Sunday, August 16, 2009

Escalante!

This year we celebrated Pioneer day--yes, we Utahan's celebrate Pioneer day--in Escalante, UT. I love this little town. About every couple years my family traveled down to southern Utah for the 24th of July celebration. Escalante is picturesque and grand. We love to hike around, drive on Hell's Backbone and Hog's Back, and participate in all that the city has to offer--a town dance, parade, shoot-out, rodeo, fireworks, and more.


This video was taken as we drove down. Right around Scipio the wind was picking up a ton of dirt which made a huge dirt cloud. We watched it form, and eventually drove through it, and once in the cloud we could not see 20 feet in front of us. Luckily it took only a few minutes to drive through it.

At one of our stops we saw this awesome car: the Ghostbuster-mobile! It was picking up lunch at Arby's and we had to take a picture. The lady at the Arby's window waved at us and I felt kind of embarrassed like I looked like a paparazzi. I guess Ghostbusters are real, and have made improvements in their mode of transportation!

When we got there we relaxed. Henry chewed on an apple while Todd rocked in the huge wood swings in front of the Prospector Inn.
Then we checked out the petrified wood forest--that's what Henry's sitting on.

Henry with my parents and cousin, Azalea. All those rocks you see lying around are petrified wood.


At the petrified wood forest we went on a little 1 mile hike. The Freestones are big hikers, and Henry is definitely one of them. He loved it. We love his little chubby hiker legs.

We made it to the "top" (post 9 of 12). Hiking with kids can be kind of tricky, especially when it's hot and dry, but we made it to the point where Escalante can be seen and we were satisfied. At about post 5 my nephew was in the lead and he saw that to the left someone had paved their own trail. He stayed on the true trail and from post 5 to 9 he said, "If I hadn't seen this trail would we not be here now." And back down to the trial head he continued, "We would not have made it this far if I hadn't seen the trail and you followed me." And in the car back to the hotel he continued on. Thank goodness he was in the lead. ;) It was awesome.

This is Henry with cousin Marysa at the parade. He's still chewing on an apple while adoring his cousin.
Here's the guy who rides through the parade on his motorized lazy boy with a giant rubber hand holding on to his Super Big Gulp. He wears at visor with spiky hair sewn into the top. He gets a lot of cheers.

Todd's entertaining the little ones at the family dinner.

The Gates family at the family reunion. You can see my great uncle and cousin talking to Todd--telling him some wild story I'm sure.

It was a blast.

2 comments:

Rachel said...

That sounds fun! Oh, and I love that you have a booklist on the side of your blog. Have you ever heard of goodreads (goodreads.com)? You should join! It's basically like an online book club where everybody shares what they've read, are reading, or want to read.

okbushmans said...

How is it that Ryan has been apart of our family for 7 years, and has never been to Escalante for the 24th?