Fun is where you find it

This year we decided to be adventurous and go to Arches for a little trip on Memorial Day.  We prepared, packed, stuffed the truck full and headed out early Friday afternoon.

 

Caleb was the poor soul that was stuck in the back with stuff all around.  We were packed tight and it felt like it.  There was a bit too much driving for some of us and not enough elbow space, but that is what a camping road trip will do to you.

Our first night we camped at Millsite.  We were next to the lake and the boys had fun exploring, and throwing rocks and finding lizards.  The above campsite was our second.  It was a windy place, had a fun mountain to climb,  ant hills to destroy, and was close by Arches.

 

Our first day at Arches was overall great.  The boys saw some new and awesome things.  The above picture was of Peter and the only hike he was willing and happy to go on.

This is from North/South window.   Caleb, Mr. Hiker man himself, was complaining of being tired and done.  Amazing.  William was the only one with energy of the kids.

 

William wanted to be the first one to the windows and he succeeded.  He was a great hiker and it was a beautiful place to look around.  But as previously menitoned, we had some tired kids and they all wanted to go back to the campsite.  So, we decided to go back, eat an early dinner and let the kids rest up before going back for more "adventures."  Before this trip I read a quote from Jerry Seinfeld, "There is no such thing as fun for the whole family."  On the way back to Arches we determined as a  family that we would try and prove that wrong, we wanted to prove that we could all have fun together at the same time doing the same thing.  It was a deal between the six of us.  Up until this point Jerry Seinfeld was right.  We were having fun, but there was always someone grumping at one point.

We probably shot ourselves in the foot by hiking to Delicate Arch.  Rob knew how long the hike was but he and I had faith in our kids as hikers.  But it soon appeared that 3 of our kids were not into the hike.  And when we saw the slick rock mountain with all those tiny, bity ants climbing up it Rob and I looked at each other and checked.  Did we want to keep going?  Could our kids do it?  Did we want to risk it?  And we went forward.  I know, not the best of moves.  The above picture is just proof that Caleb and Peter enjoyed the hike at one point.  They are those two tiny yellow shirts running up the mountain.  Haley is the only one that enjoyed the entire hike.  Probably because every now and then she was carried but she also walked up 3/4 of this slick rock.  William is dutifully trudging up the mountain, wishing in his head that he did not have such terrible parents and that we had just stayed in the truck.  He was soooo tired but he did the whole hike with minimal complaining.

 

And this picture is here to remind us all that Delicate Arch was almost the demise of hiking for our family.  This could have been the hike to end all hikes.  As you can tell from the previous picture Caleb and Peter got very far away from us.  For some reason, Rob and I thought that once we made it to the top of the slick rock Delicate Arch would be right there.  WRONG.   We got there, and there was more hiking, more climbing and William was just done.  But there was no turning back.  1/3 of our family was missing and we needed to find them.  So, Rob started going forward alone to be faster and find the boys.  William, Haley and I kept going too, just to see the arch, but we were at our own pace.  We were also on the completely wrong trail.  There was no trail at all.  We were totally in the wrong place.  We were able to see the arch, to see Caleb and Peter running around a the bowl of the arch, below it, and we also saw that Rob had found them.  Phew!  Peter came back to William and I, but Caleb did not want to come.  He wanted to get to the arch.  Rob went after him, and Peter, William, Haley and I were going to go to the truck.  But when we were on our own I realized that I was not on a real trail and I did not know how to get back to the slick rock on my own.  Hum?  We said a prayer, and started on our way.  Thankfully we found some other people on the right trail, made our way down to them and started the long trip down the mountain.  They were all so tired!  But I took the opportunity to teach them something, that they can do hard things.  They were so tired, did not want to do it, but they did it, they ran up a mountain, made it to the arch and they were going to make it to the truck.  They had proven they could do hard things and they could remember that for the rest of their lives.  I also think our family learned something else.  Jerry Seinfeld may be right.  "There is no such thing as fun for the whole family."  OH, and why is Caleb so grumpy looking in the picture?  Rob and he had some words on the hike, end of story.

So, the next day we determined that it would be low key.  These boys were done with the long hikes and tiring trips and the parents decided what we did.  Instead, while Rob packed up camp the boys and I (plus Haley) went to check out some dinosaur tracks that were close by.  We also told the boys that they did not have to go on any hikes, we would keep it simple.  There was one thing the boys did want to do, climb this sand mountain we had seen across from Arches.  It looked like so much fun, to climb the mountain and then run down super fast.

  The climb up the sand was hard, I will admit it.  It was such hot sand and it hurt.  But the sand made it difficult to climb easily so we had to take a break every now and then.  Ok, I may have taken several breaks during say my climb up, but I did make the climb twice so that should say something.  This picture is of Peter and I running down the mountain.  Peter was awesome and also climbed up the mountain twice.  On his first climb I was asking him if he was going all the way to the top.  He turned around and told me, "remember Mom, I can do hard things."  So, I guess the hike the Delicate Arch was worth something. :)

We also walked to Sand Dune Arch and had fun there.  Plus we went to see the petroglyphs and any other arch that was close enough to the road without getting out of the truck.  All in all a great family trip.  No one was majorly wounded, we each made some fun memories, and learned a couple of things along the way.  Fun is where you find it and I think we each found some on this trip.