the Summer Migration - part 2: Arches

We took a daylong break before starting part two of our adventure.  The break was prompted by a stomach bug in Buddy Boy and a couple other family members.  Fortunately, it didn't last long and we were able to push our reservations back a day, so we didn't have to shorten our time in Moab.  Those who weren't sick in bed used the day to check out the new LDS Church History Museum exhibits in Salt Lake City.  The museum has undergone a major overhaul to totally redo the main floor as well as the upstairs exhibits and gallery spaces.  While the kids played in the kid room, I took a few minutes to look at the art in the galleries.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.

The next day we set off on our adventure to Moab and Arches National Park.  I used to live relatively close to there and I still absolutely love the mountains, the open spaces, and the red rock landscape.  By relatively close, I mean I lived about a little less than two hours away, in Price.  Everything is about two hours from Price with a lot of open space in between.  I loved driving through it all again.  It's been 20 years since I left.  I came to really enjoy the emptiness and the open space.  It is a lot different from where I live now.

Our fist hike was through Park Avenue.  It was early evening so the trail was all in shadow, the perfect time of day for that hike.  It would have been terrible during mid-day.  I loved the narrow fins and how the shapes of the shadows of the rocks from one side were cast on the other side.

The automatic exposure on the camera was funny.  With such dramatic lighting things were either over or under exposed.  I took so many photos!  I absolutely love this landscape.  I have the idea that I will paint some of them.  It may or may not happen, but at least I had a good time collecting the source material.

Next we drove past Balanced Rock to the Windows section of the park.  It turned out to be the perfect place to watch the sun set.  It just doesn't get much better than this.

My Girl had a little notebook with her and started sketching the arches.  They did this on their own and sketched every arch we stopped at.  It was a lot of fun to watch them and to watch the reactions of people when they saw them drawing so seriously.

We stayed there until it was too dark to see any more.  What a wonderful start to our stay.

The next morning we were up early to start our hiking before it got too hot.  August is not the best time of year for Moab, April or October would be much nicer weather.  I've even been hiking during the winter and loved it.  You just have to be careful of snow on the rock, pretty slippery.  Summer is the most popular and the busiest, but not necessarily the most ideal.

Our first hike was to Delicate Arch.  We were at the trail head by 8:00.  That is pretty early for us.

It is about 3 miles round trip, but feels much longer when you aren't used to hiking, like my kids.  They blamed it on the altitude.  I blame it on being couch potatoes all summer.

We managed to find a bit of shade, then pushed on to the end.  Buddy Boy made it, but didn't like the drop offs so we didn't stay long.

We stayed long enough for a bit of sketching.  By this time I was really regretting not bringing my own sketch book.  I didn't think I would have a chance to use it.  Now I know better.  My Girl likes to draw when she hikes just like me.

We were back by 10:00 and by then it was starting to heat up.  There was a Ranger at the trail head checking in with hikers to make sure they had enough water and had adequate shoes.  People who aren't familiar with this environment often underestimate it.  Both here and in Yosemite I have been amazed at people who attempt hiking without being even minimally prepared.  Let's not overwork the search and rescue teams people.

In the afternoon we went to the North end of the park to the Devil's Garden area.  Here we took a little hike to Landscape Arch.  By this time it was hot and a bit slower going.  My little artists didn't want to miss a thing so we took the side trail to Tunnel Arch and Pine Tree Arch while the others skipped it.

We called it a day in the park and had lunch at the quesadilla food truck in town.  Yummy.  During the hottest part of the day we visited the shops in town and Rotary Park.  It has a musical playground with all sorts of outdoor music making contraptions.  The best store was the local bookstore.  I bought the calendar of a local artist I just loved, Serena Supplee.  My sister-in-law had a series of her note cards hanging in her kitchen.  So vibrant, so full of life and motion.  She works in both oil and watercolor.  It is interesting to see how they are different.  I love her style.

Playful Life by Serena Supplee

My sister-in-law picked this up at the bookstore as a gift for her husband.  Of course we started reading it before he ever got to see it.  Great book on artists who paint the Colorado Plateau.  I'll have to read more of it when I get back to Utah.

We were tired to say the least.  So we did a little swimming to cool off then ate a dinner of popcorn, watermelon, and ice cream, while we watched movies and the Olympics to end the day.  It was a great day.  The kids were real troopers.  It wasn't easy.  Buddy Boy swears he will never hike again, but there's always tomorrow.

Our last day was Sunday, so after church we went for a little drive up Highway 128. It follows along the South side of the Colorado River.  It is a spectacularly beautiful drive.

