Natural Bridges Adventure

The week after Snow Lake we packed up again and headed out on another adventure. We skipped our camping trip with Adam and Joe last year but made a point to do one this year (We have previously done Grand Canyon in 2013 and Capitol Reef in 2014). We left on Wednesday evening and drove to Blanding, Utah where we stayed in a hotel. The next morning we were up and on our way to the Natural Bridges area. Before we were going to meet up with Joe and Adam we planned a little hike of our own. The trail led to a ruin at the end of a little canyon. First we had to hike through a small jungle:

There were some beautiful wildflowers all along the trail.

Starting up the canyon

I was amazed at the tall canyon walls.

More pretty wild flowers.

We hiked up a little to get to where the ruins were at

And there are the ruins behind the boys.

Can you see the etchings on the wall?

And more

I love watching Stan at these sites. Each time, it is like he is seeing this kind of thing for the first time. I love his wonder at them

I always wonder what the pictures mean. Archeologists pretend like they know, but I can't help but wonder what is really real.

These kind of holes the people used to gather water after a good rain.

This canyon was sure beautiful

A closer up picture of the ruin.

Stan went to see if he could go up a different way to get a better look at the ruin so the boys and I hung out at the bottom of the canyon for a few. Scott was dancing here. He has such a fun imagination.

Looking out towards the canyon entrance.

Stan was able to get a little closer to the ruin, but not much. He did find a few interesting things up there:

Corn cobs and some other grindings

zoomed out picture where the corn was

Next to that hole where the corn was were a bunch of spots where the people would use rocks to grind their herbs and flour.

A metate, broken in half. A rock used to grind like the worn spots in the picture above.

Some pictographs

There were lots of hand prints and from what Stan could find online, they were mostly original.

A ruin rock wall

This shows some of the different clay workings they did to build their structures.

On our hike out of the canyon, saw a few changing colors!

Some more changing colors in the back.

I love following behind this man on our adventures

I had to include a picture of a nasty large field of cockleburs. Stan spent hours upon hours pulling these out of the farm fields growing up.

We had a little more time to visit a couple small ruins but it was time to feed Sterling and we figured Stan could make better time without us, so Stan headed on a quick jaunt up a trail that passed a couple ruins.

After a fun day of exploring ruins, we headed to find a campsite and found the perfect one! We got all set up and just in time for a storm to come! We even got a table set up underneath a tarp so we could make some amazing tikka masala for dinner.

These two are so adorable.

And Sterling was such a happy camper!

The boys ready to eat our delicious dinner in the rain

Beautiful evening after the rain

It was pretty chilly that evening. Stan was showing Scott how to warm his hands by the fire. I love watching these two together!

We headed out the next morning for a "6" mile hike down a billion feet into a canyon, along the river, and then back up again (with a lot of up and down going on in there).

Starting off down the trail

Family pic by the first bridge, smiling because we feel great first thing in the morning

Joe looking so deep in thought in a grand place

Bridge #1

Down, down,

down we go!

Parts of the canyon floor were very vegetated.

Looking up from beneath the first bridge

Following the leaders...

Sterling was a little curious about his surroundings and what the day had in store

This beautiful butterfly just sat here while we took pictures of him

And here's Adam

We stopped for lunch and to check out the Horse Collar ruin.

Scott loved playing with Joe the whole trip.

Horse Collar ruin:

Room

Kiva looking room

Door

Looks like grinding spots

The roof. The people at the visitor's center told us that the roof was original.

Looking down into the room

Petroglyphs

The outside of the Kiva, a place for the smoke from the fire to escape..

Why it has the name of Horse Collar...it looks like a horse collar!

Joe and I up at the ruin. We had to take turns so we didn't cart the boys up there. It was a bit of a scramble to get up there.

Looking down at Adam and Stan and the boys playing.

Scott wanted to take off his clothes and play in the water :)

Stan up by the ruins.

There were probably ruins all over on these canyon walls. We need a ultralight!

As we were hiking, I may have been known to randomly say point at a spot along the canyon, "that looks like a ruin!" and all the boys would say, "nah, not really." And they were right...but one time...I was right!! There was totally a structure up in that little hole!!

:)

There were spots that had HUGE rock boulders that had fallen down and I felt so grateful I did not witness it.

Joe was nice and took a turn with Scott. Walking under bridge #2.

Fall colors, Sun, I love it!

There were some spots where slot canyons were forming.

😍😍😍😍😍

From the last time they did this hike, Stan and Joe remembered another ruin and they headed up the trail to find it. I wish I had gone with them:

Bridge #3, smiling because this is the last bridge...and I am not holding one of the boys :)

The guys

Well we lived. The park website says that the full loop trail is 8.6 miles. Yuck, but it was beautiful and a fun day.

All ready for dinner that evening.

"Hey Mom! Take my picture!" He insisted

Beautiful sunset close by our camp.

The next morning we packed up, mostly (minus our drying tent). Scott played roll the basketball around the hills with Joe while we did. Joe was ever so patient :)

We unloaded everything from our car and loaded all of us up and headed out to see what we could find

We found beautiful colors!

And a cute photo opp

More amazing colors. Some of these Aspens had red on them!

The kids fell asleep so that guys went on a short 1 mile hike out to a peak we were driving close by.

From the peak

And on our drive we went down this crazy road that led to an OLD mine!

It had a gate, that wasn't closed, in front of it, lots of random things like an oven, and old cabin a bit away, and tin cans lying around. I wish we had had more time and no kids...I might have explored a little more :)

I love pines and blue skies and dirt roads and fall colors!

We went back to the camp site, loaded all up, and headed home. It was such a perfect camp trip and on the second night, both of the boys slept through the WHOLE night! So much fun!

As a random end note...if you ever want to rent a van like this one, apparently that's a thing...Just saying