A Kodachrome Colored Spring Break

April 14 - 21

We headed down to Kodachrome Basin with the Nielsens but spent the first night at the Ranch.

Karly and Dave

Jack-y-Pack

Family Photos - our favorite activity!

Appa, before Clint fixed the suspension! A little lopsided, ya think?

The first adventure was hiking Peekaboo and Spooky slot canyons near Escalante, Utah.

Tall--the hamiest teen ever.

The entrance to Peekaboo

Getting up into Peekaboo takes a team effort.

Now that's a tight squeeze! There are no wide hips here and it was a major shimmy-through!

After we got out of Peekaboo we hiked over land a half mile before getting to the entrance of Spooky.

Here I am at the mouth of Spooky with the forward group of kids.

This, my friends, was the picture that ruined our day. Jack hollered and hollered for me to PLEASE take a picture of him. I relented and Cole and Gavin got ahead of me. Five seconds later Gavin fell down a 15-foot hole and sprained his ankle.

And back out the entrance! We decided going over land would be easier than continuing down the slot canyon. There were two more big drop offs, and there's no way Gavin could have done it. Dave and Clint took turns carrying Gavin the two miles back to the car. And that last half mile was straight up!

     Talmage leaned on me the whole way out. 

We drove to Escalante and took Gavin to a medical clinic, where they gave him a boot and crutches, but they didn't have an X-ray machine. We decided to continue with our camping plans and take him to Salt Lake for X-rays afterwards. 

     It was getting late so we ate at a burger joint in Escalante and then drove another hour to Kodachrome State Park. It was dark when we arrived, but the moon was so full and bright we were able to put up the tents and walk around without flashlights. An hour later, thanks to my 40ish bladder, I had to get up and use the bathroom. When I unzipped the tent door I was surprised to see that it was pitch black! Could the moon have gone down already? I looked up and this is what I saw:

What? Is the moon red in Southern Utah? It seems obvious that it was an eclipse, but I've seen one before and it wasn't red. And it looked enormous--like a planet! On the way back from the bathroom (I got totally lost, because it was so dark) I saw the faint shadow of a person and a tripod. I asked, "Excuse me, Is this a lunar eclipse?" He answered, "Yes, and it's a very special one called a blood moon. It only happens every 100 years or so." I took some pictures with my cell phone and I was so disappointed with how small it looked in the pictures. I found this picture today (October 8, 2014--the second of 4 blood moons this year. It's a very rare cluster of them) and it looks much more like what I saw. It was so amazing to be in that remote spot, with zero light polution, and be surprised by that sight. I felt like I was a caveman witnessing a sign from the gods and concluding that it was time to sacrifice some virgins! It was that unsettling! Really an amazing experience.

CNN says: "n the 21st century, there will be many tetrads [four blood moons in a short period], but look back a few centuries, and you'll find the opposite phenomenon, NASA says. Before the dawn of the 20th century, there was a 300-year period when there were none, says NASA eclipse expert Fred Espenak. That would mean that Sir Isaac Newton, Mozart, Queen Anne, George Washington, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln and their contemporaries never had a chance to see such a sequence."

We woke up in the morning and saw our surroundings for the first time. What a magical place! It was like camping right in the middle of the scenic drive in any of Utah's National Parks. There were spires and domes of red and white all around us.

 And bordering our campground was a slick rock playground that the kids climbed on all day. We just sat in the campground and let them play. It was heaven. You know when you go on those wonderful red rock hikes and the kids constantly want to stop and crawl into every alcove and you are telling them, "Come on! We have to keep on moving!"? It was so nice to let them explore to their hearts content.

Talmage is missing a buddy his age in this crowd, so he always watches over Gwen who also lacks a playmate. He's very sweet with her. He's great at entertaining little kids.

The first day in camp was Trace's birthday! We celebrated at breakfast with his presents that turned out to be a lot of fun at camp. Here you can see him with his double-fist sized gummy bear on a stick.

And his ant farm.

What a cute Cole. 

Clint and I could chat with Karly and Dave all day. They are easy to be around.

Our little gimpy.

The sad foot :(.

The kids found a scorpion, and Clint made a little habitat for it.

The campground had a botanical trail that was so educational. I will never look at the Utah desert and think "devoid of life" again. There are hundreds of plants that have so many uses. Our favorite was the Mormon Tea, which I always called crab grass as a kid because of the hinged joints that you can take apart and put back together again.

It contains pseudophedrine, and the pioneers made a tea of it to treat colds. The kids gathered a bucket full and we boiled it and made a tea! It was surprisingly tasty and I actually did notice it lessening my congestion!

We voted to break camp vice spending another night so that Dave could make a flight in Salt Lake and Gavin could get his Xray. As it turns out it was just a sprain. Phew! Another great vacation with the Nielsens.