We were looking for the turn off for Fisher Towers.  We weren't sure how far up the road it was, but we found it as we were about ready to turn back.  I'm so glad we didn't miss it.  Amazing formations and minimal hiking, just right.

It is amazing to see all of the different colors of rock.  Everything from green, to yellow, orange, red, and purple.  Add to that the usual white, brown, and black from the coal seams near Price and the varnish on the canyon walls and you pretty much have everything.  You can even get a little blue when the sky reflects off the dark varnish on the canyon walls.  I kept asking myself how I would paint the things I was seeing.  I'm going to play with it.  I don't usually like to do landscapes, but these I will try.

After lunch was one last hike to Double Arch.  This is the one we missed when it got too dark the first night.  My Girl really wanted to hike up under the arch so we went.  The others waited for us in the shade.

When we got back to the car we ate our left over ice cream.  We found a bit of shade under the juniper trees off the trail to the parking lot.  You should have seen the looks of jealousy as we stood around eating ice cream in the hot afternoon.

And that was that.  What a trip.  We headed out of town through the wide open spaces and mountains of Eastern Utah.  A night of sleep and then home across Nevada.

This time we stopped at the Salt Flats.  We drive through every year, but finally stopped this time.  Everything is so white, especially after the bright colors of Moab.

Now the long drive home after a truly great trip.

the Summer Migration - part 1: Idaho

Buddy Boy calls our annual trip to Utah the Annual Migration.  Fair enough.  We do it every year.  The past couple of years I have tried to add a little something fun to the family reunion.  Last year we went to Yellowstone and Jackson Hole.  This year it was Moab and Arches National Park.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Our first stop was with our very adorable little cousins.  We had a fun time with them at their house and at the Treehouse museum.  It seems geared to slightly younger kids, but mine enjoyed it with their cousins.

We spent a night at Grandma and Grandpa's house before heading out early for Idaho so that we could make it in time for a cousin baptism.  It was great to be there for her special baptism day.  After the baptism we went to the St. Anthony sand bar, a little piece of the Snake River in St.Anthony Idaho, to play.  It was a fantastic way to spend a summer afternoon.

There was a slide made from irrigation pipe and a diving board.  My brother said that in the spring the river is a roiling torrent of mud as high as the diving board.  Fortunately it calms down in the summer.  My Girl's favorite thing was floating down the 50 yards or so down river from the diving board area to the slide and swimming spot.  She didn't want to jump in, but Buddy Boy certainly did.

My brother is in the process of making capotes for his entire family.  That's a lot of capotes.  He is using Russian Army surplus blankets and leather from an old chair they found online.  It is quite the project.  The kids will use them as Halloween costumes and when they go to scout camp in the summer.  Even in the summer it can get cold in the evenings in the Tetons.  Buddy Boy liked the idea so we copied the pattern.  He is all about being warm and cozy.  I stopped short of buying blankets.  We'll see if the love lasts before I commit to the project.

On Monday the official family reunion started at a house near Lava Hot Springs.  It was a beautiful place to stay and a fun place for the family.

Monday evening we played.  There was plenty of time for the kids outside and silly games inside.  And watching Olympics when we started to get tired.

Tuesday was all about the water.  In the morning we rented tubes and the bigger people floated down the Portneuf river through the town of Lava, again and again and again.  If you pay a little extra a guy in a truck with a trailer will pull you back to the top of town so you can go again.  It is walkable, but the trailer is definitely the way to go.

This was so much fun.  I didn't get a lot of pictures.  I was too busy playing.  There is a place in the river where a natural hot spring feeds into the river.  People have stacked rocks to make warm little pools where you can stop to warm up and relax.  It was the perfect amount of adventure.  It was rough enough you might get dumped off your tube, but not really scary.  The kids loved it, but by lunch time they were done.  I could have done more and more.

We spent the afternoon at the pool with its huge diving platforms, water slides, and more water fun.

One fun thing was to see the history of the area.  The Oregon trail follows the Portneuf river and goes through the area.  You can see why, good water, nice (relatively) green (sort of) flat valley between some pretty high mountains.  On our way out we stopped at the California Trails interpretive center outside of Elko, Nevada.  It is a great little museum about all of the different pioneer trails headed west.  It was fun to see a different part of the real thing.  Part of our Campbell family way back moved from the mid-west to Oregon and may have taken a wagon through this area.  Not an easy trip.

Wednesday we packed up and headed back to Utah to continue our adventures.  It was great to see all of the extended family and have some good cousin time.  (We are missing a couple of cousins who had to stay home because of work.  We missed them here, but we did get to see them in the days before.)