Day 27

I woke up and read 50 pages from my book. I am reading Children of the Lamp and I would reccomend it to kids. It is about two kids who find out they are djinn and go on adventures with their uncle Nimrod. After that I played my favorite computer game called Runescape. Later we jumped on my aunt's trampoline and watched Shark's Tale.

That night my mom went to meet two friends of hers and I meet a nine year old boy named Chase. We went out to get pizza. Me and Chase bought some mints at the restaurant and we but them in our pop so they would fizz up. I really liked Chase. We got to sit in our own booth together without any adults. We stayed out super late and then went to my aunt's for bed.

Day 26

When we woke up we got ready to go on a hike down some slot canyons since my ankle was feeling better. We drove to a place to hike Peek-a-Boo Gulch but we accidentally went down a different slot canyon. On the hike to the canyon we saw a four foot long long gopher snake. Luckily it was not a rattle snake. A slot canyon is where there is a thin canyon with extremely tall cliffs on each side. There is just a narrow little passage for you to walk down. I think slot canyons look amazing. Steen was hiking with my dad's treking pole. He thought it looked like a spear. It was too big for him so it looked silly. After this slot canyon we found peek-a-boo gulch but you had to do too much climbing to get started and Steen was too little to do it.

After our hike we drove through Escalante to my aunt Amy's house in Lehi. We needed a shower and to wash our clothes. We got to my aunt Amy's at 8:30. We took a shower and washed our clothes and went to bed.

Day 25

We drove to the kaiparowits plateau and we camped there. We found a camping spot, but me and my dad went on a bike ride to see if there were any other camp spots since our van got stopped at a place that it could not go over. We had to stay at our first camping spot. When my dad and I got back me and my siblings played around uyntil it was dinner time and we made pizza pockets and cherry pies for dinner. We had a relaxing time. I couldn't do to much since my ankle was a little sore.

Day 24

Today my family woke up and had breakfast and my siblings and I gathered leaves for a gigantic pile and we jumped in it and had a leaf ball fight. You make leave balls by getting a handful of leaves and you squish them together and they pretty much stay together. Then you throw them at other people. We played this for a long time.

We drove to Calf Creek and got a camping spot. Calf Creek has a creek running through the camping area and you can play in it whenever you want. Me and my sister and my brother played in the creek all afternoon until dinner time. I was gathering sticks to make a raft. It was a sunny day so it was a good day to play in the creek. I didn’t get to finish the raft.

Then we ate sloppy Joe’s and couscous for dinner. After that I climbed on a rock cliff and I was trying to get across but I slipped and fell twenty feet into a small tree. The tree saved my life. The tree helped me so I did not get really injured. By falling into the tree it broke my fall so I didn’t smash into the ground. I was falling super fast. It all happened in a second. Next time I am going to be more careful when I rock climb. My dad ran to try and catch me but I fell too fast. I am lucky I didn’t break any bones. I jammed my ankle a little bit but I can still walk on it. It hurts a little. I went to bed after that!

Day 23

On Sunday my family packed up and went to Capitol Reef national park. While we were driving there we stopped in a store built in the side of a rock mountain and we got gas and treats. Then we got to Capitol Reef. The camping spot in Capital Reef is different from other camp spots since it is in a large grassy field full of trees instead of in a sandy place. A river runs through here and there are lots of fruit orchards in the dessert. It still has red sandstone plateaus, cliffs, and boulders.

We went on a three and a half mile hike called chimney rock and it was pretty easy. At our camp site we meet a girl named Maya and we all jumped in a leaf pile.

Day 22

On the twenty-second day my family and my aunts and uncles woke up and my uncles and my dad looked near wild horse canyon for a new camping spot since our campground was full. They found one on BLM land. In BLM land you can camp where ever you want and there are no camp spots, it is called boondocking. Then we all drove to the new camping spot. Then we played games and had breakfast. Then after that my uncles, my dad, and I went on an 8.5 mile long bike ride. There were lots of hills on the bike ride. We were going to go on this short one mile trail but it said no bikes allowed. I had to ride pretty fast to keep up with my uncles. The fastest I rode on that bike trip was 23 miles per hour. There were steep hills to climb and they were hard for me to ride up. The bike trip was the best part of the day.

