Moab

Christopher has been going to Moab a few times a year ever since we were dating.  He has some friends that love to mountain bike down there, and they have a lot of fun.  He has offered a few times that I could go with him - but most of the time there are no other wives there, and trips like that with infants are less fun than they are worth sometimes.  So I usually just let him have his guy's weekend off.

But this time, I decided the kids were old enough that they would actually enjoy hiking and exploring. I'm so glad we went! It was a quick trip, since we have a wedding in the family this weekend we had to get back for, but we had a blast.

First up was a trip to Arches.  While we thought the actual hike to Delicate arch might wear the kids out, the hike to the lookout point left us with energy for more hikes.

Of course, once we got up there, I had to set up the tripod for a family picture.  But while I got things ready, the kids made their own fun.

First attempt at family picture for the day.  Tyler had no intention of looking anywhere near the camera, no matter how hard we tried.  He's smiling at the game, if you can't tell.

At least Kaitlyn was happy to pose for me!  (Oh, and no - this shot isn't tilted.  Delicate Arch is.)

Second attempt at getting a picture of Tyler.  I went to the spot he was looking at - and he looked away and smiled some more.

Then we saw a cool snake.  Highlight of the kid's morning, of course!

Second attempt at a family picture.  We gave Tyler the only sunglasses we had in the truck, despite the fact that they were Kaitlyn's girly ones.  So now he is looking at the camera . . . but I guess Kaitlyn didn't feel in the mood to smile.

Until she got her own session to pose in.

Meanwhile, I was enjoying my camera.  The whole park is a landscape photographer's dream!  I'm no expert, but it is my favorite type of photography.  This arch is called Landscape arch, and is huge!  They say that this one could fall down further at any time, so I'm glad we got to see it.  (Of course, to a geologist, "any time" means in the next 1-150 years.)

Attempt #3.  I think it was the best try, though the bush covers more of the kids than I was hoping it would.

And this is how Tyler got everybody to play while I took the tripod down.

On the hike back from Landscape, the kids decided to climb up this sand dune.  In fact, I think every kid who passes this decides to climb up the sand dune.

At the top, the two sides met in this little crevice that Kaitlyn loved.  When Tyler tried to leave just before I took the picture, she was really helpful and grabbed him for me.

My other fun hobby for the day was pulling out my Macro lens.  What a fun toy that one is!

After that, we met up with an old friend from my home ward.  This, to me, was Facebook at it's best.  I hadn't had any contact with her in years, but I knew from Facebook updates that she lived in Moab.  So a couple of messages back and forth later, she had given us tons of ideas on things to do in Moab, and we met up with her and her little boys in the park.  Perfect!

Unfortunately, Kaitlyn did not feel perfect.  She hadn't had enough nap to counter the 3 miles of hiking that morning, and was CRANKY.  We were going to ride our bikes around with Ashley, but Kaitlyn flipped out and we had to give up.  At least we were at a park, so there was an easy backup plan.

The next morning, I got up at 5am like a crazy person and headed into Arches.  Landscape photography is always done at sunrise and sunset hours, and while I'm not able to do that very often with little kiddos, it was an fun experience.  Arches actually puts a list in their brochure of the best spots for morning or evening pictures, so I picked one on the morning list not far from the entrance and headed in.  There were two spots right next to each other - one was on the morning list, one on the evening list.

But when I got there, there were already 10 cars there.  At 6am.  In the parking lot for the "evening" spot.  In the parking lot for the one I picked, there was no one else there.  That was one of those great moments where you stop to ponder whether they know something you don't or the other way around, but I shrugged and headed in.  I haven't finished editing these pictures yet, so I only have a couple right now.  And the sunrise wasn't the best one, due to cloud cover, but it was still great light.

After taking pictures at my spot, it was still only 7am, so I figured I would head over to where the other cars were and see what they knew.  Sure enough, there were photographers spilling all over that hill.  It was quickly apparent that they all knew each other - and that they were a level above me.  Every single piece of equipment I saw, from the tripod to the lens to the camera, was 4 times the price of mine.  But the funniest part to me was that they were all at least 55 - 75 years old!  I was setting up a shot nearby a couple of them at one point, and a woman my age was instructing one of them on her shot.  I've been studying a lot on photography, but I could barely keep up with the jargon. 

I don't know what class that was, but I wanted in.  What an amazing way to learn landscape photography!

Well, anyway, I eavsdropped as much as I could, and wandered around for a while.  One of my favorites was on the "primative trail", when I came across this.  A "Trail" sign pointing to a "This is not a Trail!" sign.

After that, I headed back and we all went to hang out with the friends Christopher usually comes down with.  They headed out to do Slickrock in the afternoon, and the kids and I just relaxed all day.  And that night, we roasted some hot dogs in the campground.

What a great trip!