Oak Creek Canyon

So as you can tell I'm still working on catching up...

So the weekend of June 26th we had a ward campout. We drove up Friday night to a campground just north of Flagstaff. We had about about 70 from our ward camping. They had a snack for us when we got up there Friday night. Other than that we just hung out and enjoyed being in nature. It was the perfect night for camping. The weather was cool enough that having a camp fire felt great. It was also amazing to see all the stars in Flagstaff. It reminds me how much I love the sky.
The next morning we woke up had a fabulous pancake breakfast and took our time cleaning up camp. One the way back home a group of people stopped in Oak Creek Canyon to go for a hike. Oak Creek Canyon is between Flagstaff and Sedona. It's a beautiful canyon that I've driven down before, but never actually hiked. Once again it was a beautiful day to be outside hiking.

We leisurely walked up the trail which was along the creek. We really didn't get that far, but it was beautiful. At one point we found this really steep rock and decided to try hanging upside down on it. Overall the hike was really nice for a Saturday afternoon.

Little Wild Horse Canyon

This is an amazing little slot canyon that is just outside of Goblin Valley State Park. Since I had a long drive back to Phoenix on Friday my parents and sister were kind enough to wake up with the sun (5:00 am) and go out hiking.It was a beautiful morning to be hiking up the canyon and it was amazing to see the beauty of the canyon. The colors were amazing and it was not a difficult hike. Since I didn't have a ton of time we hiked up the canyon for about and hour and a half before we had to turned around to walk back down.Well it was a great end to such a fun week of camping. I'm so glad that I got to get together with my sister and meet up with our cousins. It was also fun to see old places that I have faint memories of and new place that I can create memories of.

Goblin Valley

After the exciting dirt road trip we made it to Goblin Valley. There is actually where we meet up with my parents. They came out to join us camping. At first we set up camp... although we didn't set much up. It was super windy at the campground so we didn't actually set up the tent. From there we decided to go over to the actual Valley of Goblins and hike around. (Note: since it was so windy I didn't take my camera so all the photo credits go to my sister or my dad.)
If you ever get the chance to head out to Goblin Valley you definitely should. It's kind of funny, because the land all around is nothing special, but as soon as you get into the valley there are a bunch of cool formations called "goblins".
We spent few hours hiking around. It wasn't windy over in the valley, so it was super nice. We hiked up a whole bunch of the canyons. It was so fun, but I love just to scramble over rocks.

After hiking around we headed back to camp. The wind has actually died down, so it was really nice over at the camp ground. We finally got the chance to have a camp fire. We found a little scorpion friend my our campfire. He didn't last long though, everyone was scared of him. It was the perfect night to sit around and have a camp fire.

Wild Ride

So the next part of our trip was quiet the adventure. We were headed out to Goblin Valley. My cousin was being the navigator and didn't realize that the one road on the map was actually a dirt road. By the time we got to the road we would have had to back track to get to the paved road, so we decided to take the dirt road. My car isn't necessarily made to dirt road trips, but fortunately the road wasn't too bad. Since I was driving Melissa had to take the pictures.

Dead Horse Point

The next stop on our trip was to Dead Horse Point. It's a Utah state park that over looks the Colorado River. This is another place that a have faint childhood memories of. Actually maybe it's more like I remember it from family home videos we have. I think sometimes that's the were a lot of my memories come from. Dead Horse Point is about 2,000 feet above the Colorado River. There were some amazing views, but if you're afraid of heights at all it's not the place for you. There aren't walls all the way around the point and were there are walls they really aren't very high. And to make things worse it's almost a straight drop down.
It was another fun place to stop and see again. It was fun to relive some old childhood memories. Plus the views are amazing.

Arches National Park

Wednesday morning we left Mesa Verde and were on the road again for Arches National Park. It actually wasn't too long to a trip. We got to Arches in plenty of time to set up camp, and go for a hike. Our camp spot at Arches was really cool. The camp ground is near Devil's Garden in the park. All the camp spots had lots of sand. It did make it a little more comfortable to sleep. After setting up camp we went for a hike in Devil's Garden. The hike around Devil's Garden was beautiful. The first place that we saw in Devil's Garden was the Landscape Arch. It's one of the largest span arches.
The weather was perfect for hiking around. The sun would shine and than it would rain on us. Then the sun would shine again enough to dry us out.
After hiking past Landscape Arch we continued on the trail to Partition Arch and Navajo Arch. Up the trail by those two we found a cool little over look of Landscape Arch. It was actually a place where you could look down from above the Landscape Arch. The only downside was that it was on top of the rocks. It got a little scary so I had to sit down so that I didn't blow over.
From there we headed out to Double O Arch. We actually almost missed the arch, because we were trying to follow the rock carins. We finally made it to the Arch and it was definitely worth it. From there we headed back to camp to have dinner. We had to eat dinner quickly only because we wanted to make it up to Delicate Arch for sunset. It's suppose to be the best time to see the arch.

I was actually amazed at how fast we made it up to the arch. From what I remember the trail was really long, but I think we actually made it up the trail in about 30 minutes. We made it up there in plenty of time to see the sunset. The only problem was that there were lots of low clouds in the sky, so it blocked the direct sunlight unto the arch. We sat up by the arch for a while just enjoying the view and weather. We headed back down just as it was getting dark. We'd done a lot of walking on Wednesday so we just went back to camp and crashed. Thursday morning we woke up and took down camp. Then we were back on the road again. The only place that we stopped on the way out was Balanced Rock. It is amazing how the rock was balanced so perfectly on the other rock.

I'm so glad that we made the trip to Arches, because it was beautiful. If you ever get the opportunity to make it out that direction you should definitely take it.

Walk down memory lane

The next stop along our trip was a little one down memory lane. (Thanks Dad for the pictures). Like before I faintly remember being at Arches National Park but it's really only scattered memories from stories, pictures and home videos. Sometimes I worry that if things were recorded on video or on film that I wouldn't have any childhood memories... maybe I should look into having my memory checked.Anyways the last time that we were at Arches National Park was back in April of 1992. Once again we were there with our cousins although it was only their oldest daughter who was even alive at the time. (She's the little bald baby in the picture). We have good memories from this trip most of which include lots of rain and black trash sacks. On our way back down from Delicate Arch it started raining so hard. It was raining so hard (or maybe it was the lighting) that we stop along the trail to find what shelter we could. Fortunately someone (probably my Dad) decided to carry a few heavy duty black trash bags up the trail with them which made rather nice rain ponchos. When the rain finally died down we made our way back down the trail but it definitely made for some good memories (pictures).