Nomad UT/LV Trip, Day 2: Zion National Park

I was a little nervous about this hiking day. We were in St. George, high of 97 degrees, and it was definitely intimidating. Not to mention, my first attempt at a big hike with 5 kids by myself. But we did this and it rocked!

Zion National Park

Oh, hey! By the way, did you know that the National Park Service gives free passes to 4th graders ages 9-11 (or homeschool equivalent!!) because they want kids to be out in parks exploring the country? Yeah, so that's pretty freaking awesome. One definitely reads at a 4th grade level.

Shad and I have been working on training the kids in hiking (capability and willingness) since we moved to Colorado because it's not like they were raised with it in Kansas. I still wasn't quite sure how this would go and with 5 kids on my own, crazy heat (which Irene said was cooled off but was still 10 degrees hotter than our home), and let's be honest, Four and her emotions are real beasts sometimes. So my strategy going into this was keep things easy, keep things simple, let's just do what we can. I got a map at the visitors' center and picked 3 hikes, totaling 3.5 miles, all near water. If we got too hot, we could cool off. Bathrooms and water stations around, great. We got this. Shuttle rides from hike to hike, excellent. Five won't stop talking about it. We can do this. Kids get tired and start to fuss, taffy. Lots and lots of taffy.

From the shuttle

On our way to Emerald Pools. People passing by laughed at Five's antics. This is just a day in the life for us!

{Five, One, Two, Three, Four}

Beautiful scenery. I was pleasantly surprised at how cool it was in the canyon. Lots of shade and breeze. Normally, wearing a backpack would have me sweating, but I didn't break a sweat the whole day and it did get up to 97.

Lower Emerald Pool. We couldn't go up to Upper Emerald Pool because the trail was out. Several trails were out due to rock slides, flash floods, etc.

Water seeping out of the rock.

{Five, Four, One, Two, Three}

Three made friends with a guy on the shuttle, Justin, who was there from Michigan with his dad. Probably late 20s. She was so happy chatting with him the whole time and excited beyond anything when we saw him on the trail. She told me he's her first boyfriend. You know, a friend that's a boy and they're BFFs.

When Four whines, we play Rock, Paper, Scissors to assign her a buddy. Just kidding, usually there's a volunteer.

{Four & Three on the way to Weeping Rock}

{Two, Three, One, Five, Three}

{One, Five, Four, Three, Two}

So the way this Weeping Rock and the one at Emerald Pools works is that rainfall and snowfall soak into the ground and then begin to seep out the cliffside, making the rock 'weep.'

The view from Weeping Rock

{Two, Five, Three, Four, One}

We stopped to play in the river.

{Three}

{Five}

{Three}

{Five & Four}

{One, Five, me, Four, Three, Two}

Then we took the shuttle to the Riverside Walk. This trail leads to narrows, which would've been cool to do, but I didn't quite feel like helping Four and Five through and back by myself. Otherwise we'd  have started with and only done this trail. At this point, my battery life was getting really low, so I didn't take many pictures.

It's always so difficult having people take a picture for me...but it's also nice to be in the pictures with my kids.

{Me, Five, One, Three, Four, Two}

Interesting marks on the rock.

{Two, Three, Four, One, Five}

Happy kids!

Beautiful area, but only a few scenic shots before my phone was out for the count.

My brother-in-law has since told me that the best parts of Zion are up on the rims looking over everything. I can absolutely believe that and intend to come back for it another day. And of course, this day ended with everyone sleeping on the drive back to our host Irene's house. Everyone except me.

Nomad UT/LV Trip, Day 1: Fort Cove

The kids and I left home in the morning on September 17, St. George bound. Two had so much fun observing all the yellow aspens with me.

I've driven I-70 west my whole life, but always branching off at Green River, UT to take highway 6 north to connect to I-15 and drive to American Fork or Salt Lake City. This time, I kept going west. And it was AMAZING! It was breathtaking and left me in awe and every time I thought I couldn't take any more and it couldn't possibly get more beautiful, it did.

