Road Trip to Utah

Tuesday July 2, 2013

I love road trips and this years was even more fun because Clement came with us.

  Tyler made the All-star team, so I cut our trip a few days short so we

 could watch him play his 2 games.  I think it was the best because it would of been HOT
 and to camp 3 nights and do twice as much 

driving would of been too much.  

 Trevor always has a way of making us laugh...

We stopped @ Peggy Sue's Diner for lunch.

Last time Elaine took a picture with Betty but this time it was Trevor's turn:)

 When we pull in to the parking lot @ Peggy Sues we see all these Military Tanks,

 Trevor says to me "Bet those are all filled with fish."

I look at him, I'm sure with a puzzled look on my face, and say "What?"

"You know, because that would make them all fish tanks."

 When Trevor saw the sign to "Watch for Rocks" he started to point them out to us... "There's one, Oh there's another one, I found a rock, Guess what? I found another rock."  After a few minutes of this we had to ask him to stop:)  But every time he saw a sign after that he thanked the sign for reminding him to watch for rocks.

 This was an impressive gorge we drove through in Arizona. I think I was so impressed

 because we were at the bottom looking up the hundreds of feet of rock,

 I felt small, even the semi-trucks looked small as they drove by...and yes Trevor

 pointed out all the rock to us.

The temp reading in the car was up to 120 (in Vegas) but for most

 of the drive around 100.  When we pulled into St George, Utah it

 was 117 @ 7:30 pm and it stayed that hot the whole time we were there.

Wednesday July 3, 2013

 A little get out of the car and stretch your legs break...

the kids said that the water was cold...

Watch this Mom!!

Did you get it?

 The road to Bryce Canyon... with a quick stop @ Ceder Breaks National Monument

My Clarks:) @ an elevation of 10,350 feet

This was Bryce Canyon...breathtaking

The chipmunks were everywhere... we joked that they were posing for pictures because they just pooped up and sat there saying "look at me, look at me, I'm so cute, take my picture, give me food!"

Thursday July 4, 2013

We spent a very nice HOT day in St George.

Farmer Johnson found these Dinosaur footprints and built this very nice museum around them for us to enjoy.

Was impressive how anyone knew what they were looking at in some of the rock.

The prints were marked out and it was still hard to see some of them.

The "kids" room had origami for the ones who understood how the read the symbols (Elaine)

Thank you Elaine!!

Trevor found the puzzles more his speed :)

I think we look great in our shirts!

After some swimming, baseball and a lovely sunset we went and found fireworks.

 Friday July 5, 2013

 This quail family was super fun to watch and listen to.  They were in the bushes then one by one jumped up on the wall, stayed in the shade until a runner came by and then they moved into the sun then one by one jumped down and moved onto a different area.  Took a lot longer to read my Bible this morning. :)

During Tyler's research of Dinosaurs in Utah for his state report  he came across this place...

 This was a lot of driving on roads that seemed to go on to no where...

But between mile marker 56 and mile marker 57 we found a dirt road and after 25 miles or so on that dirt road we found an open sign... Trevor was so happy he jumped out and kissed and hugged the open sign.

Every where we went we found Trilobites in the rock... we got to keep every one we found.
Praise the Lord for store and go seating storage space!

 Hammers in hand, we pounded rocks to find the treasurers inside.

Each of the kids said this was there favorite day, it was the warmest at around 100 and the rocks made it seem hotter. After we hunted for about a hour and a half we left... when I watched the news that evening at the condo the lead stories were how huge winds and rain swept through and pounded this area about an hour after we left.  Utah Lake had to have people rescued on it, (we saw the lake as we were leaving) glad I didn't have to drive in that!

Saturday July 7, 2013

Zion National Park

...again God's handy work was breathtaking!

 Clement sitting and thinking about his American family about how they are the best family ever!  He is so lucky to have meet us and how special we make him feel. How much he's going to miss us when he goes home.  He's thinking about how he is going to come every year to see them because the Clarks are sooooooooooooo cool and no one compares with them.:)  Right Clement? That's what you were thinking.

End of a mile long tunnel.

As we left Zion we saw a sign for the Grand Canyon ~ North Rim, having never been to the North Rim and knowing that the Grand Canyon was just as breathtaking as every thing else we had seen and it was only a 100 miles away it was easy for the kids to talk me in to just keep driving,  I didn't have a map of the area but I thought there would be a way "out" the other way.  Not So!  After we saw, took pictures and took a short hike we drove back the whole way we had come... back through St George...left there @ 11 am and drove through again @ 6 pm to get home.

 Bison in this field on the way to the North Rim.
 When we drove back by about 2 hours later they were no where to be seen.

 The Forest was a little unexpected.  Nice drive and we got into some rain.

 Short Hike to see the Canyon...

 I love these guys!!

After my long but well worth it detour we drove back through the
gorge towards home... full memories and a plan for next year...
road trip in FRANCE :)