Hiking in Moab

So this past weekend we headed to Moab to visit Bart's family.  Bart and I have been to Moab in late May for the Art's Festival before, but this is the first time (in a long time at least) that we came down with no particular event/activity in mind.

I suppose that's not entirely true.  His Brother Jacob just got his mission call to Bolivia, and was ordained an elder and went through the temple on Saturday, so we technically went down for that.  But we went down early so we had a couple days to just do whatever we wanted.

We decided to go on a hike and go fishing.  For the hike we went to Moonflower Canyon and it was such a perfect hike for kids...well...minus the poison ivy.  It's short, not strenuous at all, and dead ends into this little pond type thing that was perfect for exploring.



Addison was very intent on documenting our adventures in her sketchbook.





And Bart (and his brothers) spent a lot of their time chasing lizards and looking for antlions. (I included that link because the first time Bart told me about them, I didn't think there was such a thing...apparently I was very wrong).





Someone was playing some sort of recorder and then horn for almost the entire time we were on the hike.  It made the little canyon echo, and gave the whole hike a very surreal feeling. 



Hannah proved to be quite the little trail blazer, and was always up at the front of the line of hikers.  Bart commented that she was just like him when he was her age, so I thought it was cute...that was until her dad had to help her navigate around poison-ivy-infested rocks. 



Charles probably won some best uncle votes while showing the kids all sorts of different insects/animals.











And giving the kids drinks from the Camelbak.  (Lilly later told me that was her favorite part of the trip).





Lilly discovered a newly hatched dragon fly that hadn't even completely stretched it's wings.







Ben just wanted to play in the water. 



The boys (and Addison and Hannah) liked climbing on the rocks.

And then we were on our way back.




After the hike we went to check out the petroglyphs.



There is also a log ladder that goes up this narrow gap in the rocks.  But none of us braved the climb.  That may have been partially because someone was up there the whole time we were there and the kids were ready to go.



This is seriously like one of only three hikes I've been on in Moab.  Ten years of marriage and we've only been on three Moab hikes!  Part of the problem is that Bart doesn't like doing any of the touristy hikes.  But still...three hikes?  That's pathetic.  I'm determined to make sure there are more Moab hikes in our next 10 years.