August 18-20st We arrived at Lake Powell on August 18th after a 4-hour drive from Bryce. The trip was fairly uneventful. We passed right by Zion and I mentioned to Joe that maybe we should add that to our trip. Although we are having an amazing time, I think all of us are looking forward to some routine when we land at our new home. We are staying at the Wahweap RV Park at Lake Powell. I learned that Wahweap is a kind of stone…thus, the name. This RV Park is part of the larger Lake Powell Resort, and we able [View Full Entry]

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This morning, Elise, Simone and I went on a trail ride to the canyon. Elise road her own horse, Strawberry, and Simone and I rode Heeber. The ride was fairly uneventful as all we did was walk. Simone was immediately bored, and wanted to go home, so we made up some songs about the horses. She brightened up immediately. Elise was start-struck the whole time and was very proud of herself at the end. Joe and Ethan went on an off-road ATV ride this morning. The guide who led it was a “grouchy old fart” as Joe describes him. The guide [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday, we drove to Bryce Canyon. We thought it was going to be 4.5 hours, but it was 5.5 hours. We are staying at Ruby’s Inn just outside of Bryce. I was expecting a smaller resort, but this place has everything…pool, store, post office, shopping, internet. We went to the pool and hot tub with the kids and decided we liked Bryce Canyon immediately. These types of resort places seem to work best with young children. Today, we went into Bryce Canyon National Park. The kids are less enthusiastic now, in fact, they are downright whiney about hiking. I know if [View Full Entry]

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Another hot one in the desert. Today we let the kids go off schedule, and swim first then tour the park. We usually use swimming as a way of "motivating them" to do the things we want to do during the day, but today we were more flexible. It was good because it was hot already in the morning. Today was declared "sarong day", and Elise, Simone and I started the day off wearing sarongs. We decided to tour Canyonlands National Park today. Canyonlands is the largest National Park in Utah, but also is the least family friendly. It is a [View Full Entry]

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Elise’s 6th birthday. Elise practically jumped out of bed this morning. She was so excited that it was her birthday. She got to open a few small presents and was happy as a clam all day. Today, the high was 104 degrees (by our car thermometer). We went to Arches National Park and tried to get there early. We stopped by the Visitors Center to get the kids registered for the Junior Ranger Program. It was 88 degrees at 9:30 am……whoohoooo, it was going to be a hot one! The drive into the park is up a series of switchbacks that [View Full Entry]

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Today was a travel day. We drove from Longmont, CO to Moab, Utah. All in all, I think it was about 7.5 hours through some beautiful mountain territory. Once we got closer to Moab, it was clear that the topography changed. All of the sudden we were no longer looking at pine trees, but red dirt and desert conditions. We arrived at our campground, the Arches RV resort and swam. In addition, it was warm in Colorado when we left but it was 100 degrees when we landed in Utah. We swam in the cold pool, and had dinner outside at [View Full Entry]

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August 9th-12th Wendi and Scott have two children, Aimee (6) and Toby (almost 4). All in all, this was a wonderful stop for us. Our kids had a ball with the Stewart Children. In addition, Wendi and Scott have two chickens (Annie and Clarabelle), two dogs (Lucy and Chili), and two guinea pigs (didn’t catch the names) and one beta fish (maybe has a name). The chickens are extremely used to being handled, so our kids carried around chickens and collected eggs every morning with Aimee and Toby. In addition, Wendi and Scott have remodeled their home to include a ball [View Full Entry]

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August 9, 2007 Today, we hung by the camper until noon. We had an “open house”, where other campers came and saw the inside of our camper. So many people seem to be interested in the fact that we are pulling the camper with a mini-van. Now that I think of it, we really haven’t seen any mini-vans pulling campers….hmmmmm. We met some cool people named Alyssa and Andrew, and their son Max, from the Bronx. Alyssa is doing her Ph.D. in Social Work, and was pregnant, so we chatted about parenthood and academia. We learned today that a tornado hit [View Full Entry]

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August 8, 2007 Today was a beautiful, clear, sunny day in the Mountains. This is what I remember of Colorado from when I was in college. The sky was a beautiful blue, with fluffy white clouds. Joe got up early with Ethan and Elise to take them fishing at Sprague Lake. We are determined to have them catch something. They all bounced out of bed at 6:30 am and ran out to fish. Ethan ended up catching a 1-pound Rainbow Trout but neither Elise nor Joe were so lucky. Next, onto sight seeing. We drove the Trail Ridge Road and stopped [View Full Entry]

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Today was a rainy day at Rocky Mountain National Park. We were able to get some time in doing some things around the campsite. Then, we went into Estes Park to use the internet. Estes Park is a fairly touristy town but the McDonalds has internet access. Back to the campsite for movies in the afternoon. We have been so lucky with weather it is hard to complain. We’ve been on the road for over 2 weeks now and this is our first day where we want to stay insides. Once the rain ended, we went for a hike to go [View Full Entry]

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