May 22, 2011

Our final hike at Arches

We wanted our last hike of the day to be something a bit harder and something that we hadn't done previously. SO we drove off the main path over to Tower Arch/Marching Men. By then it was getting really hot so we packed as much water as we could and brought the remainder of our food and we set off for this 3.5 mile hike. (By the way, if we hadn't been lugging two kids on this hike it would have been not too hard and we could have done it a lot faster than 3 and a half hours)
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This hike had such cool rock formations all along the way.
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This hike didn't have a clear trail, instead it had cairns all along the way.  Chico became quite skilled at finding each one.  We have some adorable video of him running from one cairn to the next and pointing out each one to us when we asked him where it was.  He'd get so excited as he found each one and would clap for himself.  It really made the hike go better having him actively looking for things on the trail.  When the cairns got old, he'd look for cactus, when the cactus was gone, he'd look for Lizards. :)
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Believe it or not, there is a baby in there. He fell asleep and slumped down.
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The man made cairns seemed to model God's beautiful creations in the background.
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Our son IS an artist, but no, he did not create this beauty. We found it on the way. :)
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This looked like a giant cairn to us.
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Evidence (in case there was any doubt) that we were indeed in the desert.
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This rock below reminds me of the round stone you always see in pictures of the tomb Christ was buried in.
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These next three are cool through that narrow opening of some fallen rocks:
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I think it's time to go shoe shopping for Brent.
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He wasn't feeling like smiling for Brent.  It really was a sweet picture, even if Chico was not hamming it up the best. :)
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It's called Tower Arch because there is a big tall tower formation behind it... which I don't think we got a picture of. :)
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Our little mountain climber.
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It was such a gorgeous day and gorgeous view!

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I love hiking with Brent. He takes me farther than I thought I could go, he takes me to places that I wouldn't have gotten to see. I love being married to someone who loves adventure like I do!
Speaking of adventure, back when we were debating about going to Moab or not with the whole car situation we asked Chico what he wanted to do and he said, "go on a aventure!" 
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We got back to our car, tired, hungry, and in need of some magic bandaid power for Chico's cut on his hand. When we approached our car Brent reached in his pockets for the keys and realized he didn't have them. Sure enough, they were in the ignition and all the doors were locked.  Lucky for us, I had unrolled my window a bit to pull Chico's underwear out from airdrying while we drove. Remember how I said his peeing his pants was significant? It turned out to be such a tender mercy!
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My arm barely was able to make it with Brent pushing down on the window and I got it unlocked!
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All the while, Chico was obliviously playing with his dumptruck, looking absolutely adorable in Brent's hat.
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We drove home and the boys slept most the way. We wanted to sleep too but we were able to avoid that and made it home safe and sound. :)

3 comments:

Emily Davis said...

I want to find someone who loves adventures just as much as you and Brent do. Maybe then we'd be able to join you on a few of your adventures :)

Emily said...

What a fun adventure! I love Moab and grew up going there a lot, more for jeeping but we would go into Arches and on little hikes during our jeep adventures. I think it's awesome you guys are doing so much with your kids and making great memories. We just bought two hiking backpacks knowing that we'll have two little ones that will have to be carried most of the time so that we too can do stuff like this.

As usual, beautiful pictures - I'm so glad you had so much fun!

Anonymous said...

That sound like a really fun hike