Vince's great great grandparents who used to drive their cattle over this trail every year) to the Anasazi State Park in Boulder. This was a really cool museum--there's some pictures on the slide. Then we took a little detour down highway 12 so Dad could drive a portion of road called the Hog's Back because you drive over this highway that has 600 feet drops on either side of it--there is not anywhere to pull over or anything. We drove both ways on Hog's Back so we could get back to the portion of highway 12 that was the shortest route home. We stopped at several scenic overlooks--beautiful views! We saw rain, sleet, hail, and snow. And sun, but not much.

We learned several things on this trip. First, we can take you to any pit toilet in Capitol Reef National Park and we would not even have to consult a map. Second, Subway is the new McDonald's. When I was a kid we used to joke about finding a McDonald's everywhere we went but now I am telling you that you can find a Subway just about anywhere. Thirdly, when N says "I nee do hoe" he really does need to go potty and doesn't just want to stretch his legs. We tested this theory and got burned because no one else in the car seriously believed that he needed to go potty every 30 minutes! We were wrong. Fourth, our kids can hike for miles in an afternoon and still have plenty of energy for swimming, and staying up past 11 pm and then wake up early in the morning for breakfast. Fifth, Lucky Charms taste better at the hotel Continental Breakfast. Sixth, deer droppings won't kill you and if you don't feed them they won't drop,.... Maybe we should have payed attention to this lesson and not fed the kids...less food, less potty breaks,... Hmmmmmm.

On our way home we stopped at Grandma O's for a little Easter egg hunt and some pie. Thanks Grandma!! It was fun to visit with family. The only bad thing about this trip was that we just had 2 days--if we had had more time we could have hiked many more miles and seen many more sights! Maybe next time...