MOAB.... Blake and Becca

On August 8th we went to Moab with Blake and Becca. We hiked Devils Garden in Arches National Park and went to the swimming hole up Mill Creek.

Boys will be boys!
And they will catch lizards!

Sweet resting spot Blake found on the trail

Blake in a crack...

Blake in another crack :)

This was some indian writing on the Mill Creek hike

The water hole. WAY COLD!

This was a fun cliff jump, but you only have 6 or 7 feet of water to land in just below the fall. Everywhere else is about 2 feet deep.

You could tell it's cold by how we walked in it

And they will catch crawdads!!!

Can you tell Liesel wants to be a photographer?

LITTLE WILD HORSE CANYON

Finally we ventured off somewhere besides Moab. For my birthday we went to Little Wild Horse Canyon on the San Rafeal Reef (Near Gobblin Valley). We had two of Liesel's little sisters with us, Kallie 16, and Abby 14. They were staying with us for 2 weeks. Pretty much all we did was swim at the Helper pool and go hiking. Liesel even took them to Moab while I worked.

Here is the sign marking the trail. Here it splits to Bell Canyon and Little Wild Horse. It does a loop, so you go up one and come down the other. We just went up Little Wild Horse to the top and came back down. Alot less sun that way.
It's AMAZING how the water has carved this canyon through the millions of years. I took so many pictures, it was hard to thin them out for the blog.

As the canyon gets skinnier, it gets really curvey from the water flow.

CUTE GIRL!!!

"You go first", "No YOU!"

This reminds me of Easter hikes with Mandy :)

I really don't have much to say, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.

So many different formations. Look at these girls growing out of this rock!

Ran into some water, but we were glad to find it.

At least I was :)

Abby tried to climb around it for a while, but it was inevitable....

LIZARD!!!

NEAT

I LOVE UTAH!!!!

This is the SKULL

Strong Kallie.....

This was a trail marker we found.

We found this bug thing in a pool of water on another little hike. I thought it was a tad-pole, but soon found out that I didn't want that thing in my hands.

But we did dare catch this frog :) It was an awesome birthday, and the weather ended up being perfect. When we started the hike it was 102, but once we got back out of the slot canyon it was a mild 89. We're definitely going back to do the whole loop once it's cooled off a little.

MOAB MOAB MOAB.... Is that all we do???

On June 6th, 2009 we ventured off to Moab again. Only a week after our trip there for out anniversary. We sure do Love that place. This time we went with our good friends, Jake and Tiff Petty.

We did what is called the "Devils Garden" in Arches National Park.

There are alot of arches to see, I didn't even put them all on here. This is the first arch you come across, Pine Tree Arch.

This one is near Pine Tree arch, but I don't even remember what it is called.


Here we have the famous Landscape arch. It is the length of a football field, and as little as 11 feet thick in the middle.

This one is called Duble O Arch. You can see why. If you look closely you can see there is two arches stacked on one another.

The "fins" are definitely a sight. Kind of helps show how arches are formed.

Here's another arch. If I would have blogged right after the trip I would remember all these names. Ha ha

More fins.

This was a tree growing above the ground. Good spot for a picture and to get out of the sun for a minute.

Isn't she just BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!

Great time as always. Definitely plan on doing that hike again. To do the complete loop with all the side trails it turns out to be about 7 miles.

Moab AGAIN! Our Anniversary :)

May 30 is the best day EVER!! Saturday was our 1 year anniversary. Thursday night we drove home from Wyoming (brothers graduation) and packed up for our weekend trip. Friday afternoon we headed for Beautiful Moab.

We pulled into the outskirts of Moab and headed up Highway 313 to our campsite. We set up camp and headed up to Dead Horse Point to watch the sunset.

It was looking a little stormy, but never got bad. We didn't get our sunset, but the views were still AMAZING

Once it got dark we headed back to our camp. We had a fire and had our favorite meal, HOT DOGS over a fire :)

We used our lantern and coleman stove for the first time. Worked like a charm. We even had our second favorite meal for breakfast, pancakes. mmmmm....

Saturday morning we headed off for Canyonlands National Park, Island in the sky district. It really was like being on a huge island in the sky. Man was it amazing. The first little hike we did led us to this arche, called Mesa Arche. There is a straight cliff right in front of the arche, and the arche actually overhangs the cliff. An older gentleman there thought I was crazy for going on it.

The backdrop through the arche was definitely a sight.

This hike we did is called Whale Rock. There really wasn't anything to see, but the cool views.

This freak of nature is called Upheaval Dome. The cause of this us unknown, but scientists believe there are two possible reasons for this formation. One is called "Salt Dome"which this the underlying salt from an ancient sea forcing it's way to the surface. The other idea is the landing sight for a meteor. I like the meteor idea better

These pictures don't do the views justice. You definitely have to see it with your own eyes. This looking Southwest off the big island onto the path of the mighty Green River.

And this view is looking Southeast off the big island over the path and ruins left by the Colorado River. The Green and the Colorado meet just south of here. After Canyonlands we went into town for lunch, then went to Hole N" the Rock just south of town. We must have not got any pictures, but it was interesting. It's an old house/business that was dug and blasted out of the slickrock. Anyone that has seen the Hole in the rock in Hanksville (on the way to Powell) knows what it's like. It is a 5000 square foot home that is now used for tours and tales of the history behind the house. They have a mini zoo and gift shops.

We then took on our last hike of the day. This hike is up potash road. It is called Corona Arche. It was about a 3 mile hike, and along the way we saw this cave.

Along the hike there were cables to follow and even this little latter to climb a ledge.

This is Bow Tie arche. It was right before Corona.

And here is the Beautiful Liesel. Oh ya, and Corona arche somehow got in the picture :)

Corona arche is sometimes called Little Rainbow Brigde, because it is alot like Rainbow Bridge at Lake Powell

There are some BIG lizzards down there. This one was about a foot long, and he wasn't the biggest one we saw.

I would most definitely say this was our BEST anniversary :) Lookin forward to infinity more....