Monday, September 21, 2009

It's all fun and games until someone gets bitten by a rattlesnake..


Some friends from work told me about this place out by Kanab and I had been dying to check it out. So Saturday, September 19th, Royal, Yoshi, and I loaded up the Toyota and headed out. (Kira was at Grandma's)

I really had no clue where to go, as I didn't bother getting a map from my friends at work. But eventually we found the right place. (I hope?)

It's a vast, open area, with lots to explore. One of the first places we stopped we found this:

Pictographs


Close up of pictographs


Fire pit


Another fire pit


Grinding stone


Close up of grinding stone


We hiked around a bit more and found this guy! Royal almost stepped on him! Yikes! That wouldn't have been a good situation. The snake was hiding very well inside a large outcropping of rock. He was just hanging out in the cool sand in the shade of the rock.




Lots of cool things to snap pics of in this area







We hiked around this area a bit and then decided to drive up the road a little ways. We took off down a side road and stopped near a large rock formation. On both sides of the roads there were small stone lined pits (pit houses???) all over the place. There were pottery shards and arrowhead chippings everywhere. Here's some pics of just a few of the pits:











This must have been a village or something. They were everywhere.








After hiking and driving around for a few hours we decided to head back. It was only about 4pm so on the way back I decided to cut from Highway 59 over to Sr9 and head up to Kolob. Took a few pictures too.







Wild turkeys. (Camera was on mega-zoom sorry about quality)




Dummy Yoshi decided to jump in the lake, I don't think he realized how cold it would be. Not to mention it was about 55 degrees out with wind, and there was a massive storm blowing in. He was shivering so I wrapped him up in Kira's sweater. The look on his face makes me think he isn't a fan of pink..



It was a super fun day. Royal had a blast with his dad, and I had a blast with him!!!!

Riding!!



The kids were bugging me to riding the weekend after they got back. It was their last weekend before school started. We loaded up their bikes and headed out to Warner Valley south of Hurricane. They had a blast as usual! It was fun seeing Kira ride around following her brother rather than just riding in circles around the truck. They had a lot of fun!



Moto Girl!








Future Pro!

The Right Coast



August 4th, I flew to Portland, Maine to pick up my kids. I had not seen them in over a month and a half!! I was pretty excited to say the least!! It was a pretty fun trip, and it was fun being somewhere I had never been. I was a long ways from home!! There are so many trees, (huge trees!!) It's a lot cooler but a lot more humid. The Atlantic is beautiful. But really cold! I ended up taking a bunch of pictures, but I'm only gonna post a few..











The kids had fun at their mom's but were glad to come home. :) I only stayed 2 days but it was a fun trip. Next time I'll be sure to stay longer and see more.

Pioneer Day Weekend


The weekend of July 24, I had some family in town and we decided to have some outdoor fun while they were here. On Friday the 24th, we loaded up my Toyota and my Uncle's Jeep and headed out toward Sand Hollow to brave the heat. We headed south of town and toward the east side of Sand Mountain. The kid's were still at their mom's so it was just me, my mom, uncle, and cousin. Oh yeah and Yoshi too. :)

We headed up the east rim trail toward the backside of the sand dunes. This area is very awesome (as seen in an earlier one of my blog posts) Here are a couple pics I snapped along the way:







We stopped a few times to look around, and eventually ended up near the backside around 11am. It was an overcast day so luckily it wasn't too hot!!















After hiking around and driving over a few rocks we decided to head back down through the sand dunes. Well, we tried to head back down, the sand was very soft and we didn't make it very far. We ended up cutting over to the west rim trail and following it home.


The next day
we went up to Zion and over to Bryce Canyon. On the way to Zion we stopped off at Grafton ghost town. Grafton is one of the most famous and photographed ghost towns in the west. It was also one of the filming locations of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. For more info on Graton, click HERE.

Here are a few pics I took of Grafton, and the Grafton cemetery:











After Grafton we headed up to Zion. What can I really say about Zion? I love it. Oddly enough though I only took these two pictures..





After Zion we headed to Bryce Canyon to spend the rest of the day. This was my first time being there since I was a kid; it was great. It was nice to be out of the heat too. :p I took about a hundred pictures, here's a few:











After Bryce Canyon we headed over to the over-priced Subway to get some dinner. We ended up getting home about 11pm that night. What a fun weekend hanging out with the family, can't wait to do it again!!