Another desert trip for us! Yes we love the desert! Do we want to live there? No. Just a fun place for us to hang out. Jeff always plans an exciting adventure for us.  Each time we go, we see something new!
This trip was over labor day weekend and its a hot time to be in the desert (MOAB, UT). We knew it would be hot so, we stayed at Onion Creek where we could play in the water! And we had the  place to ourselves!


happy camper

 kids are making their own petroglyphs with the mud

 

 Beautiful spider

these pictures are of our 4wheelin adventure in the middle of nowhere!  We got sucked into this big rut which caused us to get a flat tire! Thank goodness Jeff is always prepared! So our adventure continues to a very fun arch.

 

after some hiking around the arch we continue on to the cowboy caves! I thought these were pretty cool. At one cave there is apipe that leads from the back of the cave, where there is a natural seep, and the pipe brings the water out to a cattle trough in the front of the cave. THese caves made a great shelter. The largest cave is covered in carvings. People who visit the cave have carved their names and dates in. NO profanity just names and dates and I searched hard to find the oldest dates

 

 

 

 

just some of the caves

inside the largest cave and it has a very dark room  which you can see in this picture. WE had to get the flashlight before we explored to far !

and this little cave you can drive partway into

taking in the sunset back at our camp. I liked the shadows.

A very fun trip

I apologize for the formatting of this blog. im still trying to figure it out!



its the little things

 Jeff and I are guilty of thinking that a great adventure needs to be far from home but that is so not true!  There are so many spectacular places that are close to our home and great for the kids!
Here we are at the beaver ponds by spud lake trail head

having a great time hiking

 

After our hike we decided to continue down lime creek

enjoying the creek but the highlight of the trip was the puddles!

 What started with caution and ended in great fun!

while the kids are gone......

while the kids were with their grandparents, Jeff and I went for a hike in the mountains! It was incredibly beautiful, relaxing and refreshing!
We hiked to the Highland Mary Lakes and  to the continental divide trail so we did a loop.

 Flowers were spectacular and yes we did this hike in July! Just wanted to post these pictures for MichiPa and Grammy to see!

                                                                 At the lakes

 Llamas and hikers making there way down! Now that's the way to hike! I am sure they are packing wine and cheese!

above the lakes

 DO notice the dark clouds! Thought we might stay ahead of the storm but no! Lightening was crazy and scary! SO we hunkered down for about 15 minutes .

 

the weather cooperated for the rest of the hike

 

spring camping

 I just have to share this camping experience with you! In May we did some primitive camping outside Canyonlands Utah. Our timing was perfect for seeing wild flowers! Neither of us have seen so many flowers and colors in the desert, it was incredible! I have to say that I feel very lucky to have married a wonderful man who loves nature, adventures, camping, just being outdoors! And our kids love it too! Packing for all of us can be a real pain but once we are out there and everyone is having fun, its so worth the trouble.

our campsite



little grasshopper I liked

 So many cool places to explore from our campsite! Girls are getting a lesson on using the chimney technique to get down the rocks

 at the overlook to the Colorado river

 ahhhh.....the flowers

 a sea of purple, white and orange flowers

hanging out in Indian  Creek 

The water flows into three pools that the kids could play in before it drops off into one large pool. If you are brave, you can jump into that pool but the water is cold. I preferred to stay in the warm shallow pools:)

 this little guy was hanging out in the road so Jeff stopped the car, I jumped out to take a picture! I snapped this photo right as the snake decided to go up the tire into the engine area and than hid in the wheel/fender well?  We drove back to our campsite with it, lol.

This is Jeff trying to get it out with a stick and the girls are having fun watching the process from the  camper ! Smart girls! Smart snake! It wouldn't come out until all of us were in the camper!

And it here it comes! The girls thought this was hilarious. Lesson learned, don't stop for hitchhikers!

Fun "little" lizard  that scared me

stopped at newspaper rock. This place always impresses me!