Kyle and I made the long road trip down to Utah for Memorial weekend. Kyle got to drive on his favorite type of roads…windy ones, and I did not get carsick (miracle). We stayed our first night in SLC to see friends and take a break from driving. The next day we drove a short three and a half hours to Moab. On the way we passed a train that had caught fire, but other then that it was really uneventful.
Our first day in Moab we checked out the town while waiting for Shan and Linds to get there. Shannon kind of tossed Griff in our laps so he was a little unsure of us at first! Griff is now nine months and growing so fast. It only took a couple of hours for him to warm up to us, and he especially loved hanging with Kyle. More importantly, my Dad turned 71 on this day. I still cannot believe he is 71, but I guess neither can he. It is scary being twenty-two and realizing even if your dad lived to be one hundred you only have about as many years with him as you have had so far. And my, those years go fast.
Since I haven’t posted any real adventures or mischief lately, I’ll gladly tell you about a couple of eventful days we had…
The first, to my mom’s increase in blood pressure I’m sure, is about our first day riding. We took the razor and the bikes out to slick rock, which is overlooking Moab. We had barely unloaded everything when my Dad hopped on a bike, no helmet, and took off. We were all wondering where he had gone when we spotted him at the top of some of the rocks across the way. So to recap: my 71 year old dad rode a dirt bike up a trail by himself. (Dad-I’m only repeating your age because in all honesty it is incredible that you do the things you do still. Most people hope they have the strength and life you do when they ‘grow up’.) Kyle and Shan took off to go find him, and everyone else went to go find bathrooms, or to hike around. It was just me and Griff hanging out where we set up camp. My Dad comes riding back alone. He gets off the back and I realize he’s being awfully quiet. Then I see his arm. Bloody. He crashed! He tells me it was no big deal, because nothing, not even cancer, is a big deal to him outwardly . Then I remember he took off without a helmet and ask him if he hit his head. He doesn’t answer for what should have been an obvious reason to me. He readjusts his hat and says he’s fine, but his knee hurt the most. On top of being banged up he had crashed in a puddle of red water/mud! So his whole right side was soaked. My mom comes back and does her “oh DAN!” mom/wife thing. All of my brothers and people that know her know exactly what I’m talking about. Then Shannon takes one look at my Dad and says “you hit your head!” and my Dad just stares him down and mumbles “shutttup!!” Under his hat he was hiding a scraped up scalp and a swollen knot above his eyebrow. He was a sight to see! Needless to say, my Dad did not ride the dirt bikes again. Jeeps and the Razor were a different story…
We rented jeeps. They were beautiful and white, and meant for people like Kyle and Shannon. We drove out towards canyon lands and walked out onto an arch. Freaky! Tamara’s belly was being bounced around too much for being 6 months along, and Griff’s poor head was being held still by Linds. After we got done with that loop, we brought the little ones back to the hotel, and my parents, Shannon, Kyle and I went back out to find some more four wheeling trails. We drove for FOREVER trying to find a good one. We started to go up one that I’m pretty sure we would have died on, but turned back. Shannon and Kyle were convinced we could make it. They were out of the jeep and yelled back to my Dad “what do you think?” as my Dad was turning his jeep around, he yelled “you can see what I think!” We came to another trail that had a warning about Jeeps rolling and that it was a difficult trail. So we kept driving down into the canyon. We finally found a moderate one, that was easy, but Shannon made sure to go up things off the trail to make it more moderate. We went as far as we could in the time we had, then took a picture and hauled back down. My Dad was driving so fast, so Shannon was trying to catch up to him. It was the bumpiest, most fun drive ever. We flew over a couple things, and I was sitting in the back trying to take a few pictures. At one point I went to take a picture of myself, and Shannon jumped a creek bed at the exact same time…it made for a ridiculous picture!
Anyway, the trip was amazing, and it was a good break from life in Pullman. We were sad to leave family and the sunshine, but glad we got to spend some time with them. I'll post some pictures soon
love, us
