Saint George Plus

Last week we went on a vacation to Saint George with some of Scotty's extended family. We stayed in two townhomes at the Arcadia Resort, and we had a really great time. The townhomes were exquisite. As far as accommodations go, they've really thought of nearly everything there. They had bathrooms, televisions, and bunk beds a plenty. A variety of places to sit in every room. Night lights. Hooks everywhere to hang stuff on. And even decent shampoo and conditioner!

The only thing they didn't have... was a garbage can in the laundry room (how could they have overlooked this?)

We felt kind of spoiled! Except for when we had to carry our dryer lint to the kitchen.

We spent three nights there with very little sleep. We ate a lot of delicious food. We played rowdy games late at night. We swam in the resort pool. We had extremely in-depth conversations about deodorant (I could spend a whole blog post talking about the weird things that went on with deodorant on this trip, but I'll spare you). Our kids enjoyed the company of their cousins from morning until... well... morning.

Cousins on tablets

Floating in the lazy river

Nicky on the golf course

This trip was a wonderful chance for us to reset and gather with our extended family after being apart for so long. 

Not everything went smoothly, though. My father-in-law had to go to the emergency room with a hernia, and there was a little bit of family drama. But overall, Scotty, the kids, and I loved it, and Grandpa is going to be okay. 

Some of the family left Saint George on Wednesday, and the rest of us left on Thursday. My family made an adventure out of the journey home. We figured we might as well extend our trip through the weekend. Hence - “Saint George Plus.” So after we parted ways with the extended family on Thursday, we continued our vacation with just the six of us.

First we headed to Pipe Spring National Monument in Fredonia, Arizona. This is a water source in the desert that historically served Native Americans and later, Mormon Pioneers. 

When we got there, we were greeted by a park ranger who was guarding this big, fat caterpillar-y thing outside of the visitors center. There was some debate as to what, exactly, the creature was. One ranger thought it was a lunar moth. Another ranger thought it was some sort of tobacco cutting thingamajig.

Me and The Google couldn't come to any solid conclusion, but the thing was massive (bigger than my middle finger).

Inside the monument grounds, they have a garden, some farm animals, and a fort. 

The garden intrigued me because I've never seen crops growing in red sand. 

This structure is for the vining plants to climb. I would love to see it later in the season when it's fully grown. 

It kind of blew my mind because I didn't think crops could grow in that kind of soil.

The spring has a bit of a slow flow right now. In its prime, it would put out 40 gallons a minute, but now it only puts out 4 gallons a minute. 

Here are my girls sitting by one of the ponds where the water collects:

After Pipe Spring, we stopped by the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary near Kanab. I don't have a lot of "shareable" photos from the sanctuary (now that we're going mask-free, I’m back to keeping photos of my kids relatively private), so here's a courtesy horse:

The sanctuary does a tour that sounds pretty cool, but they were fully booked, so we weren't able to see much. We pet a few cats and drove to a place called Angel's Landing (not to be confused with the location in Zion). It's a natural amphitheater, and I guess some of the Lone Ranger was filmed there.

This may or may not be Tonto's hideout. We're not sure what the guy at the visitors' center said, and we kept losing cell phone service, so I wasn't able to have a thorough consultation with The Google. 

Our next stop was Moqui Cave (and yep, this is still the same day we left Saint George. Even after experiencing it first-hand, I’m not sure how we fit all this into one day. We didn’t even leave til noon). 

Scotty told me it was a short walk to the cave. No big deal. In actuality... it was a short "climb" to the cave - on a path which I now refer to as the "ankle killer" because I'm still in shock that I didn't break both my ankles. 

You can see Zoe there on the left walking toward the cave

Inside the cave

While we were making out way back down from the cave, Nicky climbed down the cliff as the rest of us made our way toward a safer place to descend. Then he decided to climb back up and rejoin us. I saw his head poke up over the side of the cliff, and just as he started to push himself up and over, his head suddenly disappeared, and I heard him slide all the way down to the bottom. 

He about did his mama in! But at the bottom, he got up and started walking, so I was able to relax a bit. Then later, he showed us his butt cheek where a few layers of skin had come off. His leg was pretty scratched up, too, but man! That butt cheek! The next day he said, "It's not bleeding, but it's leaking juice everywhere."

Classy.

From there, we headed to the Belly of the Dragon!

It looks hardcore, but it's really just a man-made tunnel that goes under the road. 

For the sake of looking impressive on the internet, let's pretend that it's hardcore. Like way hardcore. I mean... it has “dragon” in its name and all.

After we explored the Belly of the Dragon, we finally headed to our destination of Panguitch, Utah for the night. We checked into our motel (a funny, little place with lots of personality), and then we grabbed some dinner at Big Fish Family Restaurant - which we enjoyed so much, we went back again the next night. 

We then tried our best to get some sleep so we could go on more adventures in the morning!