Bryce Canyon

Cedar City, Utah

Tuesday's trip was to Bryce Canyon National Park. It was amaaaazing! We made sure to wear long pants and real shoes and even brought light weight jackets this time so we would have no need to abort the whole trip. For at least part of the day we were glad to be better prepared. It wasn't super cold or particularly windy, but it is plainly not summer anymore and there was still a chill in the air.

The main feature of the day was the Queen's Garden trail. We stopped at the visitor's center when we came in and debated whether or not to use the optional shuttle to get to our trail head. We were even in line for the shuttle when Liam noticed a sign telling us to move our car from the main parking lot before boarding a shuttle as the visitor's center parking was restricted to one hour only. So we walked back to our car, intending to move it, but decided instead to drive on to the trail and just see if maybe there was enough parking. There was. Our trail began at Sunrise Point and there were (luckily) signs leading us there from the parking lot, so off we went. There is a fabulous canyon view from Sunrise Point, they call it the amphitheater though and say 'canyon' is wrong. I thought amphitheater was 'outdoor theater,' I guess that isn't all it is. It is also a canyon full of cool stuff to look at, in this case hoodoos, a word I love. The view from above, though, was quickly overshadowed as we descended on the trail down into the canyon and actually walked among the rock formations. The queen of Queen's Garden, by the way, is a pink formation named Queen Victoria. I am still unsure why she gets a garden in southern Utah.

The trail winds back and forth and loops around and through the hoodoos and cliffs below. In some places the ground drops a bit dramatically off the side of the trail. At one point, we were stopped at a drop off where the ground beside the trail was just a lot of loose sand cascading between giant rock formations. We could see that our trail went around a curve ahead of us and continued way below us. Liam, gazing at the steep landscape between us and that trail far below jokingly asked; "Is that the trail down there? Why don't we just walk that way then?"  An older woman nearby overheard him and said firmly "Because you would die!" Then, perhaps deciding she was being a bit extreme, added; "Because your Grandma wouldn't want you to!" Haha. We stayed on the trail, for grandmas everywhere.

So we wandered along the Queen's Garden trail and then took the Navajo Loop off of it that took us to see a couple land bridges and through a few tunnels and then back up a steep, back and forth, trail reminiscent of San Francisco's 'crookedest street in the world,' (only we were going up... and walking) and up to Sunset Point. But there was construction at the view point and we were asked to wait 10 minutes before we could pass, in that 10 minutes we noticed that another trail was ending here also, and looking down that trail we could see that it went through a slot canyon way below us. So after climbing all the way up, we climbed back down the other trail so we could go through the canyon at what was, I think, the end of the Under the Rim Trail. It was awesome! We didn't continue on the trail but came back up the way we went down, giving us a chance to walk through the narrow canyon twice.

We finished our day in the park by driving the road up to Rainbow viewpoint and then coming back down stopping at most of the viewpoints along the way. The highlight of the viewpoints was probably the Land Bridge, but seeing things from up above was nothing in comparison to walking down among them.

Shakespeare!!!!!

Cedar City, Utah

Some months ago when we were laying out our plans for the summer we determined that after we dropped off Noah and Amik at school, and before we picked up Erin in Colorado Springs at the end of her mission, we  would spend a whole month just chilling in one place. There was a time when we had thought we would continue the road tripping life and head to the east coast, but when it came down to realistic plans we just knew that one month wasn't enough time to see and do half of what we wanted to in, and on our way to, the east. Also, our pre-BYU I plans had been rearranged to get us back to Boise in early August for a quick family reunion weekend and so we had missed seeing some of the National Parks we had hoped to see. And that is how we ended up in a house in Cedar City Utah for the month of September. Where we could rest a little from so much moving about, where Ronan could more seriously study for the SAT (hopefully), and where we could get to and from a few of Utah's national parks. I was just disappointed that we were too late for the Utah Shakespeare Festival that Cedar City hosts every summer. Except guess what? We weren't. They have plays going into October, and this year, one Shakespeare play would still be playing while we were here; A Midsummer Night's Dream. This became one of our exceptions to cheap and free activities and we bought tickets to a matinee performance. Wednesday was our scheduled play. I had given the kids a brief synopsis of the story of the play, but when I asked them if they wanted to read it or watch a version Liam was adamant that his 'first experience' with it be seeing the play itself.

