Moab with a baby!

Sunrise breakfast with the La Sal Mountains in the distance.

Life is good. From mountain biking in Moab, to playing softball on a sunny day in the Fort, to just hanging out on the floor in Emmaline's room - life is just plain good. This last week has been especially enjoyable, mostly for the reasons I just mentioned. But it's also just been nice to not be at work and to have taken a brief respite from moving/packing stuff.

Last week was spring break at CSU, so we did what any sensible couple would do when presented with a week off less than two months before moving overseas - we left town. Last Saturday we packed up the car with baby accoutrements, strapped our mountain bikes to the roof and got ready to make our journey 7 hours west to Moab, UT for what would be Emmaline's first camping experience. We made it all of 10 minutes to the Chick-fil-a before having second thoughts. "What are we thinking driving 7 hours for her first camping outing? What if she's miserable in the car, let alone three nights in a tent?" But after feeding Emmaline her lunch and munching on some waffle fries, we decided to carry on with the trip and head out. So at 11:45am Saturday morning we finally set off from the Fort. Emmaline was great in the car and we made it to Moab around 7:00, found a site and set up camp in the dark, then headed into town for some grease at the Moab Diner. When we got back to camp we had been joined by our good friends Jeramy, Christine and their 2 little boys - Carson and Bryce. Just five years earlier we'd made our first mountain bike trip to Moab with them over spring break and now we were back with kids in tow! My how time flies...

Moab 2007Moab 2012

The camping trip was mostly a success. Emmaline slept great at night - probably cause we had her so bundled up that she couldn't move to disturb herself. She did struggle with naps cause the tent was just a big playground for her and there was no real way to confine her movements. We ended up having to strap her in her car seat to get her to be still enough to actually go to sleep.

Our sleeping arrangements - Emmaline was all wrapped up!

The only real issue on the trip was the sand. We were camping right next to the Slickrock Trail, which is famous cause of it's unique path across the sandstone. Well, as you might imagine, when sandstone erodes, it turns back into sand. And we might as well have been camping on the beach. It wasn't a huge deal until the wind kicked up the last couple of days and we ended up with sand blowing into our tent and coating everything. It was a mess that took us nearly two full days to clean up from after getting back home.

We went on one hike to Corona Arch. The arch is pretty impressive and it's only 3 miles round trip, so a great family hike (if you don't mind a couple of ladders). We enjoyed lunch under the arch and watched a couple of people jump off it!! (Like this). Hiking with kiddos can be a slow process though and I'm afraid we only averaged about a .75 mph pace. :)

Emmaline enjoying her lunch under the arch.

The mountain biking was amazing, as it always seems to be in Moab. Chris and Jeramy rode the Slickrock Trail the first day we were there, then watched the kids while Christine and I rode Fins n' Things. The next day Chris and I rode together while they watched E and we then watched their boys while they rode. Chris and I decided to hang out and get in one last ride on Tuesday before heading home, so that morning I headed out to do the Two Tortoise Loop I found in a guide book we had. I rode up Gemini Bridges Road, which believe me had a lot of up in the first two miles! The road emerged into a large valley, which I followed for another three miles before the Singletrack gods smiled upon me - a system of slickrock singletrack trails had been constructed since the book was written, so I spent the next two hours blissfully riding on smooth, fun trails with awe-inspiring views of the Moab valley.

I'm happy about singletrack!

When I got back to camp Chris and Emmaline were hunkered down in the sweltering tent trying to escape the incessant winds and blowing sand. We broke camp and I dropped Chris off at the Poison Spider Trailhead to do his ride around 4:00. The book we had mentioned a trail that rode a cliff edge back from the end of the Poison Spider Trail, but since he was riding alone he assured me that he wouldn't take it though it did intrigue him. Well, I got a call around 6:30 saying that he was on the edge of a cliff on said trail because in his words "I'd rather risk falling off a cliff than ride back down Poison Spider." It turned out that it was really sandy and not much fun to ride up, and the cliff hanging Portal Trail was a welcome alternative. He survived, so I don't mind.

Chris defying death on the Portal Trail. The road is at least 500 ft below him.

We finally got on the road back home around 7:30 and after a stop for dinner in Grand Junction, powered through the night to arrive home at 3:00am. As we figured would be the case, Emmaline slept the whole time which actually made driving at night something of a pleasure. It didn't feel like we were keeping her strapped in against her will when she wanted to be out crawling and climbing.

So yeah, life is good...