Our Adventures in Arches (part 2)

We woke up bright and early on our second day in Arches.  Sonja asked all morning about the Juniper berries which I found out are actually not berries at all but tiny seed cones with small scales that look like a berry.  They are covered in white wild yeast, and too hard to eat, but can be ground up into a spice which has a bitterness perfect for cutting down on the gameyness of meat.  And of course the main ingredient in distilling gin (besides the vodka)

I made breakfast burritos while husband slept in, and then we set off on our hike...

We chose to attempt Devil's Garden with everyone even though the girls didn't have great shoes and mine we're slippery, not great for sandstone boulders.

pretty impressive canyon to walk into.

Architect Arch was the first arch on the trail, it's so frail,

Cairns.

Water

team work and all those balance beam and gymnastics classes finally paying off.

It was right about here we decided to tun back, almost half way, but with the incline of the boulders, it just wasn't practical to keep pushing the kids any further.

I forgot my sun hat, so I spent the morning walking around looking like it was winter and not 70 degrees outside, oh well, back we went...

I'm not tired | hello apparel   +   Galaxy Leggings | Baby Teith

Arches aren't just in the rocks if you look for them, you'll find them everywhere.

Ravens.

we don't let the girls take home anything from parks so they're always asking me to document their treasures before they return them.

Since we got back to camp a bit earlier than everyone else, I did some rock top yoga, thanks to my six year old for documenting.

but after just a few minutes it started sprinkling, so we ran down just in time to get all the tarps set up and mostly stay dry.

It didn't last too long, in fact it cleared up with just enough time to watch the sunset

Ran out of bungee cords, so we pulled the strings out of our hoodies and tied the tarps to all the trees.

next up we prepped some firewood and started cooking dinner.

Sonja learning how to chop wood, and prep some kindling. 

It's not easy starting a fire after the rain, the air is so wet, but after a few tries it caught and we had heat.

What are your favorite memories from camping?  Anyone else do a happy dance every time it rains? just me? Tomorrow, I share our morning in Arches and drive back a four wheel trail and some wild horses.