On April 11th, 2014 Rachelle and I set of on another excellent adventure. Friday was spent in great anticipation for the exciting weekend to come. The 6 hours that I was required to work seemed to dawdle along for forever! I was finally freed from the torture at 6 PM when I hurried home to help Rachelle finish the packing which always seems to take longer than previously would be expected. After finally stuffing the trunk of our Mazda almost to capasity we headed over to the provo transit station to pick up Rachelle's sisters Kiana and Tiffany along with Kiana's friend Abby. (As a side note for future expeditions it will be helpful to have some sort of roof rack to store gear, thus allowing for more passenger room). From there we skipped over to our good friend's apartment for a quick bite to eat complements of Emily Johnson. We offered a prayer for safety in our travels and over the weekend. My brother Drew also met up with the entourage at that time. We ate a nicely cooked meal of chicken and rice with a bit of gravy. Needless to say, it was delicious. After the meal we we piled into to cars, our Mazda and Drew's Honda Civic and made one more stop to get my nephew Grant and to fill up with gas. It is a good thing that we did too because Drew decided he better check the oil in his car and discovered that there was hardly any oil left! He quickly purchased quart and made the remedy. At about 8 PM we finally set of to our destination to Goblin Valley Utah! The 2 1/2 hour drive down near Hanksville was interesting, but you will have to ask me in person why. Upon arrival at the what Drew and I have dubbed "The Outskirts of Goblin Valley" we traveled just west of the ranger station on Wild Horse Rd for about 2 miles then turned south on a dirt rd to the campsite. My Parents along with my brother Adam and his family and my sister Janene with her kids. We got the tent set up and then went into my parents trailer to enjoy some chips and guacamole that Rachelle had made. It was fun to talk with my Mom and Joe and Emily. We were also entertained by one of Joe's "Joe Show" performances after he had been sleeping in the car. He had been holding the eggs and as he was getting out of the car he moved the eggs so that they started to fall and broke a few of them. He began to shout "The babies!" as the eggs fell. Quite entertaining. Staturday was spent in the mostly in the valley but we did attempt to hike Ding and Dang which is a fun slot canyon hike in the San Rafael wash. Here are pictures of the adventures:
We didn't make it to the ding and dang trail head due to the fact that I had never done that hike and Rachelle hadn't done it in something like 10 years, we did wander up into the higher mountains and found some exciting things.
This photo is a grand example of the food chain in the desert. Its a little hard to see, but a snake is eating a lizard in the brush.
Our good friends Joe and Emily Johnson were so fun. We were glad to have them along!
Tiffany is so funny, after coming back home she told the events of our trip in an indian accent without once breaking character. She is awesome!
Playing in the Valley was pretty fun! We played sardines and later got out PVC pipe guns and marshmallows for a little marshmallow war!
Grant was fun to have with us. He is an amazing hider for sardines!
I tried to do a head stand on the rocks.
This is the "Birth Canal". Its a fun cave that is found toward the back wall of Goblin Valley you exit the cave through a roof opening.
Cleaning up on Sunday morning. All of the rest of the family left after the hike on Saturday and took the trailer with them but we had a tent for everyone to pile into. Good thing too because it rained and stormed through most of Saturday night.
