National Parks!

We entered and left Utah

We headed to Zion’s Oct 25. We got all the way to the entrance, and then we were denied. We are over 40 ft long. I really didn’t think we were, but the guy actually came out to measure us. Oh well I guess it is better to be turned away then to get stuck on roads that can’t handle something this big.

Zions National Park, Utah

So we then turned around and went through Colorado City AZ. I showed my family some of the polygamist homes that my sis had taken me by. We finally ended up at Bryce Canyon National Park that evening. We checked out the visitor center and went to our campsite. The kids decided not to do the Jr. Ranger program there as they had done it before and already had the badge. So we road our bikes and had a nice peaceful evening around the campfire. We saw so many stars it was amazing!

Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Steve Preparing the bikes for riding

Bryce Canyon area

Bryce Canyon

Bryce Canyon

Bryce Canyon

Smores Time!!!

The next morning we headed for Capital Reef National Park. I would recommend if you have never been to Bryce to plan at least a few days. We have been there a few times and really wanted to get to a few of the parks we’ve never visited before. We took HWY 12 which was beautiful. I think we will come back and spend a lot more time in that area. It was interesting to me that the few tiny towns that we drove through had cool “little” organic markets.

We really fell in love with Capital Reef! It has the big beautiful red rock mountains, but the campground has these huge old oak trees and a nice river that runs through it. There used to be a small Mormon settlement there and they still have the blacksmith shop and little school and bakery there. The bakery is even open and they sell fresh baked breads and pies and all kinds of goodies. There are orchards there that are a “u pick” kind of deal, but we missed that by a wk or 2. They have apple, pear, peach, cherry, and apricot orchards. In season you just pick what you want and pay a small fee. The deer were EVERYWHERE! We rode our bikes all over. There is a great trail from the visitor’s center to the campground and another one along the river. They also had horses there that we stopped to pet for a while and the kids all “named” them. The kids all did the Jr. Ranger thing here and enjoyed it. This is a park we will definitely be visiting again!

Capital Reef National Park

Entrance to Capital Reef

Capital Reef

Bryce hiking at Capital Reef

Original School house in Capital Reef

Black Smith shop

Bike ride through Capital Reef

Jr. Ranger program for Capital Reef

Coco and Shelter at Capital Reef

Deer every where at Capital Reef

Capital Reef

Our view from the campground

Homemade Cherry pie

We then headed to Mesa Verde CO. On the way we picked up some organic goat cheese and bread from a cool guy with a small organic roadside farm….yummy! Thanks again to our friends Anna & Matt that told us about him! We drove past Lake Powell on the east end. It was beautiful. We stayed that night at a Wal-Mart parking lot in Cortez Co because the campground in Mesa Verde was closed for the season and we are just too cheap to pay $45 a night for a parking spot. We spent all of Monday Oct 27 in Mesa Verde. It’s an interesting park as when you get to the fee station, you still have to drive another 20 miles to get to the museum (the visitor center was closed too). It’s a very windy steep drive up the mountains and it’s really not that pretty. But thankfully we found out it was well worth it! We saw a wild horse, that didn’t seem too wild. He stood right in front of the bus in the middle of the road. He wouldn’t move even when we yelled. I’m guessing he knows most tourist will feed him if he stands in the middle of the road. Steve finally got out and yelled and clapped his hands and the horse slowly moved out of the road….too funny! The museum was full of cool stuff from the Anizazi (basket makers). We saw a tarantula on a trail…yikes! We did get to tour a few of the settlements. The ancient architecture is amazing! They had pueblos (houses/ buildings) 3 and 4 stories high. These were built over 1000 yrs ago! They were made from mud, stone and wood. These were all cliff dwellings, built in these alcoves high up on the sides of the mountains, which made it interesting and very difficult to get to. One of the tours we went on, the Ranger said the kids could go as long as they could climb a ladder all on their own. We didn’t realize it was going to be hanging off a cliff! The kids all did a great job and thought it was so cool! They have the Jr. Ranger badges to prove it!

Old pioneer house leaving Capital Reef

Utah

We feel this was lake powell before it was filled

going towards Lake powell, Utah

Matt and Anna told us about this place - AWESOME FIND!

Where the bread is baked

East side of Lake Powell, Utah

East side of Lake Powell

The following pics are going to Mesa Verda

Entering Colorado

This is the entrance to Mesa Verda, Colorado

Bryce atop the fire look-out point at Mesa Verda

Overlooking Cortez, Colorado

Another view from the fire look-out point

This guy crossed our path

Watching the taranchula pass by

Cliff dwelling

The wild horse

Conner and Winston

Kids climbing up to the cliff dwellings

The kids at the cliff dwelling

These are hand and toe holes, where indians use to climb

Bryce climbing out of Dwelling

Steve climbing out of dwelling

The cliff dwelling is down below us

We drove on that night. We got as far as we could and stopped in Santa Fe NM. We stayed in an Albertson’s parking lot. The next morning we found a local pool and had a great swim & hot SHOWERS!!! It was so cheap….less the $6 for all of us to swim. We really liked the town. It has the cool adobe architecture and looked like a place we’d like to explore more. We then drove on ALL day.

