The Young and the Restless

Adventure Buddies

So we picked Jayden up from camp then drove down to Troy and Sam's house where they invited Jayden to stay for a few weeks. So it was just me and the little guys again for an epic road trip home. I seriously loved this trip so much. Usually the goal is to just get home as fast as we can, but we fully embraced the whole "slow travel" concept with this road trip home. I really loved the freedom of just going where we wanted and staying for as long as we wanted. The boys were such good sports and I can't believe how much we fit into one day! As we headed south we passed the childhood home of Butch Cassidy. My great grandpa grew up near here in Tropic and I remember hearing famed stories of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when I was younger. He claimed to have died in Bolivia in 1908, but many claim to have seen him in the US after that, including his own sister. My great grandpa even saw him in town after his supposed death. They always knew where his home was, but recently they have put in a parking lot and a few signs so that wandering tourists can stop by and see for themselves where one of the West's most notorious outlaws lived. Of course I had to stop with my boys, but they weren't too impressed.

They have a cool program where 4th graders get a free National Parks pass, which Maddox claimed was better than Christmas and I might have to agree. It's a great excuse to get out and enjoy the beautiful National Parks around us. We were able to take advantage of it at Arche's National Park, and I have been looking for an excuse to visit Bryce Canyon National Park. I remember the first time I saw it as a kid, I thought it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. I still think it is at the top of my list. The orange and red rock with the cool formations is other worldly. The boys were adamant that they were not going to do any hikes, but once we got to the top of the Navajo loop, they just couldn't help themselves. It's a gorgeous and enticing series of switchbacks just begging to be explored, however the coming back up part wasn't quite as fun. They did a great job and were such fun adventure buddies, always up to explore someplace new. We made another quick stop at Inspiration Point where I remembered to take a picture with the boys since I need to get in the picture more. Sadly that photo was lost on my phone too. I would love to come back and do more hikes and really explore down in the canyon, but this was the perfect taste to satisfy my craving.

Ryder was so cute and wanted to be like the youtuber's that hold up their hand to make it appear that they're holding something in the distance. So maybe it doesn't quite look like he's holding up the entire canyon, but it was so cute that he posed this shot.

We drove through Orderville where I spent three years of my childhood building huts on that mountain in our back yard. I swear those years were the best memories, I think every kid deserves to have a mountain in their back yard. Sure there were probably rattle snakes and mountain lions, and why yes I did step on a rusty nail and needed a tetanus shot. But spending all day outside pretending we were pioneers, or scaling rocks to prove we were dare devils, or finding caves to explore, or collecting arrowheads those are the things that shaped my childhood and made my imagination run wild. Such a gift. We would also ride our bikes down the road to take lunch to my dad at the seminary, and walk to school by ourselves and hold our breath while we crossed the road so that we wouldn't die of the crossing guard's second hand smoke. We visited the baby lambs and ate butterscotch candies from Roland and Vivvan across the street. When the grasshoppers were destroying the garden we created a grasshopper killing assembly line complete with a burial ground. We checked out books from the bookmobile that came once a month. In the winter we snuggled under electric blankets in the basement listening to The Chipmunks Christmas on repeat. I remember the magic of waking up to a winter wonderland on the first snow of the season. I remember also waking up to the magic of Saturday morning cartoons. We would sit for at least a half hour staring at the colored lines on the screen until the Smurfs finally came on. My mom once battered and fried dandelions because she heard that was a special treat for the pioneers. They were disgusting. We got to stay home from school once to witness our cat giving birth to kittens. I got the black one, and I will always be jealous that my sister got the white fluffy one. There were several rock shops in town so we figured if people were willing to pay money for rocks we could have a real profitable business going door to door selling rocks from our yard. We were sorely disappointed with the payout. For about 6 months we managed a motel in town. We were in charge of helping to clean the rooms, I mostly just hid out watching "The Monkeys" in any vacant room I could find. I also remember the PST truck coming to deliver food, I thought the fig newtons were just about the best thing ever. Gosh, all these memories keep flooding back and I'm filled with all sorts of emotions. Mostly just gratitude that I was lucky enough to have such a magical childhood. And to this day I still can't eat a fig newton without being transported back.

"V" Mountain. I don't know if we actually ever made the hike all the way to the V, but I was convinced the Easter Bunny lived just on the other side of the mountain and it was my life goal to make it over there.

The Rock Shop that inspired our young entrepreneurial spirits

Re-living my childhood memories continued as we made another stop at the Pink Coral Sand Dunes. I remember coming here with family when I was a little older and my uncle thought it would be so fun for me to fly off the dunes and land in the soft sand. I thought it would be a great idea too, so he took me by the arms, swung me around then let go as I sailed off into the sand. Where I completely face planted it, got the wind knocked out of me and had sand stuck in my braces for a week. Thanks uncle. But it was fun to bring my boys here. Sand dunes are so fun to play in, it's just like one giant sand box. It is a lot of work hiking up the hills but so much fun once you're at the top. Except when you finally get all the way to the top and one of them decides he needs to poop. My apologies to anyone who uncovers that hole. I loved seeing these two get a long so well and have such a great time. My only regret is that I was so busy capturing the moment that I didn't put the camera down and play with them myself.

There was one more stop I wanted to make that day (well, there were actually several more, but this was all we had time for). The Moki Caves are right outside of Kanab near Orderville. I remember going in this gift shop/museum built into the cave and thinking it was pretty cool, but I don't remember hiking to the caves a little farther down. I came across the picture of these beautiful light filled caves a little while ago and knew we had to stop. It was a short hike up from the road and such a cool cave. The boys had such a great time crawling through tunnels and exploring. They wanted me to take a video of them so I did, then put my phone in my backpack. I stepped a few feet back to take a few more pictures on my camera before we left, then went to get my phone and it was gone. I had only gone less than 15 feet so I figured it must have fallen out in the sand. We combed through every square inch and nothing. Some other hikers came up at this point and I was able to use their phone to try calling it. I then called Jason to have him ping it, but still nothing. There's a chance it might have fallen down the cliff at the edge of the cave when I was standing there so we climbed down to search and still nothing. It was the oddest thing, it completely vanished into thin air. Bless his heart, Maddox felt so bad and picked me a flower to make me feel better. He didn't realize the flower had teeny little spines that embedded into his skin. So there we were on the side of the road with Maddox sobbing as I'm trying to pick them out of his hand, Ryder is crying because he's hungry and I'm just wondering how in the heck I am going to find my way to the hotel 3 hours away in the dark with no GPS. It wasn't the best way to end such a fun day, but it definitely did add to the adventure. We finally made it to the hotel at 1:00 am after getting lost and asking for directions at two different gas stations. Jason was relieved to finally hear from us. You don't realize how much you rely on your phone until you don't have it. I don't know how I survived the first 19 years of my life without one. We didn't get much sleep that night and had to wake up early to pick Kylie up from EFY in Flagstaff. Despite the less than desirable ending, this past week and this road trip with the boys will always be one of my favorite memories.