Blanding Trip: Day 3

This was the busiest day of our trip. We woke up nice and early with the kids and headed down to look at a natural bridge and some ruins that were just a mile or two outside of Blanding. The natural bridge was hard to see because it was directly across from us, but we were excited to see our first natural bridge. The ruins were small and across the canyon, but we enjoy seeing everything possible. Our favorite part of this trip was all the wildlife we saw: bunnies, squirrels, chipmunks, and deer. (External links go to our adventure blog.)

The natural bridge is behind us--you can see the hole in the top.

The ruins near Blanding

Two deer that we saw.

After this we headed down to Bluff and visited Fort Bluff which we loved. We had so much fun walking through the old fort, trying on pioneer clothes, and riding wooden horses. Randy and I still talk about the amazing story of the pioneers coming down through Hole in the Rock. It truly is unbelievable that none of the party died. The people working at Fort Bluff were so kind and helpful, and we spent a few hours here.

This is one of the original wagons that came down
hole in the rock...it is so cool that it lasted so long.

Wouldn't we make the cutest pioneer family?

Little cowboys

Seth spent a long time watching the tractor clean the
weeds out of the Bluff post office parking lot.

Then we drove over to Valley of the Gods which is a 17 mile drive through some rock formations, including lady in the bathtub that Randy was very excited to see. :) Then we went to see Mexican Hat, another rock formation, and we stopped to eat lunch. Next we headed over to Goosenecks--Seth slept through this one, and Dax was mostly asleep. After looking at the Goosenecks, we drove the Moki Dugway which was one of our favorite highlights of the trip. This road is cut into the cliff, so it is windy and steep, but there are great views and it is very adventurous, exactly what we like.

We stopped to climb a large rock.

Randy is very proud of this picture.

The famous Lady in the Bathtub.

Mexican Hat

Goosenecks State Park

Moki Dugway...so cool!

Muley Point

After climbing up the Moki Dugway, we went out to Muley Point which is another overlook. Then we headed to Natural Bridges National Monument. Neither of us had been there before and we just loved the scenery. Natural Bridges look like arches, but they are different because they are formed by running water. There are three bridges. We hiked to two of them, and the overlook for the third. We also stayed late at Natural Bridges and went to their astronomy program. Unfortunately there was a full moon so we couldn't see a lot of deep sky stuff. But we still had fun looking at the planets and we saw moons around Saturn, which the boys had never seen before.  So it was pretty late when we headed back toward Blanding, so the boys all fell asleep in the car.

That's Sipapu Natural Bridge.

These are the Horse Collar Ruins in Natural Bridges National Monument.

The boys found this "natural bridge" and thought it was amazing!

It was super hot, so we stopped for water often.

This is Kachina Bridge and it is still growing!

This is Owachoma Bridge...the largest one in the park.

We hiked this one in the evening so it was cooler. 

With a moon like that, you aren't going to see a lot of stars!

That telescope could put the rings on Saturn and surround it with moons.

Stargazing wears these guys out.