Birthday Family Adventure

Birthday Family Adventure

We have figured out that most of our trips is for Ragnar's benefit and even then, it's basically a Ragnar photo shoot :)

The water heater started leaking the night before we left, Derek stayed up late trying to fix it, then woke up to work on it some more.  I had backup plans but Derek really wanted to go camping.  He fixed it and we were able to head out, a later than what we wanted but hey, we didn't want to come home to a flooded house.

First stop: Maple Canyon to hike to the arch.  But as you can see, there's a lot of snow. We didn't pack the snow shoes so we only made it a mile before turning around. 

 She made the face, I followed.

 We were comparing shoe sizes and although it's not as funny in this photo, we laugh for a good long time on how huge Derek's feet are compared to mine.

 Drove past Manti.

 Pit stop at the Salt Canyon Overlook.

 Since the campground at Goblin Valley was full (we already knew from the website), we just went off on a dirt road on some BLM land and pitched the tent.  The sky was cloudy off and on, but Derek was still able to get some amazing photos!

I was pretty excited about the Orion constellation. 

  Good Morning!

 Next we went up the road a bit to Little Wild Horse and Bell slot canyons.

My little family squished in for this photo.

 Then we went to Goblin Valley.

 We started the Visit Utah GeoTour this trip too!

 Like I said.. photo shoot.

 When we started leaving the Valley, the check engine light came on so we had to drive all the way out to Green River to get it checked out.  It turned out to be nothing big, but it cut into our activity time so we weren't able to see and hike the rest of the plan.

BUT!

We did get to see this giant watermelon.

 And find 2 other county geocaches so now we get the Emery County patch.