The Shakespeare Festival is held on the SUU campus here. Its a relatively small university I think, but it appears to have a pretty amazing arts complex, including a Globe Theatre! Sadly our play was not in the Globe, but the little theatre it was in next door was very nice. As we approached the doors we were greeted by an older lady who asked if we already had our tickets. We explained that they were on our phones and she questioned if they could be scanned from phones. Yes they could (we had actually called way back when we first bought them to be sure that this was a possibility since we travel without a printer), she looked doubtful and said "we are all old here you know." Despite her doubts she was very intrigued by this technology and personally escorted us in the doors and around to the other side to explain to a handful of other white haired ladies that "these people have their tickets on their phones and they say you can scan them from there!" This generated quite a bit of excitement and momentary panic from the woman with the scanning device when she couldn't get it to turn on because she "really wanted to be the one to do this!" But, no worries, she got it to turn on and then it did indeed successfully scan the tickets right off Kris's phone and there was much rejoicing among her comrades. Haha.

We were seated next to what appeared to be at least three middle school classes on a field trip. My reaction when we run into school groups while out on an adventure is complex; on the one hand I am annoyed that they are invading my happy homeschooling world, but on the other I am impressed by the school that is doing something so cool as to hike through a national park or attend a Shakespeare play in the middle of a school day. They were loud. So, so loud. And Liam was seated right next to them, he has come a long way from the days when we had to put noise blocking headphones on him to keep him from crying when a family game of charades got to be too much, because he was able to just block them out and read his book until the lights went down. And, to their credit, they ceased to be noisy once the play started.

The play was fantastic. The words were pure Shakespeare, the costumes and mannerisms were American jazz age. The actress who played Helena gave me an appreciation for the character I have never actually had before and Puck was, of course, absolutely brilliant. I had assured my family before we went that seeing the play would make the words so much easier to understand and they did indeed laugh in all the right places and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I would love to return next summer for The Merchant of Venice. Or Othello. Or both.

Cedar Breaks and Parowan Gap

Cedar City, Utah

It is no longer summer. For reals. We have had to change our plans several times in the past two weeks because of weather. And on Tuesday, we should have changed our plans, but didn't. Or rather didn't until it was literally forced upon us.

We were going to Cedar Breaks National Monument. I had never heard of it before picking up a map at the local pool, it looked cool, we have a parks pass, we decided to go. So I Googled a couple hikes of the under 5 mile kind and Tuesday morning we packed our lunches, donned our usual shorts and sandals, loaded into the car, set the GPS and were on our way. Its only about 40 minutes from Cedar City, which is probably why I didn't think to check temperatures before we left. The visitor's center is also at about 10,000 feet. As we got closer, the car kept reminding us of the outside temperatures which rapidly dropped from over 60 to below 45 by the time we parked. Kris and I had windbreakers/ raincoats. Only because he always brings them. For both of us. Not because of any preparation on my part. But none of the kids had any sort of coat and all were wearing shorts and t-shirts. And it wasn't just 42 degrees out, it was also windy enough out to knock a small child over. And that wind was straight from the arctic I swear.

Still pretty, even in the cold.

We scrapped the hikes and instead stopped at each overlook and then back down the other side of the mountain, through the recent burn area of the Brian Head fire, and on the longest route possible to Parowan, Utah where we knew we could find the Parowan Gap and dinosaur tracks and Petroglyphs. Good save I say.

One of many petroglyph panels in Parowan Gap.

Zion National Park

Cedar City, Utah

This week we went to Zion National park. We had planned to do Zion Canyon on Tuesday, even though we were feeling discouraged because we were reading that even though it is September, the park is still busy enough to require the use of shuttles in the most popular areas. And that meant Zion Canyon.

Heading into Kolob Canyon

We had had high hopes that with kids being back in school we would see lots fewer visitors in the parks. Then we left later than planned that morning (always, I know). Then we realized that the park entrance was further from our home in Cedar City than we thought. Basically it all  added up to us feeling generally a little grouchy and negative about the whole endeavor. So we changed our plans en route to the park. Instead of heading to the main entrance we decided to spend our day in the Kolob Canyons section of Zion National Park, and that turned out to be the cure to all our grouchiness.

In Kolob we first stopped at the visitors center to show our pass and officially be allowed in to the park. The truth is, this is totally an honor system since it would be super easy to drive on past the parking lot and into the park. We weren't issued any kind of pass to hang in our window either. But we are honest people (who also have a parks pass and so didn't actually have to pay anything anyway) and also this was our last chance at flushing toilets after all. That's probably how they ensure honesty really, the lure of the flushing toilets.

