Okay, Our next most recent field trip was to South East Utah and Southern Colorado. The people on this trip included, my self, my mom and my kids. David was somewhere in Asia at the time. I can't remember if it was Japan or Korea now.
The reason we took this trip was so that Nathan
could attend YFA (Youth For America) youth conference, which was held in Monticello Utah.
We left on Sunday, because his conference started at 8am on Monday. He was at the conference all day Monday and Tuesday, but slept with us at the hotel at night. The first day he was at the conference we went to Arches National Park. We did the driving loop, but didn't do too much hiking, as London had recently sliced his thumb and had a big bandage and we didn't want to risk any falls. Plus, it was just too hot! After touring the park, we did some shopping and had dinner on Main street in Moab. We found this fun book store where we spent an hour browsing and avoiding the hissing cat. I found an interesting book call Third Wish by Robert Fulghum that I have since been enjoying.
Tuesday we spent the day at one section of Canyonlands National Park. We did some more hiking here. There were some really fun trails that had amazing views that were
not too long. I have never been to this park before, and I really enjoyed it. L
ondon and Raven did the Junior Ranger at all of the parks we went to on this trip. After exploring the park we had dinner in Monticello and spent time at the library there putting together a puzzle, while we waited for Nathan to finish. When he was done, we drove to Cortez Colorado, where we spent the night. Raven and I had fun racing in the pool. London couldn't get in because of his hand, and Nathan and my Mom didn't want to.
Wednesday we spent the day at Mesa Verde National Park. I have wanted to go here for years, and this was our first time here as well. Now I know that you need to have at least two days for this park. That's okay, I want to go back and bring David with us next time. We did the two guided hikes that I wanted to see most, Cliff Palace and Balcony House. I didn't realize that
we would be able to actually go in these ruins. I thought that it was something we could only view from a distance, so that was a happy surprise. Nathan was with us by now, and we were feeling the change in dynamics. This meant that we got to hear a lot of complaining. He especially did not want to go on the Balcony House tour because it involved crawling through a small tunnel, and he did not want to get dirty. We had great tour guides for these tours.
They were both given by women who had
to be over sixty, but could climb like mountain goats. The woman giving the Balcony House tour was inspired. She recruited Nathan to be the leader for our group. He had to lead us to certain places and then not let anyone pass until she caught up, etc.. He led us valiantly and we never heard another word of complaint from him.
After a fun, full day here, we drove to Durango Colorado for our next adventure!
Thursday was probably our funnest day of all! (Is that a word? I don't know, but I like it better than 'most fun' that sounds too stuffy.) This morning we woke up early to catch the famous Durango
- Silverton narrow gauge rail road. We didn't take the train all the way to Silverton however. We got off about an hour and a half into the ride for our Soaring Tree Top Adventure. Here we were geared up with zipline gear and given instructions and then we went on our soaring (zip line) adventure. There were 22 zip lines we did. The longest one was the l
ast, at a 1/4 mile long. You can get going pretty fast when you are zipping that far! We also got hoisted up on some helicopter hoists, and lowered down as we just stepped off a very high platform! They staff there were incredible. They had people that did all the work, they hooked us up and sent us off and caught us at the other end. We were always attached to the tree, so it was very safe. The most amazing part to me, is that every single staff member learned every single guests name and called us by name. There were about 60 guests that day! We also got yummy snacks and a delicious gourmet lunch! I very highly recommend this adventure! It is great for almost all ages! Check out their website at www.soaringcolorado.com. The train picked us up on its way back down to Durango. When we got back we went to the Bar D Wranglers Chuckwagon dinner and show that evening. It was a very full fun day!
Friday we got up very early and drove all the way back home, so that Nathan could meet his scout troop at 1:00 to go on a scout camp! Whew!
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