Ten in Five

Seeing Ethan and Rebecca tackling all of the obstacles that come with parenting (and I'm just throwing it out there that there are obstacles, and not that Ethan and Rebecca seem to have very many of them), I'm taken back to when John and I were in the same situation.  We had a two-and-a-half-year old at home, and a new baby arriving any day.  I was extremely nervous for a second baby, only because Ethan had been such a colicky baby and had literally drained me of any physical and emotional reserves.  I had been forced to give up everything for Ethan--schooling, work, and all hobbies and interests, because he needed me 24/7.

I was pleasantly surprised when Mark was born, because he was the easiest baby on the planet.  Seriously, I can't even remember Mark as a little baby, because he didn't do much of anything except sleep and eat.  I considered his personality a blessing.  However, when I came home from the hospital, John's mom (and sisters possibly) were waiting for me at our apartment in East Lansing.  Although I can't remember why now, I'm guessing that they had been watching Ethan.  I was so disturbed to see them that I went back into our bedroom and openly wept.

Knowing what I know now about myself and about John's mom, it probably wasn't the best idea to have her in our house when I came home.  I know she was there with good intentions, but let's face it--Kathy and I definitely aren't cut from the same bolt of fabric.  With the subsequent girlie births,  John and I found people to watch our growing kids while we were at the hospital, and we just came home together and worked things out.

This past week was crazy in a wonderful kind of way.  Getting to take care of Baby by myself for a couple of days was the best.  I didn't think I could love her anymore than I already did, but I wanted to cry when I put her down for bed because I missed her so much (and I was only a bedroom away).  However, when I took Baby to visit Ethan and Rebecca in the hospital, and when they eventually came home, I could feel that I needed to step back and let them be a family together.  They understand how they each work, and having me around was just going to be a worry for Rebecca especially.

So, I had two free days, and BYU just so happened to give their students a one-day spring break this year (the first spring break from BYU that my kids have ever seen), and that one day happened to be one of my two free days.  So with a very nice man at our hotel who let me out of my hotel reservation, Glo and I decided to head down to Arches National Park in Moab, Utah.

I've been going to Arches since I was a kid.  I wish I had a picture from then, because if nothing else, those arches certainly haven't changed ;-). Arches feels to me what Disney feels like to other people.  It's relaxing, and fun, and beautiful, and you can make what you want of the park.

In the past, we have always gone for quality over quantity.  We have hiked all of the "moderate" to "difficult" trails, climbing over slick rock, jumping over pools of water, and putting in the long miles. In fact, one trail was so long (which we hiked when Glo was less than a year old and riding in a backpack) that Glo's baby head got a second-degree sunburn.  The burn wept and peeled for years...yes, YEARS.  It wasn't until Glo was about five or six that the skin finally healed up.

This time, Glo and I decided to go a different way.  In her words, we went for quantity over quality.  There are ten "easy" trails, all leading to ten different arches.  We had a full day for hiking, and we figured we would be able to see them all if we really booked it.  

I was really craving red meat the night before.  I'd been eating a lot of turkey sandwiches over the past few days, and my Texan blood can only go so long on lean meat.  We had options of restaurants in Moab with names like Cowboy Cafe, and Roadhouse Roundup, but I was tired from driving so we swung by Wendy's.  Glo didn't want anything (what a surprise...) but a drink, so I made it count.  She was doubled over laughing at the size of her raspberry lemonade :-)

The next morning, we were up at a reasonable hour to grab some breakfast at the hotel and then head into the park.  Glo no sooner got the map from the ranger station than we made our plan.  She suggested that we start in the back of the park (like Harry Potter World, she said) and work our way forward.  She figured that if we started in the front of the park and got tired, we would never keep driving towards the back, but if we started at the back, felt tired, and passed by other arches, we would go hike them "just because we were already there".  A brilliant plan if ever there was one...and an excellent understanding of the human mind!

The kids and I love to read the information given to us by park rangers, and no sooner were we headed to the back of the park than Glo opened the newspaper and started reading.  One of the hot topics?  Ravens.  They are smart, smarter, and the smartest.  So many things touting the intelligence of a rather boring-to-look-at bird, and a warning to not feed them.  Well, we made it to the furthest parking lot, threw on our Hoka One Ones (last minute trip means no hiking boots), and headed to the trail head.  Three cars down the line of parked cars, and Glo spots this:

Some experienced camper (judging by the truck bed of camping equipment) had stupidly left his garbage in the back of his truck.  That tricky raven had pulled apart the plastic bag and was taking out all kinds of goodies from the bag.  Glo spotted an entire soft taco, full of ground beef and cheese in the raven's beak!  And he didn't care how close we got to him--he had struck gold and would not be dissuaded by approaching humans.

So here's what we decided to do.  We would book it to as many arches as possible, keeping a photo journal of the number of arches we saw.

#1--Tunnel Arch.  Easy climb, but we had a pack of people on our heels.  Literally, there was nobody in front of us, but there were easily 30 people behind us.  And as we all know, we Kennedys (minus John, of course) are not fans of people and crowds.

#1: Tunnel Arch (one hiker)

 Backtracking just a bit, passing all the people who were on our heels, we found #2, Pine Tree Arch.  I don't think there are actual pine trees in the arch--they look more like glorified sage brush, but okay.

#2:  Pine Tree Arch (two hikers)

#3 was still on the same loop, so again, it wasn't more than just a picture at #1 and #2.  However, we thought we should be more creative with our numbering system.  We just so happened to have Zebra Cakes in our backpack (take THAT all you granola eaters), so we took a picture.

