Goblin Valley Trip - Days 1 & 2

About two and a half weeks ago we went on a trip with my family to Goblin Valley. We left Wednesday and went first to Castle Dale. We ate lunch there and visited the museum before driving up the canyon. We stopped to see an entrance to the Morrison Knudsen Tunnels before continuing on to see the Buckhorn Wash Pictographs that are 2,000 years old.

In front of entrance to the Morrison Knudsen Tunnels. Obviously we
couldn't get in...

Next we drove up to a nice overlook of the San Rafael Swell, from which we could see "No Name" Canyon, the San Rafael River, and the Little Grand Canyon.

The view made us so happy we decided to jump for joy!

After that we headed to our hotel in Green River for the night. Then Thursday we drove out to Goblin Valley. I have always wanted to visit this place, but for some reason I hadn't ever been. I have lived in Utah for years now, and this was my first time seeing these valleys full of such strange formations.

We started things out by hiking to Goblin's Lair/Chamber of the Basilisk.

We liked this tower rock we found along the way.
It reminded us of something from the
Lord of the Rings.

This 1.3 mile long trail was pretty easy. The only slightly challenging part came at the end when the trail took us up a steep path and then required a little rock scrambling to get down into the chamber. Not everyone in our group made it all the way down, but we all enjoyed this interesting chamber.

At entrance of chamber from the top of trail

We even found a small short cave just to the side of the rocks at the opening. We explored it with a flashlight, but found it soon got to narrow to continue without danger of getting stuck.

After hiking back, we ate lunch before exploring the goblins.

At one end of the valley there was a large white dome-shaped hill. I was fascinated to find a number of geodes stuck in it. Most were broken open and partially filled with dirt.

 
Before leaving the park, we stopped by the station/visitor's center for some souvenir shopping and for a bit more information on some trails we were interested in. There was a table with papers set up there for kids to draw "goblins" on. Austin decided to draw one while we waited. When the ranger went to hang Austin's up with the others, we could see that all the other pictures kids had drawn were of goblin creatures. Austin was the only one who had drawn a rock formation like the ones found in the park.

We decided to try one last trail, which took us awhile to find and turned out to be more difficult than anticipated. It wasn't a problem for some in the group, but it proved to be challenging for others following the day's previous activities.

The Wild Horse Window/Eyes of Sinbad were pretty cool to see though, and it was fun to point out the many tadpoles swimming about in the deep puddles along the way to Austin.

There were also some petroglyphs on the side of the cave area.

As far as I was concerned, the hike was worth it despite the fact it got us back to our hotel a little later than originally hoped for.

In the Water

Austin is the most cautious kid I have ever met. He has always been this way. I think it was his caution that caused him to postpone attempting to walk for so long. It was this same caution that has prevented him from enjoying going down slides much until this last summer, and even still he is very hesitant to go down larger ones. This caution isn't always bad. After all, we haven't ever had to worry about Austin getting broken bones, prematurely loosing teeth, or needing to go get stitches. However, sometimes we wish we could get him to be a bit more relaxed about trying new things that are perfectly safe and that we are sure he would enjoy. Nearly all things related to swimming have been among those things.

Right after returning from our Washington trip, Austin started a couple weeks of swimming lessons. Despite much effort on the part of his teachers, Austin refused to put his head in the water. This was both frustrating while also being comical. For example, his class often played a game called "fish in a barrel" in which everyone held hands and circled around a participant in the middle while singing a song. The player in the middle is supposed to go under the water to duck below the arms of the other players and thus escape the ring. Austin loved this game, but instead of going under the water to get out of the circle, he would lift up the arms of two of the players so he could walk underneath.

This continued for over a week until we spent about an hour one day after lessons practicing in the bath tub with a slew of motivating factors at stake.

So, finally by the end of swimming lessons Austin was willing to put his head under the water, though some encouragement still helped.

And inspired by the promise of a treat, Austin even jumped into the water on his own (instead of  sitting on the poolside and sliding in or holding someone's hand the whole time).

He never did manage to figure out how to come even close to floating on his back though, and even now he does exactly opposite of what is necessary to achieve this position: head held up and feet sticking out into the air.
 

Sigh. Someday...

We have done a couple fun swimming/water activities since Austin finished his round of lessons too. For example, we recently ended up with a nice inflatable boat that didn't cost us anything. So, we invited my family and went out boating at the Jordenelle Reservoir.

 Summer activities are so much fun!