Adventure time

We had another glorious weekend adventure.  It's been a good summer of discovering Utah beyond the Wasatch Front.  I like the Wasatch Front, but the rest of Utah is straight up amazing.

Friday we went to Boulder to stay with Tabor and Katie.  This adventure was better than most because Emma was there too.  The planets aligned and she didn't have to work.  Tabor and Katie fed us a delicious dinner and then we stayed up too late talking and slept in their luxurious guest accommodations and maybe we'll just move in.

Family is great.

That is all.

We had an amazing breakfast and stayed around the table chatting until almost lunchtime and then we headed out to Capitol Reef National Park.  Tabor told us about an alternate route to get there which included dirt roads and some intense switchbacks.  My vote was no.  I've been on some rough roads in that little Subaru and I don't love it.

Adam was convinced though and I'm not sorry.  It was an incredible road.

The scenery knocked our socks off (well it would have if I hadn't been wearing the same sandals I've worn on every adventure this summer and they are starting to show the peril).

The switchbacks stressed Emma out.

We tried to talk her down while we drove down down down and she almost lost it when she thought we were going to drive with Mark hanging halfway out the car.  (We weren't going to do that.)

Mark is irreplaceable.

It is monsoon season and there were thunderstorms in the area.  As we drove across a soft and sandy stretch of the road, there were a few areas where the road was washed out.  This is the kind of thing Adam looks for with the Subaru.  As he sped through one washed out section, the car slid sideways in an alarming way.  After we emerged victorious, Mark was impressed.  He said, "Dad, that was some sick drift."

Our original plan had been to hike in a slot canyon but the weather precluded that idea.

We stopped and had a snack/lunch of cheese and crackers purchased at the postage stamp sized store in Boulder.  Here I am, slicing cheese with a pocket knife.  It's about as outdoorsy as I get.

Mark and Emma engaged in feats of strength...

Emma cracked us up with her dramatic attempt to leap the fence.  Our children will do anything for a laugh and I almost always accommodate them.

I loved having Emma there.  We all did.  It's great to go on trips with Mark and then Emma makes it twice as good and then tomorrow (TOMORROW!!) we will have Braeden here and everything will be three times as good.

Emma wrote a poem, inspired by the desert?  I asked her to text it to me.  She told me that if I was going to put it on my blog, I needed to let you know "it's supposed to be read in a kinda almost stoner voice and there has to be a whole bunch of pauses for dramatic emphasis."  I wish I could translate her delivery for you.

Hi my name is Clarence and this is a poem that I wrote about heterocapitalism in America and the systematic oppression that I face every day.

A sea of cactus
In a desert of sand.
Raindrops fall.
Raindrops land.

Rain clouds go away.
Sun burns hot.
Some cactus thrive.
Some do not.

A weary traveler
Hungry and lost.
Been in the sand wastes.
Battered and tossed.

He finds no refuge
In the cactus sea
Because he's too different.
That traveler is me.

Thanks guys.

At some point I maybe did something to deserve these children.  I don't know what it was, but I'm glad I did it.