AprilandJake.com

We camped at a campground down the road from Torrey in the Dixie National Forest called Singletree. It was a nice campground, with a site big enough for the clan from April's side of the family. I think there were 8 or so families there at one point. The campsite itself was very well developed: water pump fed from a local spring, flushing toilet restrooms, firepits, and plenty of tables and benches. We hauled out our stuff and set up our tents. We got a Coleman Squaw Creek tent for this campout and beyond. Hehe, it's a weird tent. This tent requires stakes. Without them, it topples. Just an odd design. Also, we discovered that the specs on the tent are optimistic at best. It's advertised to sleep 5-6, but I think they'd all have to be midgets, which would also be a good idea because the 12 x 8 foot space is barely sufficient to get my 6'5" body in sideways. But, it proved mucho exciting and fun to have our little family in there. Only a couple times did Dallin have to sleep with us, severely cramping my style, causing me to have to lift myself up into the air to turn over -- and all this without waking up.

We did several day hikes over the days we were there. We did some wandering over the canyon just 5 or so miles down from Calf Creek at some unnamed location, looking for the "100 hand prints" plastered on the canyon wall. It turned out to be a real treasure hunt, but we finally found them over an hour later and less than half a mile from the road. It was fun packing Dallin around in the front pack, getting us both sweaty and slobbery enough to remind us that we must not be lacking sufficient water. Dallin did a good job of falling asleep on this hike, perhaps because of the heat and comfort afforded him while clinging to the chest of one of nature's wonders.

I then jettisoned Dallin to join Marlin, Craig, and Kevin on what was advertised as a hike and turned into a trail run. We made it up the trail to lower Calf Creek Falls in 35 min and back down in 25. It is a 3 mile hike, up and down, not a huge elevation gain, and a lot of sand. The waterfall was very impressive with some lush green algae growing alongside and was very cold. I was rather tired at the end of that glorious escapade. Back at the camp and a short nap later, we were chowing down on more good food. I feel like I ate a ton of good food over the trip. It is doubtless that even said trail runs were enough to keep the calories from making their homes somewhere on my person. This, even with Craig's attempt to regulate snack consumption through carefully weighed portions.

Well, most of the days to follow were about the same: sleep, eat, hike, eat, hike, eat, sleep. We did a hike down the Grand Wash, right in the national park. It was a fun little hike with plenty of places for the munchkins to go spelunking. The biggest adventure there, though, was probably finding the rest of our group who was anxious enough to get to the destination that our little piece of the caravan was left at camp without many details as to their whereabouts. That just seemed to be the pattern for that day, and Marlin's Suburban ended up with probably double the miles of any other vehicle that day as a result. Oh, and I just want to reiterate that the average visitor center display really needs to include a gamepad of some sort in order to hold my attention beyond a few minutes. I guess that's what I had Dallin for. He was having a hard time on this expedition, falling asleep for only a few minutes at a time, only to be woken up by a gaggle of screaming children, gust of wind to the face, getting in and out of the car, or his father trying to finagle him into his carrier.

Let's see... The eating, sleeping, and hiking is just blurring together at this point. Other destinations included the Singletree waterfall and Hickman's Bridge, both of which provided some very nice views of nature. There was much winding road in between and enough car sickness to go around.

We finally made our way home last night. The car made it the whole way, which were happy for. Dallin again only needed one pit stop, which was wonderful. He's been a good boy but I think will need a few more trips before he really warms up to the camping experience. We're happy to have had a few days away from work to spend camping with family. It was ultra fun and we need to do more of it -- especially some trips with some swimming! We're happy to be home again... glad it's still there, hasn't burned down, that our garden isn't *completely* overrun by weeds, that we're sleeping in our own bed, setting our own pace, and letting Dallin lay around the house without needing to be constantly bundled.

This may just say it all... :)

Adieu.