Utah: Saturday

My sister really wanted to take us hiking in Goblin Valley and Little Wild Horse Canyon, and I really wanted her to do that too! So that's how we spent Saturday. It was a bit of a drive, but my parents took the little girls, Emily and Ben took the boys, and Chuck and I got some alone (car) time. Lovely.

We opted to start with the canyon, as kids can always muster energy for Goblin Valley. We got to the trailhead and found it PACKED. Granted, the last time I was here was more than 20 years ago, but I know I didn't remember that much traffic! Once we were on the trail, we had it mostly to ourselves...until the water.

Before


Everyone is still dry and happy! My mom came with us (again) and even though at times she was uncomfortable (at best), she did great. The water didn't make it easy and there are other tricky parts that you just forget about. But she was a champ and persevered!


Aaaand then we hit the water. That water is COLD. Nay, FREEZING. Not all of us could really maneuver around it without staying dry, and by the end we all either had wet shoes, wet feet that were put back into dry shoes, or wet faces from all the crying. To protect the guilty, I won't name names.


But I will post guilty pictures. Here's Rhett getting ferried across one particularly deep spot.


There's me and Chuck! This canyon is just so very incredible.


On our way back out. He wasn't happy with me because I made him get in some pictures. I wasn't happy with him because he ran away, even after I told him to stay close so I could take pictures.


My sister takes pictures of her kids in these rocks every time they go. But this time it was all the cousins!


After we finished at Little Wild Horse, we headed to Goblin Valley. My boys were just flabbergasted. Because...who wouldn't be when seeing this for the first time?! How do you even explain this wonder? You can barely see, but that's some (all?) of the grandkids playing in caves. The adults wandered around, trying to keep an eye on the kids, but also taking a nice, long sit break.


Sisters!


When it was about time to go, we had to find the kids. Eventually I got close enough that I could hear them. They all came out of this crazy place only to announce that Ollie had stumbled upon a geocache! Ha. He took a funny little leather pouch and (of course) they left nothing. We're learning.


The after pic. It really was a great day. We headed back to Moab for a pizza dinner. After dinner, we put the kids in front of the TV while the others went for frozen yogurt. Perfect.