Vacation Day 6

Vacation Day 6 –

Today was another whirlwind kind of day with non-stop action and excitement. Since we got a late start to the day, Michelle and I enjoying the chance we have to sleep in, we just had cold cereal for breakfast. The boys thought it was the best treat ever and each boy had multiple servings of Marshmallow Maties. Then we all got dressed and started the preparations for a day of hiking fun.

The boys couldn’t handle the excitement so we sent them downstairs to play at the playground. Michelle and I worked on the various preparations, making lunches and snacks, getting the day packs filled with water and supplies, examining maps, etc. By the time the boys came back from the playground we were ready to head out.

We drove to Snow Canyon, just outside of St. George. We’ve never been to this canyon, it was close and claimed to have some child friendly (easier) trails. So we went there only to discover that the secrets of this beautiful canyon were out and everyone else was there to too. There was no parking at our first choice of trails so we headed to our back-up choice (the lava flow trail). After loading up each boy we headed off on the trail. Apparently, our boys don’t go quite as fast as adults and teenagers so we kept getting passed on the trail. 

At our half-way point we made a discovery of the lava tubes! These are open spaces that we could have gone spelunking if we had known about them ahead of time and brought some flashlights or other caving equipment. As it was, we looked into the pits and thought about the possibilities, then we headed off on the other fork. 

This trail was much less traveled and we only had one pair of ladies hike past us as we headed toward the whiterocks. We stopped on some petrified dunes to have lunch. The boys couldn’t sit still as they ate lunch and they were scrambling all over the place. Gidean did not have a good lunch. We had to hold him still in order to feed him, the wind was blowing and it was chilly. Except when his mouth was full of food he was crying, sometimes even with his mouth full of food he was crying too. We did manage to get him settled down and comfortable before we headed back to the trail.

We continued to hike toward the whiterocks but the trail looked like a lost river, wandering around and never heading anywhere. The boys had fun but with the trail not going to anything they started getting tired and bored. We finally decided that, as fun as the lost trail was, we needed to head back to the car. We took off cross country and headed toward the road, hopefully the closest point to the trail and easiest way back to our car. The path we chose only had two dry creek beds to cross and otherwise was simple and quick.

The rest of our exploration of Snow Canyon was done by driving in the car. Quinten had to be carried the last part of the hike and was out (sleeping) almost instantly. The other boys enjoyed looking out and seeing a few more sites. We drove all the way to the north end of the park to see the cinder cone and the whiterocks amphitheater. Then we headed all the way back to the south end of the park to play in the sand dunes. With Quinten and Gidean sleeping, I stayed in the car and took a quick cat nap while the rest of the family played in the red sand.

As we were leaving the canyon we noticed a sign that said, “Kayenta 2 ¾ miles” so I had to turn and find out what that was all about. We found a new community in the sand, just like the real place! While it looked interesting and new we were glad we were just passing through. We head back to our condo.

The boys were so excited to finally go swimming and with our recent visit to the red sand dunes we thought that was a great idea. I took the five boys down to the pool to go swimming. Even with the windy and cool temperatures the boys were excited and jumped right in. I helped Quinten into the new floaty ring we bought down in Vegas and all five boys started floating away. Being much more timid I went and sat in the hot tub. Once Quinten had been abandoned by his brothers I went and fished him out of the pool. He followed Aleky to the children’s spa but misjudged his step and I had to fish Quinten out of the spa! He didn’t like that spa anymore so we all headed over to the big, hot spa.

All the boys enjoyed their time in the hot spa and Quinten stopped shivering pretty quickly. David grew restless in the spa and went back to do cannonballs into the big pool. The other boys followed when I wouldn’t let them play in the spa. So they went back to the big pool and floated under the waterfall there until it was time to leave. I did have to fish a random girl out of the pool when her mother failed to notice her struggling. The boys didn’t want to go and wanted to know when we were coming back for more swimming.

Back at the condo we had fries and smoothies for dinner. All the boys had to bathe and wash off any residual sand and chlorine, along with any other accumulated dirt before they could eat. Since everyone had an appetite we had to make all five pounds of potatoes into French fries to satisfy their hunger. We enjoyed some cookies and cream ice cream and then sent them all to bed. The boys didn’t fight to hard and were quickly asleep.

Michelle and I finally had some peace and quiet. We enjoyed getting our own showers and spent some time talking but quickly found ourselves just wanting to sleep so we went to bed by 10:30 pm, the earliest night of our vacation.