Elwood Escalante Extravaganza

Way back in early March, while my family was hanging out at my house for a skiing/basketball-watching/early birthday party we talked about our summer reunion. We looked at houses in the Bryce area and talked about things that we'd like to do together in a few months, when Mugs would be done with her Utah clinical but before she headed back to Ohio. A couple days later, my parents booked a house for the clan for the 7th-11th of August. Little did we know . . . Megan wouldn't go back to Ohio after spring break till it was nearly time to start her Utah clinical in June! . . . We would be wearing masks whenever we go inside anywhere but our own home. . . . We would be thinking about homeschool options as back-to-school time approached. . . . We would commission Kylie to create bandanna masks for our family reunion instead of t-shirts! What a ride!

But even with all the weirdness that is this COVID time, we made it work, and made plenty of awesome memories together for a weekend in arguably one of the most incredible places in the world! Thanks fam, for masking up inside for me, for making me laugh uncontrollably while playing OSPREY on the basketball court in the backyard, for hiking and smiling and cooking and sharing with me. It was marvelous.

Friday, August 7th: Arrival Day

We were the first to arrive, so we got to pick out our room and get acquainted with the house first. It was huge - a room for each family, two giant family rooms, a big kitchen, three bathrooms, and a huge yard with an excellent view. It was perfect. We got pizza for dinner from The Pizza Place in Tropic and ate it on the back deck while we waited for the others to get there. Eventually everyone made it, though Gregg and the kids didn't see them all till the next morning since many arrived well after bedtime. I visited with the gang for a bit and then we all crashed for the night.

Saturday, August 8th: Slot Canyon Day
Ky and Michael made us biscuits and gravy for breakfast. After we ate, we packed up coolers and lunches and water bottles and drove back toward Kodachrome Basin, but turned on a dirt road instead and boogied through the thick dust on the road to the Willis Creek Canyon trailhead. It was warm, and none of us had ever hiked here before; I had just found out about it when I searched "slot canyons for families near Bryce" on google one afternoon. But we trusted the blog post and went for it. It. Was. AWESOME. A flat hot trail gradually becomes a shady, windy trail through wind-blown rock tunnels with a little bit of water trickling along the bottom. (It was just wet enough to make the kiddos giddy, but not so wet that anyone else that didn't want their feet to get wet did.) We hiked and ooh-ed and aaaah-ed for over 2 miles before it was time to head back for lunch. I think the kids could have walked forever in that water! This was definitely one of my top moments of the trip. It was so much fun!

bonus video!

"piano skillz"

The keyboard in the "visiting teaching room" of the house brought plenty of 

entertainment for the 7-and-under set.

Checkin' out the swingset first thing in the morning.

Cousin pow wow in the shade before we start.

Starting to look pretty cool. But wait!

So nice! (And the shade was welcome, too!)

A bit of a photo bomb from Evy, but still a cute fam we are.

Mags gets to dip her toes in the water, too!

Then it opened up again and we thought - is that it? That was quick! So we decided we better get a group shot to commemorate our hike. What a cute clan!

Here's the open part that we decided to forge through, just to see what else was coming.

And then we came to another, longer, cooler section of slots, that started with this pool/waterfall thing.

From down below (sorry it's blurry).

These two were the water-walkers and they were in absolute heaven!

Time to rest.

Girl cousins in a cubby.

And these are the "four year olds" (well, almost - Grace and Bradley have birthdays in a week or two and Sam will be five
in a month, but for a brief time they're all 4 and they got along so well on this trip).

Happy Zoe hiker babe. (Ky forgot a hat for her, so she improvised with the official
Elwood Escalante Extravaganza face mask! Worked like a charm.

We took another group shot here because it was amazing, but that one was on Nate's phone and I haven't got a copy from him yet, so just imagine cute us in a cool canyon.

Aren't those rocks so cool?! I always want to be a geologist when I visit
Southern Utah.

Check out that sky! It's always SO blue against the red rocks.

A buncha loonies!

