Summer Trip 2008: Arches National Park

I have Internet at last. There was supposed to be internet access at camp but it was not working. We had a great week and the boys earned lots of merit badges. I put a smatterring of pictures since it is late and I am tired. I will try and get some of Conner and Nathan from camp when I have more time which will probably never happen since we are proceeding on our non-stop tour early tomorrow morning. The pictures require a bit of explanation. The first is Old Faithful that we were fortunate enough to see erupt four times. This picture is the third time as we were on our way to a worship service on

Sunday morning. The pizza picture is Chris and seven friends eating a 28 inch pizza named Old Ephraim ( it is named after a massive bear who terrorized the local area many years ago) The rest of the pictures were taken today at Arches National Park. We packed up and left camp this morning at the stroke of 9:00 and drove a few hundred miles to Moab, Utah where Arches is located. The picture near the bottom with Chris was taken at Delicate Arch. We hiked a mile and a half with a 450 foot vertical rise to get to the arch. It was quite a hike since daylight was fading. One of us is extremely out of shape and

kept asking for water breaks, picture breaks, and stop the impending heart atack breaks. The last picture is petroglyphs that were carved by the Utes sometime between 1650 and 1850.

Tomorrow we are going to Bryce National Park and then to the Grand Canyon. The trip is flying by. It is difficult to believe that it is already the end of July. We continue to have a great time but we are all excited that we have started our trek home to sleep in our own beds and see our cats. We will be in Somerset by the night of August 1st and we will be back in Kingsville by the night of