View from the overlook

First we drove to the end of the canyon road and then walked about a mile to a park overlook. Then we drove back down the same road to a trail head back close to the entrance, the Taylor Creek Trail. The trail followed along the creek the whole way. Eventually Liam and Fionn mostly gave up walking on the trail and just walked down the middle of the creek, which was basically ankle deep the whole way.

First half got a little warm, but as we got further into the canyon there was more shade and more trees. Eventually we arrived at a huge canyon wall with two partial arches. The canyon walls were, I am guessing, the source of the creek, as they were leaking water from above. We ate lunch there, took our pictures and then turned around and hiked right back the way we had come. The whole hike was right about 5 miles and we were all very thirsty by the time we were done. Note: one small bottle of water each for a five mile hike just does not cut it, we've proven that twice now.

The lower arch of the double arch

Thursday was our day for Zion Canyon, and after our relaxing day in Kolob Canyon we were ready! Then we awoke Thursday to a persistent thunderstorm that showed no signs of letting up. And it didn't until about 3 that afternoon. So we did Zion on Friday! We had to park outside of the park and take a shuttle into the park, where we had to catch another shuttle to take us up the canyon to everything we wanted to see and do. It wasn't quite Yosemite, but it was sometimes uncomfortably crowded both on the shuttles and on the trails. The shuttles though were much more dependable than those in Yosemite. We never waited more than 5 minutes for one. Not even when we got on going the wrong way, had to get off at the next stop and wait for another to come along going our way. By the way, there are only two ways the shuttles can be going; up the canyon or down the canyon, there is only the one road. Sometimes we don't read signs well. 

Looking out from under weeping rock

First we stopped at the Three Patriarchs, which was just a quick walk up from our shuttle stop and back to catch the next one going by. Then we hiked the Emerald Pools Trail, which goes up and up and up past emerald pools 1 and 2 and 3, each formed by water falling over the canyon wall and each one harder to get to than the last with the hike to the last pool being really quite challenging for such a well traveled trail. Next we saw weeping rock, where water seeping through the rock falls like raindrops from a cliff overhang and you can actually stand in the alcove and watch it fall in front of you. And finally we walked the mile River Walk at the end of the canyon. The walk leads to The Narrows, where lots of people go ahead and continue their hike right up the river. As in they walk IN the river, there really is no trail anymore. But we did not have shoes for river walking and instead just played by the water and then caught  our bus back to the entrance and then another back to our car and headed home to our crockpot dinner. I love it when the rental houses have a crockpot and I have the foresight to actually use them.

And Then There Were Three

Cedar City, Utah

Last week we left two of our boys at college. One of those two has been living away from home for the past two years, but the other, besides the occasional camping trip,  has been sleeping under the same roof as I for the past 18.75 (or so) years and I feel his absence deeply. I also keep forgetting he isn't with us. When I get up in the morning I am still surprised that he isn't making pancakes and frying bacon in the kitchen. At church I look for him, expecting him to follow Kris and I to Sunday School. On hikes I have to remember he isn't there to happily trail behind the rest of us, keeping his little sister company and willingly listening to her constant chatter. Of course I have known this was coming for awhile, well, since he was born I guess. It is a lousy deal you make as a parent of a newborn, that you will raise this little person into a competent adult who will then leave you. But along the way you get incredibly attached.

Up until the day we actually hugged them both in their apartment and then drove away leaving them waving through the window behind us, I was feeling pretty confident about their ability to survive without us. They cook, they do laundry, at least one of them has better social skills than I do and they have both done college before. But shopping that day with them I totally started second guessing their preparedness. They weren't putting nearly enough vegetables in the cart. They each were carrying their apartment key just stuffed alone in their pocket because neither had a key chain! They had no dentist, no doctor, and no car. Amik doesn't even have a water bottle. Plainly they were not equipped to handle life on their own. What if they didn't get up in time for class? What if they hated their roommates? What if they drove one another crazy? What if they got sick? Still, I sucked it all up and we waved back as we left them there. And they have been just fine of course. They paid their bills, they bought their books, they are attending classes, eating, and Noah has even figured out how to use the 'Walmart bus' to get himself to the store for bread and milk.