Lunchtime in the sand - but it was shady!

Views from the dirt road back.

After our hike, we took a little spin through Kodachrome Basin State Park. Some of the babies were napping, so they stayed in the A/C in their cars while others of us took the (very hot) nature loop walk through some more amazing red rock features. We all drove out to Chimney Rock (how many Chimney Rocks have we visited?!) and then it was time to head home to get out of the heat and get some dinner going. Nate and Rachelle made us quesadillas. We played and visited and got the kids in bed. And then we lit a fire in the fire pit and got the telescope out and watched the shooting stars . . . adults only. It was lovely, even if we couldn't get the darn telescope to focus on the things (planets) we wanted it to.

I took this pic because it tells about galls - specifically sagebrush galls, which I first noticed on
hike near Middlefork earlier this spring!

Chimney Rock - Cal said something about Santa wouldn't get stuck in that chimney!

The Elwood caravan. And some cool rocks.

Couch cushion shenanigans back at the house.

You better believe it ended in tears from at least one of these children.

Someone enjoyed her dinner tonight!

The kids were psyched to take a bath in the jetted tub downstairs.

Sunset looking sassy.

Sunday, August 9th: Church and Birthday Party Day
Gregg and I made waffles with all the fixin's for breakfast Sunday morning. After we ate, we all got dressed up and had a quick Sacrament Meeting together. That was pretty special. Then we moved outside for primary taught by my mom. We learned about how Captain Moroni and the Nephites defended their cities from the Lamanites . . . dig up heaps of earth! built pickets! erect tall timbers!

After church we visited and played and ate ribs and dutch oven potatoes and rolls for lunch and did science experiments and then it was party time. My parents brought their old giant roll of black plastic from our slip 'n' sliding days of childhood and we rigged up a slide for the kids on the hill in the backyard. It was their first time ever doing a slip 'n' slide, but they figured it out quickly and had a blast. Then Heather got out the pinata that she and Grace had made. The kids swung and whacked and smacked and hit and it fiiiinally came crashing down to much glee and excitement. We all kind of browsed for dinner and finished off the day with cupcakes and ice cream in the shade of the shipping container in the way back part of the yard while Grace and Bradley opened presents and we sang Happy Birthday to the (nearly) four-year-olds. Fun party!

After the grands were in bed, the OG kids + spouses played the world's longest, most awkward game of HORSE (but we called it OSPREY) ever to be played. And we laughed and laughed and laughed.

Polka dot girls.

This hairdo just had to be documented.

Grandma and the big grands.

Grace and Bradley were losing interest ;)

Annnd, that's a wrap!

Making and floating popsicle stick boats.

And now they're launching alka seltzer-film canister rockets. Those were a hit!

bonus videos!

"3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . pop!"

Look at that bright-eyed little sprout! (And his auntie Meg is pretty cute, too!)

Having fun watching the antics of the kids.

bonus videos!

"slip 'n' slide time!"

It was almost as fun watching them slide as it was to actually slide back in the day!

Thanks to Mugs for being the videographer for this!

I took this because I loved the clouds, but it also shows what a fun uncle Michael is.

Smallest to tallest waiting their turn in the pinata line (Grace got to go first since her bday is first).

Treats!

Happy birthday to you!

I love so much about this - Grandma story time is always the best. Plus Grace looking at the pictures with her new binocs! She was SO happy to get them ("I've always wanted binocs!").

You know it's gonna be good when we're doing stunts like this.

Also, those clouds! It was dreamy.

Monday, August 10th: Bryce Canyon Day
We wanted to get an early start to our day in the National Park, so Gregg and I made egg mcmuffin sandwiches for breakfast and everyone grabbed and ate and packed up for our outing. We were out the door right on schedule and made it to the Mossy Cave parking area in great time and with only a couple other cars there! (We really wanted to beat the rush to this area since every time we had driven by it was full to overflowing. Success!!) We had the trail to ourselves up to the cave (somewhat disappointing for the kids since we couldn't go inside), and then over to the waterfall, which was extra cool. We brought the kids' water shoes so they could walk in the stream (we were mean parents on Saturday in the slot canyon and wouldn't let them get their regular shoes wet) and they loved that.