For the rest of the day I played cards and ate junk food. I watched Jack Jack attack on the Incredibles bonus disk and then I went to bed.

Day 21

Today my family got up early and went to Goblin Valley State Park in Utah. We were meeting two uncles, two aunts, one cousin and one dog later that night. So we had all day to wait and it was really freezing and windy. The wind was blowing sand in our eyes and also blowing lots of tents over. People were having to chase their tents.

What’s interesting about Goblin Valley is that there are lots of weird shaped rocks. All the rocks are different from one another. By our campground we had these 35 feet tall rocks. These rocks were even softer than sandstone. They crumpled easily when stepped on. The rocks look like dried mud slides and clumps of adobe mixed together. I climbed up and over one set of rocks but I couldn’t get down the backside so I had to come down the way I came.

In the afternoon we went to hike in the Valley of the Goblins. You go down into a huge valley and there are thousands of clusters or bumpy mushroom shaped rocks. You can climb on them. They look like goblin houses with rooms. I was down in the valley for four hours playing on the rocks with my siblings. I liked the valley of Goblins a lot since the rocks were all in weird shapes and some of them looked like castles. It is a good place to play.

Late that night my relatives arrived and brought a trailer which they slept in. I like my uncles since they like to go mountain biking and I do too. They are the kind of uncles who let me go mountain biking with them.

Day 20

Today my family had to wake up really early to drive to Dead Horse Point State Park. We went so early so we could get a camp spot. When we got there at nine in the morning there were only two camp sites left. When we got to our camp site we put our water jug on the table so people would know it was taken. We then drove back to Moab and got some breakfast. My dad really likes Moab since it is a mountain biking town. My dad has gone to Moab many times to bike ride. When we were in Moab my dad went to a few bike shoo down into a huge valley with lots of mps. We went to Moab since we had to do lots of shopping, laundry and eating. Moab was the hottest place we had been so far.

When we were done with all that stuff we went back to Dead Horse Point. When we got there we found out that someone had stolen our water jug. Since we had no water I had to run to the bathroom and fill up all of our water bottles and a big container with water. Dead Horse Pint is the very northern edge of Island in the Sky in Canyonlands. It is a very high plateau of red sandstone. My family hiked out to the edge and watched the sun go down. I liked it but it wasn’t the most beautiful things ever. It was one of the warmest nights on our trip.

Day 19

In the morning I went on a hike with my dad and brother to see a cave. I thought the cave was a lot different than it really was. I thought it was going to be small with no rocks and no holes on the sides. It really was the opposite of what I thought. The cave had a couple of holes where birds lived and many other holes. It was an orange-red the color of sunburn. It was gianormous.

Day 18

Today my family relaxed. We ate breakfast and then I played in the sand for hours. I played with my brother and sister. I made sand castles and then threw rocks at them. My dad wouldn’t let us play throw dirt clods at each other. I wanted to play that but I couldn’t. For lunch we ate macaroni and leftover stew. After that me and my dad went on a mountain bike ride to Elephant Hill. It was a big hill and it was really steep. The ride was eight miles with some simple parts and some difficult parts. There was this one hill I went down so rapidly. It took us about an hour to do the bike ride. When we got back I tried to catch these two lizards but they were too fast. My little brother almost caught a lizard while I was on my bike ride since it was so slow. After dinner my mom, sister and me played card games in the van. Before bed we finished listening to Artemis Fowl. My family has listened to four books altogether. First my sister picks a book then I get to pick the next book we listen to. We keep following that pattern. I like my books a lot more than hers.

Day 17

We came in the dark so in the morning me and Chloe looked out of the window and saw what Canyonlands looked like for the first time. Canyonlands has lots of white and red sandstone and massive rock formations and many Juniper trees. We got an amazing campsite and it had lots of red sand. The campsite had a dried up lake bed, trees to climb, sand to play on, and rocks to scramble over. In Canyonlands there are three parts, the maze, island in the sky, and needles. The maze is a labyrinth made of gigantic sandstone rocks. It is rocks jumbled all over the place. Island in the sky is a high plateau that goes on for miles. Needles are like sewing needles for giants. They look like stripped pillars that reach up to the sky. They have red, orange, white and yellow stripes of color. I like how needles looks.

