Christopher has been going on weekend trips with his friends for years. And he has always said that any time I found some friends to go with, I would be able to do the same thing. Most moms don't have that option very often, so it hasn't really happened. Until this year! I finally scheduled with some friends to have a Saturday at our cabin.
And then Christopher found out that he had a business trip scheduled for that same weekend.
A little frustrated that I would have to take the kids on my day off, I saw a Groupon for a hotel deal at Bryce Canyon. Christopher wasn't as excited about it as I was, because he wasn't sure why we should go down there to spend a weekend in feet of snow. We do have the same conditions at the cabin, but not nearly the view! And the hotel has an indoor pool for the kids. I talked him into it, and we booked the trip.
And then his work trip got moved from the weekend of my girl trip onto the weekend of the Bryce trip. Since we booked through Groupon, we couldn't change dates. Which meant that everything sadly went perfectly for me and quite terrible for Christopher. I had a great day off at the cabin with my friends, and then the next week, he got to fly to Pennsylvania and work from dawn until dusk while I had a fantastic time with the kids.
I feel pretty horrible about that.
Thankfully, the kids are old enough that I was fine without his help. I never once thought "how am I going to make it through this without him?". But we all missed him dearly.
The trip itself was an adventure, that's for sure. We have had a shockingly mild winter this year. If fact, it was warm enough that Jasmine and I have gone on bike trips while the kids were in school.
So while I was reading on Bryce Canyon's website about their Ranger led snowshoe hikes and where you could go cross country skiing, they also said that there was not enough snow for that this year.
As I got closer to the trip and watched the weather forecast, however, that changed. I ended up taking the kids out of school at lunch time to try and beat the storm that was coming in, and we almost did. Not quite, but almost. I could still see the parking lines when we pulled in, but it was coming down pretty hard. The early arrival gave us plenty of time to go swimming and check out the huge gift shop.
After telling them not to touch everything over and over, they were relieved when I realized they couldn't actually break the magnets. And when I tried to keep moving, I stopped and recognized that they were playing together so well that I let them stay there for a half an hour.
By the next morning, we were buried with no end in sight.
In fact, the storm was bad enough that we lost power. When I talked to the man at the front desk, he said that the entire power grid had knocked out all of the Bryce area, and they weren't getting any answer from Zion National Park either. So we went back to our hotel room for a while and I just decided we needed to go for it. Blizzard or no blizzard, we came all that way to see Bryce Canyon and I wouldn't be able to find out if the park was open unless I drove the 2 miles down the road to find out. Snow plows were going by, so we should be fine, right?
There was no one else on the road, so I stopped to take a picture of how crazy this plan was. I passed through an empty entrance station and went into the visitor's center to find a half a dozen Park Rangers standing around in the dark. They cheerfully told me that the road was plowed, so I could just go to a lookout point and see what I could see.
Yup. This was the view from Sunrise Point. This picture makes laugh every time I look at it. We could see exactly one hoodoo.
I found other things to take pictures of, of course.
A beautiful snow scene like that is just too fun for anyone holding a camera. The kids had a lot of fun in the snow, too.
Yummy, yummy snow.
After a bit of walking, we even found a (slightly) better view.
By that point, however, the girls were totally exhausted, so we headed back to our power-less hotel room. We broke out a Kiwi Crate that I brought along, and those are always a hit.
Tyler was SO excited to spend some of his birthday money on a Sheriff badge with his name on it. He even wore it to bed that night!
And of course, we had to go swimming again. We went swimming three times in two days, and the kids loved every second.
I dragged them out of the pool to give the park one more try, and I was so glad I did when we got outside. Blue skies! I hurried to the next lookout as fast as we could.
And when we got to the lookout point, Kaitlyn's jaw dropped. The morning left her a little lost on why Mommy cared so much about this park. But as she stepped up to the fence she told me "I can see why you wanted to bring us back here! This is AMAZING!"
It was nice to have the kids on my side.
Riding along as we walked turned out to be exhausting!
More accurately, hotel beds are too much fun to go to sleep on time in, and hiking and swimming twice was exhausting. She was so asleep that I transferred her out of the carrier, into the car seat, and onto the hotel bed without a peep. Our luck was so perfect that it started snowing again right as we were driving out of the park.
Over dinner that night, Kaitlyn told me that she was sure she was having more fun that weekend than anyone in her class. I am SO grateful that I had young kids on this trip, because I could imagine teenagers getting a bit testy when the power went out and we were surrounded by snow! But to these kids, it was a grand adventure.
"I'm sure I'm having more fun than even Miss Sharma!" she told me,
"Oh yeah? Where was Miss Sharma going this weekend?"
Kaitlyn crinkled up her nose. "Hawaii."
I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. I didn't want to take away the optimism that our trip into a blizzard was better than Hawaii, but it was just too funny!
As a picture-taking crazy person, though, I had to agree that it was an awesome trip. Even the drive out of the park was too beautiful! I had to stop a few times for pictures.
The morning before we left, we headed back to the Visitor's Center to see the movie (now that they had power) and let the kids get their Junior Ranger badges. And when I tried to get everyone to leave, Kaitlyn told me she wanted to see the museum more! I was so glad. That's why were were there, after all. I want our kids to grow up impressed by nature and not just stuck to their screens and busy schedules, hopefully. We'll just have to go on more trips when Daddy can come too!
