UEA Weekend 2011

We headed down south to Capitol Reef National Park for one last weekend of sunshine, warm temperatures and hiking. This was our first time visiting Capitol Reef and we quite enjoyed it. Moab will always be our favorite Southern Utah destination, but we'd like to go back to Capitol Reef sometime. Justin's parents joined us from Seattle, for the first part of the weekend. They were just as happy as us to have lots of sunshine! We left Thursday morning and were able to check out the visitor's center and fit in one hike before it got dark.

Blythe is taller than her Gram.

The kids had a blast climbing on all the sandstone.

Barrett found a cozy ledge to rest on.

The next day we did some apple picking in the town of Fruita. It is located inside of Capitol Reef National Park and is now a ghost town. Only a handful of families ever lived there and they were so cut off from the rest of the world that they didn't get electricity until the late 1960's!

Justin picking some golden delicious apples.

Brynne trying her hand at apple picking.

Success!

The orchard was full of very tame deer who
were also enjoying the apples.

The kids at the orchard.

Another shot with the cliffs in the background.

After the apple picking we split up. Justin's parents
and Blythe took a more strenuous hike that had some exposure
and drop offs.I decided that it would be best if Barrett didn't go
on that hike, since he had already been scaring me by running
around the edgesof cliffs. Justin, Brynne, Barrett and
I took a very pleasant hike with zero elevation gain.

Barrett running around in a safe place.

Brynne found the perfect niche.

Barrett in action.

A strange polka dotted outcropping of rock.

Barrett high up on a ledge, if you look
closely you can see Brynne's hand as she
climbs up to join him.

Peek a boo!

Fall in Capitol Reef.

We then drove over to Goblin Valley State Park. Justin has
grown up hearing stories about his Dad playing hide
and go seek among the hoo-doos so we thought we'd try it.

Climbing up a ridge.

View of the hoo-doos from the ridge.

More hoo-doos.

Justin had his GPS with him so we did a geo-cache
first off. It took us way over to the far side of the valley.

Brynne pulling the geo-cache from it's hiding place.

Justin on top of a hoo-doo.

We waited until the sun started to set before beginning
hide and go seek. We wanted the shadows to be longer.
The kids had a great time and all of the adults eventually
joined in too. We had to drag them out of the park,
but we had a long drive to Moab ahead of us.

On the way to Moab we stopped in Green River for
dinner at Ray's Tavern. Just outside of Green River a bird flew
right into our windshield. Justin thought it was a seagulll,
but I was pretty sure I'd seen the face of an owl smack into
the windshield in front of my face. As we recovered from the
surprise, Justin said "I hope it didn't hit my parents car."
I replied, "We have a bike rack on top of the car I
think it's still up there."

So we stopped at a well lit gas station as soon as we
got to Green River and sure enough I was right on both counts.
It was an owl and it was lodged in our bike rack! Justin's dad,
Chuck was the one brave enough to remove the owl.
Luckily there was no blood and it looked like the owl had broken
it's neck, so hopefully it was quick and painless.

The unfortunate owl.
I tried identifying it after we got home and I think it
might have been a Mexican Spotted Owl, which is
Federally listed as threatened. They live primarily
on the Colorado Plateau, which is where we were.

We spent Saturday through Monday in Moab where we met up with my parents and all four dogs. Unfortunately, I didn't take any more photos the rest of the weekend. But we had fun hiking to Corona Arch and in Arches National Park, biking to the "music park", and stargazing on the Slickrock Trail. The kids even did a little swimming, but it wasn't warm enough for the rest of us. Blythe was happy to have two driving lessons from my Dad. It snowed the day after we came home, so we were very glad we'd gotten in lots of sunshine and outdoor activity.