Here's the mossy cave.

As much "in" the cave as we could get.

I thought this was so interesting about the ditch following a natural wash so the pioneers wouldn't have to dig quite so much.
Brilliant!!

We found a badge for the "Hike the Hoodoos" challenge (you were supposed to take a pic by
three of these signs in the park and then go back to the visitor's center to get a prize - the kids
were very motivated to hike in order to find them all!).

Our next stop was the visitor's center in Bryce. We didn't actually get out of the car here, but we had some snacks and some babies had diaper changes and we made a plan for the rest of the morning. We drove from the visitor's center to the first set of overlooks at Sunrise and Sunset Points, but it was a bit crowded cars-wise so we kept on driving till we got to Bryce Point Lookout. We got out there for a minute to enjoy the views. Holy. Smokes!!! It was completely amazing!

Sam was a lot a bit grumpy so the family pic here was less than stellar.

We decided not to stop after that till we got to the end of the park road at Rainbow Point. We ate lunch, visited the bathrooms, and then hiked on the Bristlecone Loop Trail. It was warm, but the views were again, amazing.

Bristlecone Pine doing it's thang over a cliff.

Two down, one to go!

Group shot on Bristlecone - taken by Rachelle.

So Michael (and Zoe) took another one so Shelly could be in the pic.

Before I walked back to the car, I wandered with Ky and Mugs down to get a glimpse of the Rainbow Point Lookout.

As we drove back from Rainbow Point, we made a stop at the Natural Bridge overlook. Such a pretty arch!

By now, we were tired and hot and thirsty and Cal's foot was hurting from her shoe rubbing it weird. We had a bit of drama (all mine) on deciding what to do next. Cal wanted to get the last badge on a sign so she could get her prize, but she couldn't hike another couple of miles. I thought the rest of the fam was planning to hike down into the Queen's Garden among the hoodoos and I didn't want to miss it, but I also didn't want to send Gregg and the kids back to the house (they were offering to go, but I was having troubles letting them do so without feeling guilty). I ended up staying to hike, but then most of the rest of the fam ended up going back to the house and those who stayed didn't hike anyway. The views from Sunrise Point were spectacular, of course, but I was still grumpy about everything. After I got back to the house, had a long, cold drink, and a few minutes of rest in a quiet, cool room, things were much better. What's a family reunion without a hiccup? Luckily, we're all still friends. And I can come back to Bryce another time and hike the trail I missed.

My mom had wanted to tell some campfire stories, the "shaggy dog stories" she had learned from her dad growing up, with the family while we were together, but the campfire ring was in a sunny spot and all the kids needed to go to bed before it was dark or cool enough to make a fire. So we compromised (thanks, mom!) with bedtime stories in the shade. She told the story of the caterpillar and the firefly and my kids are still reciting "ninety nine plunk, ninety nine plunk" all the time. :)

Tuesday, August 11th: Home Again, Home Again Day
The next morning, we packed up and cleaned up while Grandma rode bikes with the kids to the nearby park. We had a quick marshmallow war on the playground (hadn't had time to squeeze that in amid all the fun thus far) and said our goodbyes. We sort of caravanned to Richfield (Ky and Michael got ahead of us in some construction so they missed the HAM radio conversation about pulling over for lunch) where we ate lunch at the park. Then we all hopped in our cars and headed to our homes our own ways.

Park fun and photo ops with Grandma.

Gregg worked while I drove (I snapped this while we were stopped at construction, don't you
worry!). What do you think of his on-the-road office?

Cutest Muggy Maggie birthday twins.

We listened to Poppy while we drove down and back - our latest non-
Beverly Cleary listen as of late.

Such a fabulous time with family! I will definitely be back to see Bryce again - it was magnificent! Can't wait for another family gathering without the ever-present COVID thoughts lurking in the perimeters someday in the future.