I am so very proud of my little family. A few months ago, my brother Jared asked if I wanted to alter our Spring Break plans from a beach house in the San Juan islands to the national parks of Southern Utah. When my brother plans vacations they are always amazing and I have learned to just say yes to his parties, but I was nervous about the long drive and the days of hiking. My children have not proven themselves to be very great at either. But we booked a big enough house to accommodate Jared, Melissa, and my families for a few days and started planning, or rather let Jared plan for us.
I have new respect for my little family. We left on a Saturday and spent some long over-due time with Matthew's grandparents in Baker City. When we lived in the PNW sans children we visited them more regularly. In the last ten years we have only seen them once when they came through town and had dinner with us sometime after we moved back to Oregon. The kids walked around their home as if in a museum and Matthew got some much needed time with his favorite people.
Sunday, we drove to Provo and Monday, we showed our children the sights of BYU hopefully endearing them to the campus Matthew and I loved so much ourselves.
The real party started on Tuesday when we drove to Bryce Canyon for our first hike. I'm not quite sure just how long the hike was but I got almost twenty thousand steps and that generally equates to ten miles. The kids have traditionally not made it past two maybe three miles so anything over five was a huge milestone. They weren't always the fastest of hikers, but I still marveled at their steadfastness - Dude especially. There were times when I asked him to hold on and wait for others or me to catch up. He responded that if he stopped he would resent how far we were making him walk and that it would be better for him to just keep going.
He was so stoic even though he NEVER would have agreed to that long of a hike if we had given him the choice. It wasn't until we got back to the top of the canyon and then still had a half mile walk back to the car that he finally broke down. I let him cry. He had held in his frustration for so long that he deserved a few tears. Watching him and Luca hike well past their limits was one of my favorite moments as a mother. I was proud of them and they were proud of themselves. They could do hard things.
The next day, the only way we could convince them to do another hike was with the promise that theirs would be a shorter hike followed by exploring the cool backyard of our rental. It wasn't. But not because it wasn't offered. That day we were in the slot canyons of Escalante National Park and they were by far the coolest things we did. The kids jumped to the front of the pack while Matthew and I somehow got shunted to the back. They were so narrow that there was no walking side by side. In some areas we had to walk sideways just to fit. At one point the slot canyon was such that Melissa (with a freshly gimpy arm) and my dad had to turn around. I had assumed that my children would follow suit but they enthusiastically pressed on. And dang it, if they were going, I for sure wanted to go too. So we all did it. Two crazy amazing slot canyons.
It was only when Jared suggested exploring a third that Dude said no, he was ready to go back. Luca was game but Dude just needed to have some semblance of control and again, I could respect that. So he, his cousin S, and I headed back to the cars to wait for everyone else to be done. I would have thought that Dude and Cousin S would have been whiney on the 2 mile hike back but no, they were amazing; even after we got lost and had to pray and then ask someone for help, they were great little buddies who just wanted to have some say over how long they had to hike. Again, I'm pretty sure we hiked somewhere around 8 miles.
By Thursday, when I told the kids the hike was going to be close to 7 miles they just shrugged and said, "well at least it isn't as long as the other hikes". We stopped at the visitor center so Cousin S and Cousin C could get their Junior Ranger booklets and ended up getting a walking stick for Dude and a stuffie for Luca. I told them that since they had been amazing troopers we wanted to show our appreciation. Everyone was grateful.
I personally loved the hike, but I'm not sure the kids were as enthralled, maybe because the waterfall at the end proved way colder than they had hoped and didn't lend itself to lots of playtime. Somehow at some point Dude thought we had all left him behind and started back by himself. Thankfully we tracked him down and headed back for some well earned ice cream and rest for those who wanted it.
The rest of us headed back out for the most intense slot canyon of the trip. At one point my brother-in-law John wedged himself into the crack so I could step on his back just to get through. Over thirty-five thousand steps that day, I'm pretty sure it's a record.
Friday Jared and Melissa's families did one last hike on the way home but our family had reached it's capacity and wanted to get as far on our 17 hour drive home as possible. We did nine and a half on Friday and another 7 and a half on Saturday. Both days I was amazed at the resiliency of my darling children. Now that I know they are master hikers and road trippers I am ready to plan another one. The kids, while game for more hikes and more road trips claim they need some time to recover before committing to anything new. Fair enough my adventure babes.
