Moab Trip: Day 1

We made it!
They hate looking into the sun for pictures.

This year for Spring Break we headed down to Moab.  We researched a ton of places we could go for a few days in the great state of Utah, and this year Moab won. So far it has been an amazing trip. We left after the Sunday morning session of General Conference and made our first stop at Sego Canyon Petroglyphs (Dax reminded Randy a few times on the drive that he was going to go to jail if he kept going so fast). These petroglyphs (and pictographs) are easily seen from the road and there was a huge variety of different styles and images. We had a lot of fun looking at the pictures and talking about what they could mean.

Boys looking cute, mom not so much!

We loved the different petroglyphs and pictographs.

Next we headed up Sego Canyon a little further to visit the ghost town. This was the adventure that Mark and Dax had been waiting for all week. They couldn't wait to see the "falling down buildings, not real ghosts" as Dax kept telling everyone. There were some really fun sites to see. I couldn't believe that such a huge building was still mostly in tact. And Seth was amazed that there were old cars just sitting around. He kept looking inside. It is fascinating to see how these little towns just fade into the past.

Outside of the Sego Canyon cemetery

They loved exploring all the broken down buildings.

Seth LOVED this old car.

After spending time in Sego Canyon, we finally headed toward Moab. Seth was getting a little bit sick of being in the car at this point, but we had one more stop before we got to Moab. We stopped to see some dinosaur tracks. There are a few different places around here with dino tracks and petroglyphs, and we love seeing old things like that. We walked up the hill to see some huge sauropod tracks that are most likely a Camarasaurus. Mark put his foot in one to compare it to his own foot. Seth promptly sat down inside of one...I guess it looked like a good resting spot for him. We also checked out the other tracks made by an Allosaurus. Mark asked why they were so far apart and we had to remind him that dinosaurs were huge, so they had big legs to take big steps! It was a great find. We are all dinosaur fans in our house.

Mark next to an Allosaurus track.

Dax with his hand in a smaller therepod dinosaur track...
they don't know which species.

Seth fit just nicely in the Camarasaurus (most likely) track.

We ate dinner in Moab and then headed to Arches to do a few hikes before bedtime. We hiked to the Windows and Double Arch. Seth hiked the ENTIRE way. He would not let me carry him, and he would only hold my hand if the step was pretty big. We couldn't believe how much energy he had because he also kept up with us pretty well. Mark and Dax marveled at the arches. On our way up to Double Arch, we spotted a jack rabbit which made the whole day perfect. We love seeing wild animals.

Then we finally made it to the hotel. We thought the children would be exhausted and go right to sleep, but we were wrong. They were up for about 40 minutes after we put them to bed. We all said our favorite place for the first day before going to bed:
Mom: Arches
Dad: Petroglyphs
Dax: Ghost Town
Mark: Dinosaur Tracks
Seth: Anything where I wasn't in the car (that's what I'm guessing he said)

So excited to see some arches.

Turret arch near the Windows arches.

North and South windows.

Seth hiked both of these hikes.

Mark and Dax in the North Window Arch.

Double Arch is one of our favorites.

The boys right under Double Arch....close up.

The boys under Double Arch...far away.