Mother's Day

Mom decided on a trip for Mother's Day. She planned a little drive down to St. George with the family, where we'd stay Friday and Saturday night. She planned two main stops on this trip: Gunlock Falls and Cathedral Gorge. We decided to do a few things throughout the week for her, like buying flowers and some small presents. Then on Friday, we left right after school.

The drive to St. George took most of the day. We only made one stop at The American Diner in Cedar City for dinner. The boys were happy, though, because we got to the hotel in time to do a little bit of swimming.

Seth and Dax love swimming.

Mark and Dad prefer the hot tub.

But everyone did end up playing a little game of chicken.

Seth and Dad won!

Early Saturday morning, we woke up and drove out to Gunlock Falls State Park. With all the moisture we are having this year, the waterfall was really roaring. We didn't get too close, but we did enjoy hiking around and taking a few pictures. It was really beautiful seeing all the water pour over the red rocks of the desert.

Gunlock Falls is big and beautiful.

We loved the red rocks with the waterfall. 

We even got a family picture.

So glad we checked out this waterfall. 

From there, we had a drive out to Cathedral Gorge, which is west of Cedar City in Nevada. We pulled into the Visitor Center and collected the Junior Ranger booklets. Then we drove to the first section of the park, which is called Moon Caves. The park is basically these fins of soft rock that have eroded into narrow passageways. These passageways are mostly very tiny, but in some cases, they open up into slot canyons that can be followed for a short way into the cliffside. Some go as far as a hundred yards. They are very tight, and the sky is a thin ribbon of blue above your head. There are dozens of places that are great for pictures and videos, and we took plenty.

Cathedral Gorge is so unique.

We had fun exploring all the slot canyons.

There were so many great spots.

Pictures don't show how amazing it is!

We continued down to the end of the road to Cathedral Caves and had a shady picnic. It wasn't a very hot day, and Mom made lunch for us near the old CCC Tower. After lunch, we climbed to a lookout point, which was pretty steep. Normally, it wouldn't have been bad, but Dad has been sick, and Dax and Mom decided to catch the bug. Dax was really dragging, and Mom and Dad were puffing hard. We made it to the lookout, though, only to find we could have driven to that point on the highway!

We worked hard on this hike!

After climbing back down, we checked out the rest of the caves along the way. There were so many amazing places to explore, and we had a great time. At one point, the boys climbed through a narrow spot and found a whole new slot canyon to explore that was unavailable to Mom and Dad. There was an arch and a deep hole and a lot more walking and exploring. They thought that was really cool.

The slots were super narrow in some spots.

The boys loved all the little arches.

The formations were so cool.

Mom really loved it!

We had a great time at Cathedral Gorge.

We finished at Cathedral Gorge around 2 o'clock, so we still had plenty of day. We decided to drive to a very remote Nevada State Park called Beaver Dam State Park. This park borders on Utah, and the most exteme, hottest place in Utah, but it requires many miles of dirt road to reach. We did the drive, and we didn't see much, but we survived it. When we arrived at Beaver Dam, we left ailing Dax in the van and took a short walk, but it began to rain, so we made the long drive back out.

Mark really loved this remote state park.

It was a beautiful spot.

Finally, we hit a paved road near Enterprise, and we took it south to a little town called Veyo. This town is famous for a bakery and specifically, for the pies made there. We bought five slices to enjoy for Mother's Day eve: blackberry, peach, banana cream, caramel apple, and volcano, which turned out to be a delicious mixture of chocolate and butterscotch. We took our pie and headed back to a restaurant near the hotel.

The pies were delicious!

The boys were good sports and agreed to eat at a Peruvian restaurant that focused on chicken. It was really good, and the boys got full, so that was nice. We spent the rest of the night at the pool back in the hotel and sharing around slices of pie. 

We slept in on Mother's Day, and woke up to a lot of suffering sick people. Most people were ready to drive home, but we did a short hike first. There is an urban hike called Aspiration Trail. It weaves through the hills on the south end of St. George. People have placed painted rocks with uplifting, and sometimes silly messages on them. The hike was nice, and it wasn't too hot, which was a nice break from our usual St. George trips. We only spent about an hour, so we got home around 2 o'clock. Then we had the rest of the day to recover from the busy weekend.

The aspiration trail is a fun hike, but hot!

It was fun to see flowers in the desert.