We climbed on all of the rocks near our campsite then we went on two hikes. Each was only .6 of a mile. Our family came back and I dug a cave in the dried up lake bed. After dinner we went to a ranger campfire. We learned about rodents and rabbits. Rabbits aren’t rodents. Hare babies are born with fur and their eyes open. Rabbit babies are born with no fur and eyes closed. I learned some interesting facts. When we got back we went to bed.

Day 16

Today my siblings and I played in our campsite. After that we went to the ruins and played in the ruins. Chaco canyon has lots of massive yellow-brown rocks and no tall plants growing only shrubs. After that we drove to the four corners but it was closed so we couldn’t stand on four states at once. I felt disappointed. While we were driving we listened to the book Artemis Fowl. Artemis Fowl is about a dastardly boy who wants to make war between humans and fairies so the fairies will give him tons of gold. I really recommend this book to anybody in the class. We drove for a couple hours and we got to Canyonlands in Utah late at night.

Day 15

On the fifteenth day my family woke up and we had pancakes for breakfast. After that me and all my siblings played in the dirt and made bows out of sticks and bungee cords. It was pretty fun but the arrows wouldn’t shoot very far. In Bandolier there were more trees than in any other desert I went to. Then we got in the car and drove to Chaco canyon. When we got there we went to the visitor center and we went to see the ruins which were 1,200 years old. The ruins were made out of sandstone brick that were stacked up and they put gluey stuff called mortar in between them. The pueblo was planned and orderly. They had big circle-shaped holes in the center called kivas that they used as churches. There were grinding stones in some rooms, where people would grind their food. Some rooms were for living in. Some in the middle on the bottom were for storage as they were cold and dark. They had small doors that were rectangle shaped and they were only about three feet tall. We found one door which was T shaped and it was used in sacred places. There were 600 rooms in pueblo bonito and only 100 of them were used for living. My mom told me that they used many of the rooms as hotels for people who traveled there.

Then we came back to our campsite and played in the sand for hours. We made a sand fortress with our bucket and we turned rocks into dust by smashing them and also by grinding them to powder.

Day 14

On the fourteenth day my family had breakfast and we went to Fetchin’s house which is now an art museum. We looked at the paintings and all the rooms in his house and it was really boring. My family makes me look at art a lot but I never want to. After that we went to the gift shop and Chloe and Steen got some postcards of Fetchin’s art and then we went to a famous church.

The reason why the church was famous was that lots of artists painted pictures of the church. It was made out of adobe and was painted white on the front. There were rounded edges and thick walls. We looked at the church for a couple of minutes and we went back to our car and we drove to the Taos Pueblo. I didn’t really like the inside of the church. The reason why I didn’t like it was that it had lots of gruesome paintings inside.

The Taos Pueblo was the oldest continuously inhabited dwelling in the United States. Indians have lived there for 1,200 years. It looks like a town made of adobe buildings piled on top of each other. It looks like random squares and rectangles stacked up. The people in the Taos Pueblo live without electricity or running water. They don’t have to live like this but they choose to. We looked around it and we went in some shops and we bought a peach pie. It was tasty. I looked in a shop that had lots of tomahawks and a couple of bows and a spear. I wanted to buy a bow but it was 60 dollars. It was interesting but I would not want to live that way.

We left Taos and we were going to a camping spot except the road was all icy and snowy and we couldn’t drive on it since it was closed down. We had to drive way out of our way to go around. We drove to Bandolier National Monument.

Day 13

On the thirteenth day my family drove to Taos, a place in northern New Mexico. The town’s elevation is seven thousand feet but it is still a high desert. When we got to Taos it was my dad’s birthday so we got a nice hotel for the night. We stayed at the Fetchin hotel and he was a famous artist who lived in the town in the 1920’s. There are lots of famous artists who used to live there and there are lots of artists who live their now. That’s why my mom and dad wanted to come to Taos. I think we had to look at too may art galleries while we were here.

The houses are made of dirt, water, straw, and rocks and its called adobe. It looks like smooth desert rocks and it is the color of desert sand and all the walls are super thick. On the inside of these adobe houses they use lots of thick, dark, carved wood. I liked the architecture and my parents really did.

Photos from our Trip

Check out photos of our trip:

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