Those of us left behind are adjusting too. It always leaves a hole in the family when one moves out and there is a period of reshuffling as everyone left behind figures out their new positions in relation to one another at home as well as how to continue relationships with the one and ones that are further away now. Someone left behind has almost certainly just lost their best buddy. Others have lost the older sibling they have looked to for guidance, for entertainment, for advice, for whatever. They each have a unique relationship with the sibling who left. In this case, Ronan has lost the only sibling who regularly played basketball with him and now he shoots baskets on his own whenever we go to the pool/gym. Fionnula lost the brother who is most willing to just listen to her. Liam lost his ally in the fight to have bacon on at least one pizza in the pizza order. And we are all missing the constant silliness of his ridiculous jokes and pranks, though Liam seems to be taking over somewhat in that regard: he sits behind me in the car and if I put my arm out the window he reaches out his window and grabs my arm from behind. Exactly as Noah always did.

Grand Teton National Park

Idaho Falls, Idaho

As we drove into Grand Teton National Park, Liam asked "So what's this park have?" So far, most of our national park visits have sort of had a theme: tall trees, fat trees, cliff dwellings, geysers. I told him that this one was mostly about the amazing mountain views. The problem with that is that there is currently so much smoke in the northwest that we really could barely even see those amazing mountains. It made for a fairly disappointing trip. Or at least it felt that way. But I am hanging on to a few great experiences we did have despite the smoke filled skies that blocked out those mountain backdrops that I know were there!

We entered the park through an unmanned backdoor just north of Jackson and drove basically a counter clockwise loop around the park with slight detours from that main loop. There were lots of pullouts to stop and see and photograph the views, but the views were mostly obscured by that smoke. We did eventually go through an actual entrance and have to show our pass, but that wasn't until halfway through the day. Still, we did get to see some pretty great things.

The first pretty great thing we saw that day was the Mormon Row Barns. I think I have already demonstrated that I am pretty taken with abandoned buildings, and these did not disappoint, even though the magnificent mountains that stand beyond them were mostly invisible. There are houses in addition to barns but the barns are definitely the main attraction. The birds everywhere were a bonus.

At the Schwabacher Landing beaver ponds we saw a mama and baby (okay, adolescent?) moose. Everyone watched them for a really long time. In fact we would have missed the baby if we hadn't stuck around as he emerged from the grass after we had been watching his mama for a good thirty minutes. Animal sightings in the parks are a real favorite, though we still haven't seen any bears.






Next was a short walk near Jackson Lake at Colter Bay.  Whenever we let the kids out of the car at a big body of water, well any sized body of water, they always, always start throwing rocks in.

The best view of the mountains all day was at Jenny Lake. It was beautiful, if still a little hazy.

And then we drove out through Teton Village. It really wasn't a bad day, I mean you really can't call a day in which you saw a baby moose a bad day.

Working Out in the Kitchen

Idaho Falls, Idaho

Ronan's birthday was last week. Our birthday traditions are fairly simple really. There is a present or two. We make a custom happy birthday poster. And the birthday person chooses the meals for the day. Presents weren't too hard. I am actually carrying with me the last bit of old printer paper (you know the kind that comes in a continuous sheet and has perforated edges punched with holes so it can spool through the 1980's era printer) that we have used for years for birthday posters, and while Fionnula's colored pencils are not the ideal medium for poster making, they worked. So all that was left to pull off on the actual day was the birthday meals. We cook most of our own meals as we travel, but cooking in strange kitchens with basically no food staples on hand has led to pretty simplified meal plans. Tacos and taco salads are a staple. We do a lot of spaghetti and sometimes break up the monotony with a pasta primavera of sorts or maybe an alfredo sauce. Ronan's requests for his birthday were a coffee cake for breakfast and a dinner of grilled chicken, mashed potatoes and corn with a german chocolate cake for dessert.

Conveniently this house does have a small grill for the chicken. It does not have any baking pans beyond one pizza pan and one cookie sheet (which was conveniently stored inside the oven ON the heating element and not discovered until after I had heated up the oven...). Baking has proven a challenge even in kitchens that do have pans. It requires such a variety of ingredients and tools that are frankly difficult to carry from house to house. We have experimented with refrigerated cookie dough but have decided we are not that desperate. Most recently we have given in to the boxed brownie mix and found it a vast improvement over the cookie dough when I just really need some fresh baked yumminess. But a german chocolate cake was going to be a challenge.

