Arches National Park

There are 2 posts from our trip to Moab last Saturday They are long...have fun scrolling! It's totally worth it though.

Arches National Park was out second stop! After Canyonlands, we met up with the Maddux's who joined us. We were able to see some amazing natural wonders at almost every turn and found that Eryn is more of a trooper than we'd ever thought her to be.

Eryn's busy trying to lead the way!

She sure didn't want to be held!

Justin modeling the baby carrier with Ali inside!

Brooke was really good. Pretty quiet and was really glad she could be held all day!

Eryn wanted her picture taken by this tree. How could I say no?

The Three Gossips

Balanced Rock

Hey, there's another picture of me!

Eryn got drinks of water from everyone!

Colton and his Nanna Cathy had a nice discussion about rocks.

The kids were busy leading the way! They'd run up in front of everyone and then run back. It wore Colton out really fast!

Eryn kept kicking the sand.

They were way off the trail looking for lizards!

Justin had the baby carrier, so Mike wanted one too! It's much less threatening to your manliness when you have someone else doing it too.

Yes, looking for lizards again...

You can't see Brooke's head, but those arms and legs are attached to the rest of her! Mike pulled double duty for a little while with both of the girls.

While walking on the trail Eryn yells, "BUNNY!" I said,"Oh I don't think..." and then Mike saw him! I got this picture! Jack rabbit!

Eagle Eye Eryn spots yet another creature on our trip! Then, she chased him for awhile and it was hard to get her back on the trail and going in the right direction.

The money shot! The Delicate Arch at sunset. It's really hard to NOT get a beautiful picture of this. It is difficult to get a picture without people in it though!

Eryn was just relaxing for a little bit at the top.

A lady was nice enough to take our picture at the top

The next day Mike was reading one of the information guides that they gave us when we entered the park and he made and realized that the hike to the Delicate Arch was not the 2 mile round trip that he thought it was. It was really 3 miles round trip and it was listed as one of the more strenuous hikes in Arches with sheer cliffs and exposed slick rock. Even more rewarding to know that we went farther than we thought, through worse terrain than we'd expected, and with a 2 yr old and a baby!

Eryn walked most of the way and was really good on the way back down the hike. Everytime mike tried to help her she would always say "No, please! I do it!" But, she was good when she needed to be. There were a couple places where carrying her was NOT an option. You know, 2-3 ft wide ledge with a 200 ft drop...places like that.

Since we got up there at sunset, it started getting dark on the way down, so we went much faster! There was some standing water at the trailhead which attracted bats after sunset. They were swarming around and one of them landed on Brooke head! I had the pleasure of being the one who was carrying her in the harness at the time. Yes, I saw the mouse with wings very very well! I screamed and a bunch of people looked at me. I said very loudly (mostly so people knew I was ok) that a bat had landed on my baby! Again, I am glad that she was wearing a hat!