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| The Jelly-Bean Campers First Night Out |
Byron grew up in West Texas, (here we go) his family vacationed in a little pop-up camper and he has many fond memories with them in the old pop-up. Their pop-up was stolen from the side of their house a few summers ago. This started the reminiscing and memory sharing between the siblings. All of this triggered a desire in Byron, which had been there before but it really got the fire lit. We found ourselves at RV shows trying to figure out just what type of pop-up would work well for our family. In the end we looked for over a year to find this Fleetwood2 Off road Pop-up. It is no longer being manufactured so our only choice was to watch the used market. In the dead of winter this year we got one. We got the Pop-up parked in our drive-way and the snow started. It was snowed-in by two-three feet of snow nearly the entire winter. Up until two weeks before our first trip it would have been impossible to even get it out of the driveway but luckily it warmed up just in time.
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| Carter playing hide and seek in Goblin Valley |
We took our jellybean camper (named after the camper Byron grew up with) to southern Utah and had some good clean family fun. Well, clean would not actually describe it well but you know what I am getting at. Tyler even christened our camper by spilling half a bucket of Costco jelly bellies all over the floor. "Dang it Larry!" (I have no idea why the kids say that but it has gotten stuck in my head.) After we got it all cleaned up I kept finding jelly beans all over the place. I couldn't figure it out until Byron told me Ali was purposely hiding them around. That little trickster. It will now and forever be known as the Jelly Bean Camper! Thank you Tyler.
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| Smores for breakfast in the Goblin's Den -too tired last night |
In preparation for our trip we tried to get the pop-up up so I could clean it all out. It took us over an hour to figure out how to pop up the camper in our driveway a few nights before we left. We could not get that dang door open for the life of us. Turns out on our pop-up you have to lift the top with your hands while somebody else turns the key, lifts the bottom of the door and jiggles the handle. No kidding....our camper won't be stolen as it takes a genius to get it open. Thankfully this has been the hardest part to figure out thus far.
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| Kids popping out of a window |
Byron had to get some gear for our trip, leveling kit, chalking blocks, etc so he headed off to the RV store and I ran the dogs to the kennel. We got ready to load and discovered the kitchen sink had frozen over the winter. Back to the RV store, another hour later he got the kitchen sink replaced (we discovered the shower handle got frozen as well but not until later) loaded up the rig and headed off to southern Utah. Needless to say we got a later start than we had planned so an hour before we really wanted to stop we found a road and headed down it to find out if we could get this to work or not- in the daylight. Apparently the road we turned down was not a real road but more of an ATV road or a farmers road, I don't know. Lots of gullies and dirt and dust. We find a good place to stop and the kids jump out of the car as excited as can be. In less than one minute Ali has dug up a scorpion. What? I guess we are in the desert. My brain is saying we have got to move but we are in the desert so we stay. The kids found tons of crystals and had a great time racing up and down the hills around our spot. We ate dinner along the way realizing the late hour and the shortage of time. In the morning we figured out how the stove and the RVQ worked and had pancakes and sausage for breakfast. Pleased with ourselves for such a successful first night we packed up and headed further south to fine Goblin Valley.
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| Sand dunes right outside of Arches Entrance |
We are definitely newbies at this whole thing but all in all we did a great job at leveling our pop-up at the next spot. We found the coolest Goblin's Den with a fire pit in the middle, huge climbing rocks all around us. Ate a hot dog lunch before our hike. Kids are in heaven. We did the Wild Horse Canyon hike. An amazing slot canyon with the coolest rocks. It was amazing how the rocks changed so drastically as you moved through the canyons. Goblin Valley was a blast as well. We grabbed our glow sticks and jackets on our way there. So fun to watch the kids climb all over the rocks and play hide and seek. We made a game of finding animals in the rock shapes. The boys bought some awesome knives at the gift shop made from arrow heads and antlers. (No surprise there.) We dined on hamburgers and chips. Ali fell asleep at the table and we postponed our fire until morning. The second night we figured out how to get the heater to turn on. Yeah! Best discovery yet. We all got to sleep warmer.
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| North and South Arches |
In the morning we had our smores with our awesome fire. For dessert we ate pancakes. Some of us had room for pancakes anyway. After folding up our pop-up we headed for Arches and the much anticipated sand dunes. Not enough time! That was our only problem we wanted more time to explore and see Arches but we fit in a few quick hikes to close arches and then called it. Cafe Rio on the drive home topped off a fabulous first trip. I have been having camera issues lately with our computer not liking my cameras...so frustrating and today I accidentally deleted a bunch of photos from our trip. I am kicking myself and trying hard not to cry over the loss. I am so grateful though that I did not manage to delete ALL the photos from the trip. Still.....so mad that I lost some of them.
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| Double Arch |
Now if we can get the shower figured out we will have something good here!
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