House of Chaos

Friday, July 13, 2018

Visiting Dan's Grandmas

Both of Dan's grandmother's are buried in the cemetery on the way down from Brian Head. So when the reunion ended on Friday July 13, we stopped by to find their grave stones. We were able to find them both. Rylee was thrilled to find "her" Grandma, who she is named after. She thought that was pretty great.

Hiking the Navaho Loop

So, the weather was looking ugly. But Dan convinced me that I needed to hike the Navaho Loop. It was about a mile and a half, and he said it was straight down and then back up. Sounded fun. Josh, Marian and Rylee all wanted to do it too, which surprised me. They did a great job! And it was a tough hike. It really was a steep downward trail, and then steeply back up.

It was everything I hoped it would be! It was beautiful and amazing! It made my soul happy. And we totally got rained on. We were hustling through the hike, keeping an eye on the dark clouds and hearing the rolling thunder. We were 3/4 through when it started to sprinkle. That made us move a little faster. It started dumping rain as we neared the finish and the last 5 minutes was in a downpour. But yes, it was totally worth it!!

So happy to be doing this!

We did get to climb on the rocks and touch them and really enjoy them.

Selfie with my girl!

Ug. This is so dark. But I love this kid!

Check out this cool rock formation! I needed a selfie with it.

Look how amazing this is! I love it!

They found a little cave, so they HAD to sit in it.

This area had a lot of stacked rocks. So Rylee wanted to stack her own. She did a good job.

Hiking back up. It was hard work!

Must pose with the cool tree.

I'm sad this one is dark. It was so cute that Marian was giving Rylee a piggy-back when she got tired.

Walking up the trail in the awesome rocks. I just love them!

Come on, isn't this the coolest picture?!! Look at those rocks! And the storm clouds.

A quick pose for me.

Looking down. Yep, we hiked up from all the way down there!

Did I mention how much I loved this trail? And these great kids?!

The last bit was switchbacks like this. And we were hoofing it to beat the rain. Well, it was drizzling at this point.

I was pooped. So I took a picture so I had an excuse for a break! That's the trail up. Good times!

The Glory that is Bryce Canyon

I was a little obsessed with going somewhere that I could actually touch and walk around the amazing rock formations. It sounded like there weren't any places to do that nearby. My father in law mentioned that we could drive a bit over an hour to Bryce Canyon and hike the Navaho Loop to do what I wanted. I was giddy with excitement!

The weather was suppose to deteriorate in the afternoon, so we headed out with the intention to make it a quick trip. Callie was down with a sore throat and fever, so I planned to be back as soon as possible for her as well.

When we got to the park, there was no parking where the trail started. Dan dropped us off with the plan to overtake us. The kids and I headed out. We hiked and hiked and hiked. I became very confused as to how on earth we were going to loop back or even get to the bottom, after we'd hiked for almost an hour. The Navaho Loop was less then a mile and a half and I was pretty sure we'd gone close to that.

Then we discovered that we were dumb. We had NOT hiked the Navaho Loop. We were on the trail that went around the top perimeter. We did enjoy Inspiration Point, but it was not what I really wanted to do. I really wanted to be down below. Sigh. And we had to figure out how to meet up with Dan! I was debating the merits of splitting up vs just waiting. Fortunately, Dan was smart enough to figure out what we had done. Dan hiked the Navaho Loop, double-time. Then he hiked to Inspiration Point, where he discovered us.

The weather was looking gloomy, but Dan insisted that I would regret it if I did not go back and hike the Navaho Loop. But we will cover that next.

Here are the incredible, yet insufficient pictures of our glorious hike around the perimeter!