Blanding Trip: Day 2

Today we began the day by driving down to Hovenweep National Monument. This became Mom and Dad's favorite part of the trip. Hovenweep has lots of Ancestral Pueblan ruins. We were amazed at how well preserved they were as well as how many. You could see that they had a little town built in this ravine. We did a few hikes and viewed as many of the ruins as we could before we headed back to Blanding for lunch. We also were excited to see many little cottontails hopping around. The boys were excited every time we saw one hopping away from us. I have a million pictures that I want to share from Hovenweep...it should probably be it's own post, but here they are!

I thought this house was so cool...built right into the boulder.

There were lots of ruins to see!

One of the bunnies we saw!

Randy liked this tower house.

You can see how well preserved and how many there are here.

A selfie!

Dax cheesing it up for this picture!

Climbing through the ravine.

I made it!

This ruin has the original beams that held it together! Neat.

Seth loves to have his picture taken.

Seth always needs a walking stick, and so do
his brothers (if we can find that many).

Dax in front of one of the ruins.
Today he only wanted to be in his own pictures.

Loving every minute of Hovenweep!

After lunch, we went to Edge of the Cedars State Park. This State Park is very kid-friendly even though it is a history site. History is fun!! First of all, everyone can do the Junior Ranger program which was so fun for Seth. He never gets to participate, so he loved holding the clipboard and searching for artifacts in the museum. Second, there is a ruin in the back and after you walk around it, there is one section that you are allowed to climb into. We all climbed down the ladder into the kiva which was very cool since most of the time you can't touch these old ruins. The boys thought it was amazing.

Next we drove up to Monticello for a few different activities. First we went to the Frontier Museum which is connected to the visitor's center there. It was very small, but we always love checking out old pioneer and Native American Artifacts. The best thing was the large tractor in it's own building. We spent a lot of time admiring how large it was, but we couldn't get a good picture. We took pictures by the Monticello temple for the boys' temple books. We also walked around the grounds before it started to rain.

We ended our night by visiting Huck's Museum back in Blanding. This was quite the experience. Huck is probably 90 years old and when you walk in, he tells you how much it costs. We were charged $20 which is pricey, but he did have a lot of amazing things. Seth and Dax were terrified of him. Huck scoots around in his wheelchair and he gave us a private tour of his museum. I think our tour would have been longer if he hadn't been so worried about the boys touching the glass. I couldn't believe how much stuff he had. I was only allowed to take one picture. Anyway, it was definitely an adventure.

Dax is climbing down into the Kiva.

Here we are inside the kiva.

The huge tractor at the Frontier Museum...it's hard to see.

The Monticello Temple.
I didn't know Seth's eyes were closed until after we left.
Too bad!

My one picture in Huck's Museum.
I wanted to show how large the collection was and how big his
 museum is--mostly for the other blog.