Calf Creek

Day Two and we were up and at 'em.  Cereal for breakfast.  We headed towards Bryce canyon and landed at Ruby's Inn.  We opted for another full hookups site, knowing we would not have hookups the rest of the week. 

We ate lunch and headed towards Escalante/Grand National Staircase.  While it was farther away than we thought, the drive could not have proved more scenic.  I did not get pictures of one particular part of the road because my hands were holding on too tightly to the "*%$&" grips.  The road had room for two cars, then on BOTH sides of the road were sharply descending cliffs.  Again, where are the railings?!

We finally made it to our destination.  Calf Creek.  We had heard about a cool hike from a neighbor and we did indeed enjoy it. 

Can you see Katie Anne/Cleopatra on her perch?  She just rode on John's shoulders and quite enjoyed herself.  The kids found these adorable star flowers and asked that I get a picture of it.  Next, you see us taking a break.  At the beginning of the trail we got a paper with 15 numbered informational paragraphs.  Along the trail were 15 corresponding numbers so we stopped at each one to read about our location.  That last picture is a shadow, but looks like a kind old man watching over us!

One of the stops pointed out an Indian granary.  The four pictures are all of the same thing, just zooming in a little each time.  It's amazing how high on the mountain they decided to keep their seeds and food. 

 Another stop pointed out these petroglyphs.  Again, the pictures don't show the height very well, but why and how they are there would be an interesting thing to know.

From a distance these looked like they might be more petroglyphs, but on closer inspection, we decided they couldn't be.  After all, where would an Indian have ever seen an

 ELEPHANT ON SKIS!?

Near the star flower John showed the kids how to make whistles out of snake grass.  We could be heard coming and going for the rest of the hike.

 Jeffrey had a little trouble figuring it out at first but don't worry...he eventually had a dozen whistles to choose from and blew them well!

We kept seeing people on the trail who would say "20 more minutes".  We finally did make it there and boy, it took our breath away!

Partly because the water was freezing.  Can you see John's face there in the bottom left?  Yeah.  Really cold.  Then he swam to the falls on a dare (next pic:  you can see his little head just in front of the falls).  Katie Anne had a great time building mud castles for princesses.

 

We booked it out of there in about an hour and a half, thankful for a little more shade going than coming.  All in all we went about 6 miles round trip.  We stopped in Escalante on the way home for ice cream cones, then had dinner like at 9:00 that night. 
Day 2: Tired but happy