I love Southern Utah! Sometimes it amazes me how many people that have lived in Utah their whole life haven't been to Southern Utah. My parents took me there almost every year when I was young, and now I am taking my kids there. While vacations, but especially camping, are an insane amount of work it is so important to me that my boys spend lots and lots and lots of time outside.
I love getting to Southern Utah when it's dark. Sure it's a pain to put up a tent in the dark, but I love waking up in the morning to the gorgeous red rock of Southern Utah. For me it's an excitement I equate to waking up on Christmas morning when I was a kid. It takes my breath away.
A couple of weekends ago we went down to Moab. My sister was running in the Moab Half Marathon with some of her friends and she had reserved the group campsite in Archers National Park. The campground in Arches is awesome and is surrounded by red rock that is perfect for kids to go exploring on. My kids had so much fun
We knew there was a chance that Chad might run the 5 mile race, but it turned out there was opening for him to do the half marathon. What?! Chad do a half marathon?! He runs 3.5 miles three times a week, but he hates running and his isn't particularly built for it. However my sister and I were able to convince him to try to run the half marathon. I told him that the worst thing that could happen would be that he would be picked up by the 'slow' bus.
Chad amazed himself, me, and a bunch of other people when he finished the race in a decent time. He wasn't picked up by the slow bus and he finished only ten minutes after my sister. He didn't pass out at the finish line and although he was sore a couple of days after the race he was pleasantly surprised that he wasn't as sore as he was expecting.
I love food trucks and saw this one in Moab and decided to try it. It was sooooooo good! After we got home I found out it was it's first day open.
The weather was less than ideal for the camping trip. My sister had reserved the campsite for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. Everybody but my sister and her family and Chad and I and our little family bailed on Saturday. We have been camping enough times to know that often the weather isn't ideal. We stayed Saturday night even after the campground host told us they were expecting 60 mph winds. And yes it was very, very windy. On Sunday when we woke up it was still windy and very cold and snow was in the forecast, we packed up and left. We quickly packed up, while being sandblasted, and headed out just in time for it to start raining and snowing.
We were bummed, but we weren't prepared for camping in snow.