We stopped off in Roswell, New Mexico (no UFO sightings!)

Conner’s Big 10!

We got to Guadalupe Mountain National Park and paid our $4 for camping. We made dinner and sat out and looked at the stars. You could see the Milky Way it was so amazing how many stars we could see, more then Lake Powell even! This morning we had a special chocolate chip breakfast for Conner’s b-day! My big boy is 10! He hit the double digits….yikes! We went to the visitor center so the kids could add another badge to their collection! We took a hike and saw some cool plants and found some neat fossils. We then ate lunch had b-day cake and hit the road! It’s an 8 hr drive (according to the ranger) to Austin.

Conner's party at Guadalupe Mnt. National Park in Texas

Conner's b-day breakfast

Lincoln gave Conner his gift (Pokemon!)

Conner and his new game shark.

Bryce and kids at visitor center

Kids being sworn in as Jr. Rangers at Guadalupe

Conner had a Grasshopper jump onto his crotch (how exciting)

Stick bug

St. George UT

We spent 2 wks in St. George at my sister’s house. We got there Oct 11, drove through a snow storm to get there! Steve did some work on their house and we played alot!

Snow in Southern Utah

House before new paint and landscaping

House after new paint and landscaping

The weather, other then the first 2-3 days, was beautiful! On one of the first cold days we took the kids to a corn maze & pumpkin patch. We had a fun time getting lost in the corn maze and the kids (and Steve)

enjoyed scaring each other.

Kids and their cousins

Jim, Steve and the kids at the corn maze

I took the boys and Toby on a hike up to see some cool old pioneer homes build into these caves.

Boys at pioneer house

Winston inside one of the houses

Conner, Lincoln, Toby and Winston

Boys at the pioneer houses over looking St. George, UT

Christi, Jim, Steve & I went to a Japanese restaurant and they cooked on a Hibachi grill in front of us. We had a big fat funny guy, very entertaining. I had not been to one of those kinds of restaurants since I was a kid and Steve had never been to one. We both tried “real” sushi for the first time too. I was grossed out by how it looked with the dead raw fish on top, but really amazed at how good it was! Not sure I'll do it agan though?

We went on another cool hike to….(I forgot the name..Sand Hallow maybe?), but it had cool mountains that looked like we were on another planet. It also had beautiful white sand that the kids had a blast playing in.

The boys climbing the mountain

Christi, Conner, Lincoln, Toby and Bryce

Bryce..nice view

We took the boys to the nice FREE skateboard park a few times. Conner is really pretty good and held his own with all the big boys.

Lincoln

Conner

Conner skating

Lincoln....nice moves!

Steve getting ready to fall (a few more feet)

Lincoln, Conner, Toby and Winston at skatepark

Isabelle had a great time playing with Arielle and her friends. They had a girl’s sleepover and made lots of beaded lizards and other creatures. We watched Ghost Hunters and ate way too much! Christi did take me on a 5 mile run to try to kill me, but I even amazed myself at how much easier it was then I thought it would be, seeing as I haven’t attempted to run in months! My parents dropped by for a few hrs and it was nice to see them again.

Bryce's parents, our family and Toby and Arielle

The Dieckman Family (Bryce's sisters fam)

Bryce and her dad

Christi works for the state of UT and the state of AZ as a social worker and helps mostly abused women. She has an office in St. George and one in Colorado City AZ, where she goes twice a wk. She works with polygamist there as that is pretty much the whole community. She took me there on her day off and showed me around a bit. They have a beautiful park that backs up to Zion’s National Park and they used to have a zoo. It was really interesting to see the WHOLE town dressed like pioneers! We went to the grocery store and I felt like a total outsider. We also ate at this little café run by the more “liberal” polygamist group. (meaning they don’t dress like pioneers, but the women still wear long skirts or dresses, but they are more up with current styles) The name of the café was Merry Wives Café!! Good food and great people watching! It was definitely a big cultural experience to say the least!

Bryce and Christi at polygamy cafe

We also got a nice visit in with Steve’s Aunt Shawna & Uncle Frank. They spent this past summer RVing in Alaska! So we spent a few hrs picking their brain about what we should do when we go next summer and we looked at all their pictures. They got us really excited! (I feel like such a goober because I brought my camera to their house, but yeah….forgot to actually take pictures.)

We had a great time in St. George. Thank you Christi and Jim for letting us stay with you.....

GOALS and blogging.

The days keep flying by and we keep saying we need to update our blog, well I’m setting a new goal, and I don’t really set goals. That’s WAY to much planning for me! But really I want to keep track of our adventures and so I’m going to write for 20-30 mins everyday and blog at least 2 times a wk! We have been moving at SUPER speed it seems and we really are ready to slow down and take more time to enjoy the things we are seeing. From now on I really don’t think we will set dates to be places as it stresses us out and we can’t enjoy where we are at the moment. We are so very blessed to be living this life! To be able to travel and go where we want, when we want. To see the country and teach our kids about the world around us, up close and personal. Yes, I feel very blessed!