We pulled off for a bathroom break at the junction with I-15 and saw signs for Fort Cove and drove past some old buildings, so after we got gas and went to the bathroom, I took the kids to get a tour. Turns out it's a historical site for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I've never heard of it. It's a fort that was built by Ira Hinckley (Gordon's grandfather) in 1867 to serve as a safe stop for travelers at this critical road junction. 

The Hinckley's cabin

To the fort!

Learning about the inner workings of the fort.

The courtyard

The telegraph office

In the kitchen

Apple juice maker

This room makes me exhausted and my head spin! So on the table there are bed sheets that when worn would get sewn into work pants (hanging on the rope).

When the work pants got too worn to wear any longer, they'd be cut into strips and balled up (in the window sill), then woven into rugs on the loom.

When even the rugs couldn't be of further use, they'd be burned and the ashes would be used to make soap. For hygiene and laundry, which brings us full circle to the sheets that would be washed in the basin on the washboard.

A bedroom

Cellar

Leather dominoes

There's a date woven in the bottom corner of this quilt. It says 1855.

Wood threshold and floor, stone walkway.

A bassinet that would double as a bench when not needed for a baby. Just flip it upside down!

Dresses usefulness got extended by cutting off the worn bottom inches and sewing on a new strip of fabric.

When you run out of red fabric, just fill in the rest with white.

Doll hair made with human hair.

Doll chairs

When women would shed hair, they'd collect the hair and keep it in the box on the mantle until they had enough for a doll. Or possibly to weave some wall art. I've seen that in other places before.

Sewing machine

Things got a bit long and I had to cut a bit of the end of the tour because it was past 7 and we still had 2 hours to drive to St. George. We stayed with Irene Nielson, who was a seminary teacher of mine and her husband had been my bishop. I had to get her phone number from her daughter Jenn, who I've kept in touch with for years. It's been fun texting people out of the blue and asking to stay with them and getting to reconnect. Travel is fun!

Week Home

Before we arrived home from our trip, Four asked if we were going to visit Grandma. She lives an hour away from us, so I scheduled a visit during the 8 days we were home. We went to the Denver Rocks, Gems & Minerals Show that my sister Lori was running. The kids and I walked around a tent in the parking lot waiting for my mom to arrive. We found lots of things we were looking for and more that we weren't looking for.

Three loved these heart rocks!

Five just wanted pictures.

As I was checking out with the booth owner, Mom called to ask where I was so we could find each other. I said I was in the southernmost tent. And that opened up a teaching opportunity when she didn't know how to navigate without turning on her van. Thus began an explanation of how the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and you can navigate according to what time of day it is. This was new to my mom, the booth owner, and Lori when Mom passed that knowledge on so she could find us. While I was still on the phone with Mom, the booth owner suddenly noticed Four and said, "She looks just like my friend! Hey, guys, doesn't she look just like Lori?" I asked if he meant Lori Schafer and that unleashed a load of excitement. Four is a carbon copy of Lori, but I've never had a true stranger call it out like that! 

After a while of looking around, Lori had to go back to the office and brought Four with her. We continued exploring and found aluminum anthill art. I never did get my cousin Rex to come out to Kansas to take care of the huge anthill in my yard for me...

I was without my van for a couple of days for an oil change, transmission and power steering fluid changes, shocks, and timing belt.

Having the van back meant a trip to Garden of the Gods.

We also caught up on sleep, a couple loads of laundry, some schoolwork, our forest, neighborhood friends and parks, and dinner with the Jimenezes. Oh, and Five practiced his mermaid singing.

 I spent the last night home folding laundry, packing it back in the backpacks (we decided not to bother unpacking for the 8 days at home), and loading the van while watching Gilmore Girls with Two. She was so excited to get to stay up late with me for that.