Delicate Arch

I know this is late...again, but I want to keep this blog up because I don't journal or scrapbook! Turns out working full time and taking care of a 7 (!) month old is pretty busy! 

We had to take our first family road trip a couple weeks ago. Salt Lake to Dallas is a looong drive. So since we were going to be in the car at least 3 days, why not make it 5 and see the sights, right? 

We started off our trip with a drive to Moab. We hiked up to Delicate Arch with Owen on our backs. We were pretty worried about him in the heat, but we kept giving him water and pedialyte and spraying him with a squirt bottle and he was fine. Do any other parents spray their kids with squirt bottles? 
This arch is huge! The hike was a little difficult considering the heat and a 75th percentile baby on my back, not hard enough to turn anyone away though! Gavin's hat blew off at the top of the hike and a random couple hiked down to find it and bring it back to us. They earned the f-pod title for the day! If you do this hike, consider this a fair warning: it is VERY windy once you get to the arch!

What's a trip to Arches NP without a picture of Balanced Rock?!

Something I loved about Arches Park was that English speakers were a minority. It made me think about how blessed we are to have the backyard that we do. There were a lot of people from other countries and cultures. I love that people come from all over the world to visit our beautiful state, but with all do respect, some of them have no idea what they are in for! 

Gavin made the spot-on comment about a group of foreign tourists who "look like they just went to REI and bought a bunch of crap that they don't know how to use". I wish I could give you a visual without sounding racist. We then referred to these clueless tourists as "desert wanderers" because there was no better term to describe them. We laughed so hard over this!

It's a shame we didn't have time to explore the park and Moab even more, but Christmas came early and we did buy ourselves an annual national parks pass! So which of you 75 year olds wants to go back with us soon?