The Homestead

My parents often take my grandparents up to The Homestead Resort as their birthday gift each year, and we are often invited to join them at some point. We went up Thursday morning. After lunch, we went bowling and swimming.

We had pizza for dinner and birthday cake for dessert. Then we looked at a couple planets through my dad's telescope, which went along with the astronomy lessons Austin had done that week perfectly. After that we watched a movie and went to bed.

Saturday morning after breakfast we played some games - such as tennis, shuttle board, and horseshoes - before heading home.

 

 

We really enjoyed our time there relaxing in such a beautiful setting with our family.

Labor Day: Cecret Lake

On Labor Day we planned a hike with a couple of Nate's siblings. Given who was in our group, we couldn't do anything long or difficult, so we decided to hike Cecret Lake. The entire hike was only two miles long.

View of Devil's Castle from the trail

This is a popular trail, and it was packed for Labor Day. The shorelines were actually full of people, including many other families with kids of all ages. The longer we stayed, the more people appeared.

We walked the loop going around the lake, stopping frequently so that Austin could throw more rocks in the water.

 

Austin had a lot of fun walking and playing with his cousins too.

After our hike, we said good-bye to the rest of the family and then drove to a park for a picnic lunch. This also gave Austin some time for one of his favorite activities: playing on the playground.

Post-Goblin Valley

Our fun and exciting summer activities didn't end with our trip to Goblin Valley. In fact, as soon as we got back we met up with Nate's parents who had just gotten off their mission in North Carolina. It has been awhile since we last saw them in person, so we really enjoyed our time together. We got to spend a little time with them Saturday and Sunday, and then we went to an extended family dinner at Nate's uncle and aunt's house Sunday evening.

That Monday we really enjoyed getting together, swimming, and having dinner with some close friends.

The very next day we were off again, this time to Wolf Creek where my grandma has a time-share condo she likes having everyone come up to every year. We went swimming there, relaxed, ate, and played racquetball.

It was nice to spend just a bit more time with by brother Ben before he left again for school.

Goblin Valley Trip - Days 3 & 4

Friday morning we split into two groups. One group went to hike Little Wild Horse Canyon, while four of us headed out just slightly further to try the more difficult Ding and Dang Canyons. Nate and I went to Ding and Dang Canyon while Austin stayed with others to do Little Wild Horse Canyon.

Here we are at the start of Ding Canyon right before it narrows

Basically, the trail took us up a wash to a split. We stayed right to go up Ding Canyon first. It had rained in the area a couple days before, so we went expecting water. There was some in Ding Canyon, but nothing too major. Ding Canyon was particularly beautiful, and there was nothing too difficult to get through.

We did have to wade through some pools of water, but they weren't more than about knee deep.

As we neared the end of Ding Canyon and as its walls opened up, the rocks around us were covered with interesting patterns of holes formed with the wind.

Soon after that we caught sight of the uniquely shaped Ding Dang Dome.

Ding Dang Dome

We continued along a trail at the back of the canyons before heading down aptly named Dang Canyon.

This canyon is where we hit all the technical spots. The first major obstacles we can to were some tall dryfalls. A hand line had been left at one of these to assist hikers descending, and we got down without too much trouble.

However, as the canyon narrowed we came across many chokestones that we found more challenging to navigate. There were drops of about 10 feet that we slowly worked our way down. More experienced canyoneers would have found this canyon easy, but for us these were a bit challenging. We were grateful we brought some ropes with us. We kept thinking we had gone down all of these drops only to come to another one.

Near the bottom of many of these drops were deep pools of water. The deepest went up to our chests. Nate was very gentlemanly and let me ride on his shoulders across the deeper pools. If we had been good at bridging, we might have been able to avoid the chest deep parts. We weren't though, so we had to go through the rank muddy water.

The canyon continued to narrow as we went.

 

But eventually it did open up. Our roughly 6.3 mile hike ended up taking us a lot longer than we had expected...about 6 hours. Obviously we are not very good or fast at negotiating basic canyoneering obstacles, but we had fun in any case.

Saturday morning we didn't have a lot of time to do much before we had to drive home. Austin and Nate went swimming at the hotel while everyone else took a bumpy drive out to Fossil Point. This area is covered with dinosaur bones that visitors can hunt out (but not keep). We had fun perusing the rocks and seeing how many such fossils we could find.

After figuring out what we were looking for looked like, we started to see signs of these prehistoric creatures everywhere around us.

After spending awhile there, we turned back to the hotel, gathered our things, and headed back home.