However, as we got closer, we discovered that the view of the arch got better.

And better....

Glo and I were having so much fun at posing our Zebra Cakes (like, almost peeing in my pants laughing so hard) that we ended up dropping a quarter of a piece in the sand.  Now let me tell you, I'm a proponent of keeping ALL the rules, but I'm not a believer in being the police force of the world.  However, other people don't feel the same, seeing that a man picked up the piece of Zebra Cake (covered in sand) and brought it up to me, telling me that I'd dropped it and "we don't want any animals to find it".  He was very condescending, and of course I only thought of some great comebacks over the next hour, long after he was gone.

#4--Delicate Arch.  Now listen, we have hiked that long, torturous hike to Delicate Arch before.  In fact, in an amazing turn of events, it's one of the trips that Glo actually REMEMBERS! (#NothingInEuropeHowever). It is a HIKE!  2.5 hours roundtrip, up slick rock, and up more slick rock, and if you haven't climbed enough slick rock, let's climb more!  Again, quantity over quality this time, so we made the 0.5 mile hike up to the view point and saw it from a far.  And four of what? Hoka One Ones (and let's remember, it's pronounced Hoka O-nay O-nay) :-)

You can just see the arch between the two shoes on the left, to the right and above the green bush.

I post this picture simply because this is Glo's standard pose when I ask her to do something she doesn't really want to do.  Every picture of her next to the names of the arches (so I can remember which arch is which for this post) she looks like this.

#5 was lovely, because it was super quiet.  Not many people at all.  We learned that when we pulled up to a trail head, the number of cars parked there was a great indication of how many people we would see.  Almost nobody in this parking lot.  And in homage to "The Twelve Days of Christmas", it's....

Can you guess?

Five GOLDEN rings!  Okay, some may be silver (like, four of them), but one of those babies is worth more than a car ;-)

So, can we all take a moment and appreciate how beautiful Glo is?  She curls her hair every morning, and it seriously is what I dream of my hair being.  However, her hair and the desert winds were in a constant battle...and I'm not sure she ever won.

I do feel badly about my 48-year-old body.  I couldn't quite pull off my billy goat impersonation as well as she could...so I just took pictures of her being one.

Okay, I can't do the frown that Glo does because it comes directly from John, but I can certainly take a picture of myself, imitating Glo's attitude....

#6--Sand Dune Arch.  You know those times where you think, "Oh, it will be so nice to take a romantic walk on the beach"?  And then you go down on the beach, and your calves are on fire within ten seconds, and you look like an elephant walking through glue?  That's what it was like, walking up to the arch.  SO. MUCH. SAND.

And in a brilliant stroke of creativity, I decided that we should do a panoramic shot of Glo for our #6. Poor Glo, by the time we tried this twice, she was panting heavily from RUNNING in sand ;-) She's a good sport!

When John and I went to Arches many moons ago, I took a picture of him straddling two rock fins.  He had the best, authentic smile.  I have since lost that picture, seeing as it was printed on paper from a roll of film.  But I do believe Glo and I found the exact same spot, and she one-upped her dad, lifting her hands in the air like a pro!

#7--Broken Arch.  Okay, I think this arch should be called "Love Arch" or "Heart Arch" because it looks like a heart to me, but we can go with the pessimistic point of view.  You would think a cairn would be easy to build, but surprisingly there are few loose rocks around the park, and the winds were causing some mischief.  But Glo came through again.

By this time (about four hours in), our feet were hurting.  Surprise, surprise, Hoka One Ones (remember, O-nays) aren't really made for hiking.  We were about to give up, but true to form, Glo said, "We're already here.  Let's just run and see them."

#8--North Windows Arch.  See those stairs?  I checked my iPhone to see how many flights we climbed over the day, and it was at 49.  Yep, we climbed a lot of stairs and hiked a lot of mountains (although I think the viewpoint to Delicate Arch about did me in).

#8--I drank A LOT of water!  And by this point, we were feeling the sunburn.

#9--Turret Arch.  Glo wasn't very happy to have to bend over to do this, and her hat fell off her head about a million times, and as with all pictures, she was terribly embarrassed, but thank goodness for a long body that can bend it like Beckham ;-)

And finally, NUMBER TEN!  You know what got us to all those arches, all ten arches in five hours? Our toes!  I mean think about it, if we hadn't had toes, I'm not sure we would have made it.  Thankfully, our birthday pedis were still holding on, as was the red sand which we had dumped out of our Hoka One Ones (got it yet?) after every one or two arches.

Glo definitely has her father's second toe ;-)

After all of this, we were STARVING!  So when we stopped at the visitor's center to dump our shoes once more (no sand in Bluey), we got some cell service, and I told Glo to check Trip Advisor for the best restaurant in Moab.  Turns out, it was a place that we had seen the day before and again, almost peed our pants laughing so hard, seeing the name.  Quesadilla Mobilla.  A quesadilla truck!  Could it really be the BEST place in Moab?

We ordered our quesadillas with a side of guacamole and our Blue Sky pops (root beer and vanilla creme) and sat down at a table next to the truck.  The weather was perfect, the day had been grand (thank you, St. Paddy), and life was good.  We couldn't down that food fast enough!  It was delicious!

What a blessing it was to have a day with Glo!  And I have no doubt that Ethan and Rebecca were glad to have their own day alone too <3