First we had to buy all the ingredients, even the flour and sugar because we have no 5 gallon storage buckets in the pantry like we once did. I bought foil baking pans, the recipe said to use 9 inch round pans but we ended up with some odd ball rectangular ones, something like 11x9, a size no one ever uses for anything but still they manufacture foil pans in this size. Then I had to produce a decent cake with no mixer of any kind. This kitchen doesn't even have a wooden spoon. Who doesn't have a wooden spoon in their kitchen? Someone who never cooks. Well I creamed that butter and sugar BY HAND with a rubber spatula! It wasn't quite kitchen-aid quality creamed butter, but it worked. More impressively though, I whipped my egg whites into at least semi-stiff peaks too. I had actually forgotten that this step would be necessary when I agreed to produce this particular dessert. If I am going to continue making cakes by hand I am going to have to train my left arm to do some of the beating and whipping too or I am going to develop bulging biceps only on the right arm.

Dinner was a success. A not quite 9x13 two layer cake served straight from the pan is not as pretty as the 3 layer round ones Erin used to produce for us, but it tastes basically the same. The chicken was perfect, even if the tiny grill may have been a challenge to cook such large quantities on.  The potatoes had to be peeled with a knife and then mashed and whipped with a fork and plastic spoon, but the leftover buttermilk from the cake made them extra yummy and corn on the cob wasn't much of a challenge at all, we may need to add it onto our list of foods easy to prepare in even the worst stocked kitchens. 

Yellowstone!

Idaho Falls, Idaho

Seven years ago, we visited Yellowstone park with all ten of our children, ages 4 through 19. Kris was on crutches after a pretty severe and scary knee break a few weeks previously, but our reservations at the KOA had been in place for months and we were getting dangerously close to the time when our kids would begin to move out on us, so he was determined to pull off this vacation as planned. So we did. Yesterday we returned to Yellowstone with only five 'children' and no crutches.

Near Yellowstone Lake

Yellowstone is huge. There was no way we were going to be able to see it all in a day and we were not sure if we would have another day to return, so we decided on the lower loop which would at least get us to the most geysers. Our house in Idaho Falls is actually about two hours from Yellowstone so we planned to leave as early as possible to get the most of our day and 'as early as possible' turned out to be right about 8 am. Because early is just not our thing. About two hours later we arrived at the west gate of Yellowstone park and got started.

Hayden Valley

Our basic plan was to drive around that lower loop and stop at as many sites as we possibly could. So we did. And we saw lots of geysers, and bubbling 'paint pots' of mud, and waterfalls and bison. Lots and lots and lots of bison. Practically as soon as we were in the park we spotted the telltale sign of a wildlife spotting-lots of cars pulled over at the side of the road completely ignoring all those signs that say NOT to stop on the side of the road even if you see something spectacular-it turned out to be an elk which actually isn't all that exciting to people from Colorado, so we drove on to the next traffic hold up and this time it was a bison which is way cooler than an elk and so we did stop. In the nearby parking lot like good rule abiding citizens. Later in the day we encountered huge herds of bison crossing the road and walking right next to the road and even in some cases walking right ON the road and that one lonely bison we saw earlier lying all nonchalantly in the grass by the creek seemed pretty tame.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

At the first geyser basin we stopped at, Fionnula asked why the ground and the water was so hot, so we revealed, a little nervously, the truth about the entire park basically being within the caldera of a volcano. She can get a little anxious over potential dangers and so I was worried what her reaction would be, it was still early in the day and I wanted to see lots of things still and not have a panicked 11 year old on our hands all day. She asked if it could possibly erupt. I didn't think that lying was the way to go here and so I said that technically, yes, it could erupt and then one of her brothers was all "Well if I have to die, being here for an eruption would be one of the top ways!" and interestingly, that was the end of the conversation, she was good. Sometimes I overthink things I guess.

Old Faithful

We arrived at Old Faithful right after it had erupted and so had approximately 90 minutes to wait for the next one. We ate our lunch. We played with a raven. We listened to all the accents and other languages all around us which has been one of the greatest parts about visiting the parks this summer. Some of us may have napped briefly. After several false starts it did finally come through and erupt for us, though it took more than the predicted "90 minutes give or take 10" that had been advertised.




Then we moved on, from geyser basins to the "Dragons Mouth" cave to the lake to the canyon and its waterfalls and back to more geyser basins and finally finished at the artist paint pots as the sun was setting and then headed out of the park and back home to Idaho Falls where we were too tired to even care that we had missed dinner all together.

Artist's Paint Pots