So,
We went to Southern Utah for Spring break. I had to teach on Monday so we left on Tuesday morning and drove up to lovely Cedar City. We ate Cafe Rio. We went for a swim in an indoor pool and slept in a room. The next morning we woke up and put Bryce Canyon in the ol' GPS. Apparently the shortest route to Bryce Canyon goes up and over a 10,000ft mountain pass. It was cold but unbelievably pretty. We pulled over to let the kids play in the snow.
Then this magical mystery road took us through Red Canyon State Park. We got our first up close with the Hoodoo. We pulled over for a short hike and Aiden whined.
Eventually we arrived at Bryce Canyon.
The park lodge and food were closed since it wasn't quite the right season. There was snow on the ground and the temps were still in the 20s. It was mostly uncrowded and still quite beautiful. We started out at sunrise point, the first overlook once you get into the park, parked next to 4 tour busses and walked over to the lookout.
We let the kids use the pocket digital camera and they liked to take pictures of us and selfies.
We'd heard really good things about the Navajo Trail from this point so we set out to find it and found all of the Asian Tourists had the same idea.
The trail was pretty much impassable due to the prevalence of really slow moving old folks and the ubiquitous "Selfie Stick" a wand that attaches to your Iphone and extends your reach so that you can narcissistically photograph yourself everywhere you go while completely blocking the path of anyone who would like to pass by. We gave up the hike before we even made it 1/4 mile and decided to take a new tact with Bryce. To avoid the tour bus throngs we drove to the absolute farthest reaches of Bryce and worked our way back to the entrance for the rest of the day.
At the far end there was a bit more snow and the kids really loved playing in it, stomping on it, and throwing snowballs. The following aren't really in chronological order and I can't quite remember all of the overlook names but they do a good job of describing the day.
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| Throwing a snowball at me! |
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| Still freezing and even windier at the last point! |
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| The first of many edges I stood on to get stock shots. Teresa was a wreck in many of these parks. |
That day had to wrap up pretty quickly since we had a 3 hour drive to Moab to complete. We took the interstate this time and it was still really scenic.
The next day we went to Arches National Park.
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| Picture taken in the afternoon once it had warmed up. |
It was still cold. We had read that if you don't get an early start the parking situation for Delicate Arch would be a disaster. We didn't get an early start. We started out at Sand Dune arch and Broken Arch. Once again when confronted with walking a trail Aiden broke down.
Sand dune arch is a really cool arch hidden in a secret Indiana Jones style slot canyon. The canyon only gets sun maybe 2 hours a day. It was really cold. Did I mention it was cold?
From there it was a short 3/4 mile walk to Broken Arch.
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| While waiting for Aiden to catch up Zoey drew a butterfly in the sand. The sand was incredibly fine. It felt great. |
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| Me on top of Broken Arch. |
From there we walked back to the car and things started to warm up.
The next stop was a try at Delicate arch. The parking situation was grossly exaggerated. There would have been plenty of parking. When it was discovered that it was a 3 mile hike close to lunchtime and covered in people it was decided that we would just go to a viewpoint and see it from there.
Arches didn't have any food services (neither did Bryce, or Canyonlands) so we had to drive out to Moab (5miles) for lunch. When we came back we again devised a plan to try and avoid the crowds. National parks just lose a lot of luster when they are covered in people. We drove out to the windows section of the park and hiked around the North and South Windows, Double Arch and Turret arch. We climbed around and had a fun rest of the day. Again these pictures are in no particular order and some were taken by the kids.
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| Under Double Arch. |
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| Under Double arch looking out over the La Salle mountains toward the Windows and turret arch. |
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| Group Hug! |
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| Family selfie with double arch. |
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| The kids turned into expert climbers which didn't make Teresa super happy but I stuck with em and all stayed safe. |
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| Intrepid explorer! |
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| the old set the camera on a rock family shot with South Window. |
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| Zoey practiced making Cairns. |
Eventually we petered out and went back to Moab for dinner and sleeping in a room.
The next day we set out for the Island in the Sky portion of Canyonlands National park. Canyonlands is a lot different than the other parks we visited. It is about 45 minutes from Moab in the middle of nowhere. It is also so huge that they broke it up into 3 sections which are not connected by any roads. You have a choice of; Island in the Sky which is a huge mesa surrounded by the Colorado and Green rivers, The Maze, which is so remote you have to drive another 1 and a half hours southwest on highways then find a 4x4 road and drive another hour into The Maze or The Needles District which is in the Southeast corner of the park about 1.5 hours south of Moab. Since we chose the Island in the Sky section most of the points of interest were overlooks. You would think that since we were about 2,500 feet above the Canyon floors on both sides that there would have been more fencing but there wasn't. This park has a sort of do what you want vibe to it. Hikers and backpackers love it. I could see why. I would love to go back in the spring or fall and take a few days backpacking around the canyon floors.
Pictures:
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| Aiden walking to Mesa Arch. |
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| The views were stunning. The drop offs even made me nervous. No fences or anything, you could easily just walk right off the edge to your death. It was sheer. trust me. |
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| Another Aiden selfie with family. |
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| The kids loved to point the camera at the wildlife. |
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| Another kid wildlife shot. |
We took a hike to the Syncline Crater in this park. It was a 2 mile-ish trip.
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| Handing out the Lollipop hiking bribes. "Treats when we get there!" |
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| This day was a lot warmer. |
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| Eventually Aiden got tired and hot. |
We drove back to Moab that evening and slept in a room. The next day when we woke up Zoey was blowing chunks. We made an emergency vomit catcher for the drive home and set out for the 12 hour trip. We only had to catch vomit once. She fell asleep and woke up a few hours later feeling all better.
Since this is such a monster post I'm going to wrap it up here. It was a really great trip. One of (hopefully) many to come this year!
RTSZA
