At the rest area on the way, the kids had some cool down time with the misty mates (pump 'em up, turn 'em on, mist away). Jeremy took time to photograph lizards.
On the way to Monticello, we stopped at Arches National Park to see a bunch of rocks. I'd never been there before so I didn't know what to take pictures of so Jeremy turned off at every viewpoint and I jumped out of the car to take pictures. At Balanced Rock we decided to let everyone out, and of course it started raining. Lightning in the distance and thunder rumbling. At least it wasn't too hot for August. It was also quite windy and the kids' hats kept blowing off. At one point, Nichole's hat blew off and almost blew off the trail. I said I would have sent Jeremy off the trail to get it if it had, even though they had signs saying, "Please, stay on the trail."
We went across the street from Balanced Rock to picnic. It was fun to watch the ants with food we accidentally dropped. Man, those pincers on the ants are huge when zoomed in with the camcorder. I know it says don't feed the wildlife, but I didn't mean for the chips to fall.
We drove on looking at more formations until we got to a nice walking/hiking area. Actual arches. In the Windows Section of the Park- North and South Windows and Turret Arch.
As we were walking up to the North Window, some of the people walking down were cheering Jr. on for doing such a good job walking up. Some others saw his baby cougar BYU shirt and showed their approval.
We spent some time at North Window where there was a beautiful arch of a rainbow through and above the rock arch. It was a bit of a dropoff through the arch, so I made the kids sit down by me while Jeremy took pictures of us with the rainbow.
After the windows section, we headed out of the park by way of the Visitor's Center, which was closed by then but the bathrooms and drinking fountains were open. That and they had some animal statues that the kids played with. My hair got totally windblown while we were in the park. It was pretty fun.
Before we got to Monticello, Jeremy mentioned that he'd been thinking about how there was the construction on the road in front of the motel last year, but there wouldn't be this year. So as drove into town, guess what? Construction on the road outside the motel. It made us laugh. Also as we pulled into town, we saw a building not too far away that looked like it had a gold statue on top. I didn't realize there was a little temple in this area. Cool. Saturday before we left we took the kids by it so they could see it and Nichole could sing, "I Love To See The Temple."
Good family trip.
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