Dadcation-
Ramadan in Cairo
After 8 hours to Rome and another 4 to Cairo, a friendly brown-skinned man met us to take us to baggage claim, looked incredulous when we told...
-
spring break in Italy: Rome
It was Saturday, April 6 when we woke up in Rome, and my kind bride had scheduled the most fitting activity I could possibly engage in at...
-
spring break in Florence, Tuscany
We arrived by train in Florence and navigated the throngs of tourists toward our AirBnb, a unit requiring climbing several flights of wooden stairs with steep rises....
-
Driving to St Andrews
On Tuesday the 5th of July, I walked a mile in the rain to Hertz and rented what was supposed to be an automatic Audi but ended...
-
Edinburgh, Scotland
On Monday, we began our second day in Scotland with hopes of touring the Palace of Holyroodhouse, but the Queen was there, meaning no tours were to...
About
I started blogging in 2007 during an Air Force deployment to Iraq and kept at it when I got back. Since then, I’ve written for DadCentric, City Dads Group, Humor Blogs, and other sites. This site is primarily for our family travels and adventures, because I forget stuff if I don’t write it down. Our family trips include 2 girls with a boy in the middle; they’re led by an archeologist-turned-writer/influencer mom and a dad who’s deployed to Iraq twice, visited all 50 United States, run with the…
We awoke at Capitol Reef, Utah’s least visited of its 5 national parks, and had a lousy breakfast at Pioneer Kitchen before going by the visitor center for junior ranger workbooks and hiking the 2.25-miles-each-way Grand Wash trail in the bottom of a canyon with 800′ sandstone walls. It was hot as Hell in July, but it included cool graffiti from the 1800s where folks in covered wagons carved their names into the rock, but you can’t add your own, because there are cameras and signs telling you not to add your own.
There were some fun sections where we could stop and practice our rock climbing, so we each picked ledges on which we could pause, sit, and have the water and snacks we’d packed.
We saw bighorn sheep, enjoyed the 15-feet-wide narrows section, and waded into the stream at the end of the trail before doing it in reverse.
We drove the Capitol Gorge Trail scenic drive and had pizza and beers at the Rim Rock patio near our cabin before taking on another hike, but this time, we climbed up to “the tanks” area, a place where settlers would get water 200 years ago and enjoy the view. On the way were petroglyphs from the Fremont Culture in like 600 AD.
That evening, the children enjoyed the pool and made friends with other travelers while their parents took advantage of the wifi to get some work done. We had s’mores at the fire pit before bed.
The next morning, we got coffee and pies at the Gifford Barn in the national park before attending a ranger-led geology class, and afterward, the children were able to get their first “live” swearing in ceremony as junior rangers at a Utah national park (the previous two parks had workbooks but didn’t do live swearing in or interactions because of Covid).
We drove up to Panorama Point, which provided namesake views of the red rock, and I held the youngest up over the valley below us in Simba/Mufasa fashion that made for a good Instagram story.
After that, we checked out of our cabin, hit Castle Rock Coffee & Candy in Torrey, and began the 120-mile-or-so drive to Bryce Canyon National Park on Scenic Byway 12, and it’s amazing (apparently Forbes and Car & Driver have declared it among the nation’s best/most scenic drives). I loved it. You go over plateaus that are 9,000 feet in elevation and see valleys 4,000 below. And at Bryce Canyon, we enjoyed two activities that are among my top 5 favorite experiences in any national park, so stay tuned!
We stopped at Lin Ottinger’s Moab Rock Shop on our way out of Moab, where we saw dinosaur fossils and gems from all over the world strewn about dusty shelves both inside and outside the store. A Japanese man interviewed the elderly shop owner as a lighting crew and cinematographer followed. We were just there so my 11yo could get a souvenir gift for his best friend. I picked up petrified wood book ends for my paralegals’ office.
Forty minutes later, we pulled into Dead Horse Point State Park and gazed downward at the horseshoe-shaped canyon where, supposedly, a bunch of horses starved to death many decades ago.
Twelve miles later, we entered my 33rd National Park–Canyonlands. We followed the “island in the sky” hiking trail along the edge of…well, a canyon, and at the bottom of this canyon were additional canyons, and it was like a Canyon Inception that I had zero desire to plummet into.
We stopped at Ray’s Tavern in Green River for burgers along the I-70 before continuing to Goblin Valley State Park, which provided the landscape for the “alien planet” scene in “Galaxy Quest,” which provided great entertainment to my bride and the children, who’ve apparently seen the movie many times and answered my “What do y’all do while I’m in the office all day during quarantine?” question. We watched the sun begin its descent from among rocks shaped like goblins.
After another hour of driving into the evening, we pulled into Capital Reef National Park, where we checked into the Capitol Reef Resort (which sounds fancy but is a series of teepees, covered wagons, or cabins around a grassy area with fire pits). This is an “international dark sky” park, which made stargazing from our cabin extraordinarily awesome.
We had s’mores and enjoyed the Adirondack chairs around the fire pits before going to bed, eager to explore the park for the two days that followed.
We flew into Salt Lake City on July 4 and headed south to Arches National Park early on the 5th, bunking in Moab at the Gonzo Inn.
We stopped by the park for junior ranger booklets and to pull over at a spot that allowed me to take a photograph I took with my Kodak Disc camera in 1987, and I can’t tell which one is better, but here’s the one from 2020:
It’s called Balanced Rock, and I’m pretty sure why.
My bride suggested we do what seemed like an easy 1-mile hike through the red rocks called Park Avenue, ending at Courthouse Towers (much of the park and its trails are named after seemingly familiar objects in rock formations), but since it was through loose sand and in 105+ degree heat, the children did not think it all that easy and let their displeasure be known. “This is why I’ve been telling y’all to exercise all summer–the next 9 days will be just like this.”
Stop whining, babies.
We retraced our steps for the mile walk back to the car, drove to various overlooks in the park, and watched the sun set over Delicate Arch, which is so famous that it’s on Utah’s license plates.
That night, after Moab Brewery for dinner, we enjoyed the Gonzo Inn pool, the Gonzo Inn robes, and the Gonzo Inn’s lackadaisical enforcement of any open container or smoking prohibitions.
Our second day at Arches National Park included what may very well be our family’s favorite hike in a national park (eclipsing Vernal+Nevada Falls at Yosemite): the Double O Arch trail.
The trail went by Landscape Arch first, which made for a Christmas-card-worthy photo opportunity before we started the 2-mile ascent up a stone incline, across a narrow stone bridge, and through rock formations, guided by cairns until we arrived at the namesake double arches for hydration and rest before enjoying the hike in reverse.
Despite the scorching heat and steep inclines, the children followed us without lagging or complaining. Afterward, we were finished hiking for the day and did some driving/pulling off the road to see stuff like these petroglyphs:
Then, it was time for pizza and beer at Zax, some gelato in the village nearby, and back to the Gonzo Inn pool. The next morning, after breakfast at Red Rock Bakery, we’d head west to my 33rd national park, Canyonlands.
We loved our 2 days hiking Arches and exploring Moab, which, judging by the new hotel construction and the road widening project, is poised to become an even more popular tourist destination than it already is. You should hurry up and go before it gets overcrowded.