Family Reunion

My sisters and I had a six-day family reunion this summer with all our kids and grandkids! Well, we did have one missing out of 37 people! The reunion was here in East Tennessee, but we had family driving from as far away as Waco and Oklahoma City.

I cannot thank my sister-in-law enough for letting our enormous gang gather at her beautiful property on the lake! What a blessing!

We had a very full week of boating, swimming, skiing, tubing, parasailing, rock climbing, epic board games, talking, and eating! Many thanks to our family photographer, Rebecca, for taking and editing hundreds of great photos and putting together this video that will help us treasure this memory for years to come!

Bryce Canyon

This was the last stop on our trip.  We had thought that we would boondock near the park since we couldn't make reservations, but we drove up at the perfect time and got a spot (the only one) that had just been vacated.  We took a short hike on Bristlecone Loop the first night we arrived, and the next day we did a Figure 8 combo through Queen's Garden/Peekaboo/Wall Street.  This was a pretty tough hike, but we made it!  Lots of interesting stuff to look at, for sure.

We realized we were very close to hiking 100 miles on this trip, so we took one little hike at the end to Inspiration Point to put us over 100!  We also calculated 13,592 feet of elevation gain on this trip (that's 2.57 miles!).  

Canyonlands and Capitol Reef

We did a drive-through at Canyonlands.  This was my least favorite of the Utah parks.  Maybe it didn't help that we had recently seen the Grand Canyon, and this didn't compare.  

After a driving tour through Canyonlands, we drove to Capitol Reef.  We had a great place to boondock there right on the river.

Watching Survivor is always fun by a campfire.  

We took a hike to Hickman Bridge (looked like an Arch to me) and Kolob Canyon (where we briefly got lost again).  We took a few other short hikes but don't have many photos.  Things were really starting to look the same everywhere.  

Our favorite part of about Capitol Reef was the fresh baked pies at the museum!

Arches

We took two main hikes in Arches.  The first one was to the Delicate Arch, which is the arch that appears on all the license plates in Utah.  This was a 3-mile hike and the view was pretty great at the top!

The next day we took a hike to Devil's Garden.  This was a 9-mile hike, not including the steps we put in when we got lost!  If you ever take this hike, be sure to download the All Trails app (paid version), and take the clockwise direction.  We didn't do either.  Fortunately, when we got badly off trail, I sat down and happened to have a good signal on my phone.  I was able to buy the navigation package on All Trails, and we got back on track.  

In spite of getting lost, we loved this hike!  I thought it was more dangerous than Angel's Landing, though, because there were lots of dropoffs and no chains to hold onto.  Also, again we were blessed with great weather.  This hike would be absolutely miserable in the heat!  We were there in mid-May.  

Our wanderings are shown below in bold.  We were at that green dot when we realized we were off trail!  

The Narrows

We did this hike the day after doing Angel's Landing.  It was such a totally different hike!  All in the valley, almost all in cold water.  We rented dry bibs and canyoneering shoes.  They really kept us dry and cozy.  

The further we went, the more the crowds thinned out (some were just doing it barefoot, so I don't blame them!).  We went about as far back as we could without filling our bibs with water.  Found out later that if we had stayed on the edge, we would have had a shallower path and could have continued on.  Terry wanted to follow a side path on the way back, but I was pretty tired at that point.  If we go back, I'd like to give that a try.  I'd have to say this is the most unique hike I've been on.

Angel’s Landing

I had been looking forward to this hike ever since I won the lottery back in the winter.  I'm not sure how this hike would be when it's overly crowded, but the lottery system really seemed to work in keeping the numbers manageable.  This hike did not disappoint!  Not sure if it's my number one hike ever (I plan a future post where I rank my favorite hikes), but it's definitely up there!  We were blessed to have perfect weather - blue skies, not too hot, and not too cold or windy.  

I find heights to be thrilling and not scary.  Terry finds them both thrilling AND scary.  He was saying some prayers on the way up, but he did fine. This hike is not too long - just 2.5 miles to the summit!  Total elevation gain is just 1640 ft.  It just seems higher!