Spring Break trip to Moab

On Wednesday afternoon, Cathi pulled up in the van at my work with all the kids and the trailer all loaded up with the Kayak. We drove to Moab and played games along the way. One where we earned points for spotting things along the side of the road such as:

Fedex truck - 3 points
Tree Trailered diesel - 3 points
Out of state License plate - 1 point
Motorcyclist - 1 point
Horseback rider - 2 points
Policeman - 1 point
Car broken down on side of road - 2 points
Schoolbus with kids in it - 3 points
and more... you get the point.

The kids had fun, but Cathi (who was also driving for most of the drive down), was really racking in the points and was winning! That troubled me. The driver shouldn't be winning a "spot it" game. They should be focused on the road! She was highly entertained.

When we got to our camp, it was 9:30 so we had to set up camp by lantern light. In the morning, the kids immediately wanted to go fishing, so we went down there and tried to catch something for the longest time! The sun was out and there were only a few small white clouds. It was a little breezy, but nothing major. I decided to hold off on my swim for the afternoon where it might be a little warmer. Waiting was a big mistake because it only got worse and cloudy, and more windy.

We made a fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for dinner. It was good. We had a good time. When we went to bed, the wind had really picked up and it was really violent. In fact, I put water on the fire before going to bed, but a couple hours later it had restarted and half a log was on fire out of the firepit. I dumped alot more water on it and spread it out and that did it. Before going to bed I had tied the tend poles in three different sections to a post and that made the difference in our tent staying up all night (although it shook like crazy). I personally was a little worried that our tent and all of us inside would be blown away in a tornado it was that crazy! The next morning we had to really be careful when eating cereal not to have our bowls and cereal boxes get blown away.

Cathi mentioned the idea of going home early. We really came down for the marathon which she was going to do on Saturday. Going home on a Friday meant that we would miss her marathon. I suggested that instead we check her into a hotel and have her hook up with a couple of her running buddies that were also coming down for the marathon. She did that and stayed in a hostel where she had her very own tiny cabin to stay in. She walked to town to get her packet and then did some shopping on the way back. I'm sure she enjoyed the peace and quiet while I on the other hand had 7 rough kids to deal with on the way home and back at home.

Actually it went quite well at home. We all worked really hard for several hours to unpack, get the house cleaned well, and then celebrated Jonas' birthday at Classic skating. We had alot of fun! I also was able to get in a really long swim on Saturday morning which I didn't expect, so that was really nice!

Cathi called in and told me that she did her race in 4:20. She had to deal with a bit of wind at the end of the race, and also forgot her mp3 player so she instead carried on conversations with runners and so she wasn't in it to really push herself. She had a good time and we're going to think twice before going on a spring break vacation that involves camping. It's just too risky in counting on decent weather. But for the parts that didn't involve getting blown about, it was enjoyable being together and roughing it.