Candylands!

A few weeks ago, we went camping to Canyonlands National Park. I threw everything in the car while Sean was at work and when he got home we headed down. Part of the fun of the trip was how spontaneous it was - it's so refreshing to not plan things sometimes! and I was surprised that we didn't even forget anything (which seems to always happen, especially on camping trips).

We figured if we went south it would be warmer. But I'd have to say that I sure didn't feel any warmer! Luckily I sleep with two sleeping bags: a zero degree bag inside of a negative 15 degree bag. So, I do just fine at night.

We didn't arrive at the campground until 11:30pm and all the camping spots were full. So we drove around debating where to pull off and sleep for the night. We ended up finding a nice parking lot to the side of the road and "set up camp" inside the car right next to the "No Camping" sign. Sean and I tried (very unsuccessfully) to lay the back seat down and sleep in the trunk. Needless to say, we didn't get a whole lot of sleep until Sean went to sleep on the ground outside. You might be surprised to know that a car trunk actually is quite comfy if you can wriggle yourself into the right corners! Peter slept in his car seat up on the front passenger's seat. He woke up what seemed like 7 times that night. To me, the night lasted days and I was so miserable and exhausted and couldn't wait for the sun to rise so the night could end. But now whenever Sean and I think back on it, we're like "hey! remember how cool it was to sleep in the trunk? yeah! awesome!" - it's amazing how differently we can look back on bad experiences! I guess the adventure of it takes away the bad memories.


In the wee hours of the morning, we heard a car roll into the parking lot. Oh no! It was a park ranger who had come to kick us out and give us a whopping fine for "camping" in his parking lot! I pretended to be asleep. But no one ever came tapping on the window to get me to leave. I heard more cars drive in a little later, and by the time I woke up the parking lot was full of cars! Apparently we had parked at the trail head of the most popular morning hike in the park. At least it wasn't a park ranger who had come to get mad at us!

Sean came to the car just as Peter was waking up and we he headed up the trail. At the end there was a stunning overlook with a thousand foot drop-off and huge rock formations down in the valley. The main attraction was a big arch that framed all the landscape below. The base of the arch was lined with photographers, all of whom had hauled enormous cameras and tripods up there to get the perfect shot. It was so funny to see them all scrambling to get just the right shot. I grabbed Sean's phone and went to join the photographers. I imagine professional photographers think camera phones are so repulsive - so I felt pretty cool standing there taking shots with an iPhone that's 1/30th the size of their fancy cameras. It must have been a pretty funny sight!


It was a beautiful couple of days. We went on tons of hikes. It seemed like they were all only about 30-60 minutes long, so we did a few hikes per day and we got to see a lot. Peter loved being outside and watching the birds and lizards. He's a good little hiker! Most of the time he's so comfy, he just falls asleep as we are carrying him.


The second night we actually had a campsite, so we built a fire and invited our neighbors to join us. They had been sitting in their car for what seemed like hours and I thought it was because they were so cold! (They were actually planning out their trip). So we tapped on their window and told them we had a fire going. They came to join us and we found out they were from Quebec and spoke French. It was really fun to have a little insight into their lives and what it would be like to live in a big foreign city where the ways of life are so different from Provo. This couple met each other while working in the movie industry and they have been traveling together all over the world for the past 5 years whenever they can take a break from work. It was so cool to hear about where they had been. Sean and I felt inspired to travel more, and I especially felt a renewed desire to move someplace really cool to experience more of the world. I really don't want to live in the same town my whole life. That would make me really sad. Hopefully we will at least be able to travel to a lot of cool places even if we don't actually live there.