The long over-due, super-long post about our 5 week roadtrip

First we went to a family reunion in Cascade, Idaho.

We camped by a beautiful lake. These pictures were taken while standing next to our trailer. Awesome view!

We went ice skating. LMS seems to have forgotten everything she learned in the class she took last winter, and Mr M has only been ice skating once before, so they appreciated the stacks of buckets.

There was also some golfing, some salmon fishing, some playing in the lake, lots of time with family, and a freak wind/rain storm that moved in very quickly off the lake and drenched us all and snapped quite a few tent poles.

Then we went to a family reunion in Bear Lake, Utah

We hiked to a windcave. The hike ended up being a lot longer and steeper than any of us anticipated (like most of the hikes my family takes), but it was very pretty up at the cave.

We also hiked (surprisingly this was actually a pretty easy hike and not too long) to an alpine lake. There was supposed to be a waterfall, but despite being the middle of July it was completely frozen over. Some of the boys had fun climbing up and then sliding/slipping down the iced-over waterfall.

Mr M helped the girl cousins have a water balloon fight (too cute!).

We spent the day at the lake. The water level was really high, so the water's edge was marshy with dead plants that are usually far from the water. Kinda gross, but what can you do? We did some canoeing and rented a boat with a "water wienie" and had lots of fun playing in the water.

The girl cousins. They're all fairly close in age and it was so fun to watch them play together. They even got to have some sleepovers where there was lots of laughing and giggling.
Until it got too late and we separated them :)

After that, we drove to the Grand Canyon, Arizona.

LMS did a unit on the Grand Canyon in our co-op, so we figured it was a good time to actually go there, since we don't know when we'll  get out that way again.

The pictures just don't do justice to the colors of the rocks, or how deep the canyon is.

Desert View Watchtower- cool building with great view of the canyon.
 

LMS with her first Junior Ranger badge. Such a great program! She learned a lot (so did we) and it helped keep her entertained and forestalled the "I'm bored"s.

Then we drove north to Zion National Park, Utah.

I only took a couple pictures because I've been twice already and you can only take so many pictures of rocks, regardless of how tall and cool they are. This was Mr M and LMS' first visit.

When we left Zion NP on the way to Moab, we drove through the tunnel. It's about a mile long and was built in the 20s, so it's narrow and short and has no electrical lighting. Instead, there's windows cut out periodically to let light and air in. Pretty cool.

Then we drove to Moab, where we visited Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.

We saw quite a few arches, including Double Arch.

 

At the trailhead to Delicate Arch is this old log cabin. We've been reading Little House on the Prairie to LMS and we mentioned that Laura and her family lived in a house similar to this one. After that, this cabin was dubbed "Laura's house".

(As in, "I want to go back to Laura's house!")

There's also some petrogylphs near the trailhead to Delicate Arch.
 

The first day we hiked to a lookout point where you can see the backside of Delicate Arch about a mile or so away.

 

A day or so later we went back and did the actual hike to Delicate Arch. It was quite windy (hence the crazy hair) and a storm was blowing in so we didn't stick around too long at the top before heading back down.
 

It really is quite impressive.

 

We found a rafting company that allows small children, and LMS was just tall enough and just heavy enough to be able to go on a half day river trip. It was lots of fun and LMS really enjoyed hanging out in the water next to the raft as we floated down the river.

LMS showing off her Junior Ranger badges from the four national parks we went to: Grand Canyon, Zion, Arches, and Canyonlands.

We then visited with family and friends, Mr M went to drill, we visited more family and picked up elk meat from the elk Mr M shot at Christmas and the toys left at my parents' when we moved out.

Getting ready to head home.

It was a long trip, but a lot of fun, and a great way to spend time together as a family since Mr M had just returned home. We really enjoyed using the trailer and look forward to taking many more trips with it.