“some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. when you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong.” – george carlin

so sometimes our life gets a bit crazy.
{see previous post}
but then, instead of having a week to recuperate, we are thrown right back into school.
immediately.
ask us if we like that.
ok fine i’ll tell you.
yeah we don’t.
we need our break or we go crazy.
so we talked to our friends, chris and emily burton.
we planned a camping trip.
we left wednesday afternoon and drove south to the goblin valley area.
we attempted to find a camping spot but it was so windy.
we set up our tents but had to go looking for another spot because the wind was flattening our tent.
we found a less-windy spot and set up camp.

these are our friends, chris and emily.

it’s just so cool there!

we went exploring a little bit before it got too dark.
those cave things were just so cool to climb through!
the next day we went to little wildhorse canyon.
we hiked through a slot canyon and i fell in love with them…slot canyons, that is.
they are just the coolest things!!


awesome, awesome, awesome.
we didn’t go all the way through this one, but i loved it.
next stop was goblin valley.
and yes, if this picture means anything to you,

this is exactly where we went.
goblin valley was pretty sweet too.

i just want to point out that i took this picture using the self-timer on my camera. further, it was a lot harder to scramble up this thing than i thought it would be. i should get a medal.

and for those of you who are wondering, yes chris reenacted the scene from the movie the above picture comes from (you know what i’m talking about). i had a poor reaction time, so i only got the last few seconds.
but it was amazing.
after we played in goblin valley, we decided to drive to moab because arches was on the agenda for the next day and we needed to find a camping spot.
so we drove over there.
and we drove through all the camp sites that the normal arches-goers were camping in.
no empty spots.
so we kept driving.
no empty spots.
then we found a little town called…ok i can’t actually remember.
but it kinda reminded us of the small town of nilbog, for those of you who know what that is.
needless to say, we got out of there as fast as we could.
we finally found a place to camp.
it was a climber’s campsite, right under castleton tower.

tayte kept giggling like a little girl.
he just loved the sight of that tower and kept saying that he wanted to climb it someday.
gotta love that boy.
the next day was arches day.
i was super excited cuz i’ve never been there.
first we did north and south windows.

south window

north windowwe then went to double arch.

there really was a double arch in the right picture…
then we hiked to delicate arch.
the hike was long and i almost died from exhaustion (minor exaggeration), but it was so worth it.

amazing.
the last place we went was to landscape arch.

on the way out, we stopped by the visitor’s center where we became junior rangers!
it was a lot of fun and we got badges and everything :)
after our long day at arches, it was time to go home.
well, not for tayte.
he had agreed to help at a stake priest outing, and they were rappelling down in moab.
so we dropped him off and drove home.
all in all, it was a phenomenal trip.
it was so relaxing and exactly what we needed to give us a break.
plus we love camping so that’s always a plus :)