Luckily my sister-in-law, Amber, saved spring break by inviting us to go to Saint George(ish) with her. Technically, we stayed in Hurricane (which, for you non-Utahns, is pronounced “her-ah-kun”and is near Saint George, hence the “ish").
Before we left, we managed to survive two brutal days of spring break at home. Then we bid adieu to our home like so:
"Adieu, Home!"
As you can see, spring break didn't exactly usher in spring weather.
We left early to get ahead of the storm. Saint George is 4-5 hours away. Before we headed to our Air BnB, we made a few stops. First to the ghost town of Grafton, Utah.
The Alonzo H. Russell house (whoever that is), which his son later purchased for $200 and a cow
The Grafton Cemetery - there are two teenagers buried here who died from falling off a swing. How sad is that?
We explored the cemetery and the pioneer houses. It was freezing, and at one point, it started snowing! The road to Grafton has a section that is impassible if it gets wet, so the snow was a little unnerving, but luckily it didn't last long, and we got out!
Snow in Grafton
On our way back from Grafton, we stopped at the bridge in Rockville for a photo, and then we hit the Fort Zion gift shop (we had to get our traditional post cards for our memory boxes).
Rockville bridge built in 1924
We got some ice cream at the gift shop and went to the petting zoo (which we had entirely to ourselves).
From there we met Tim and Amber (and our two nephews they brought with them who are not theirs) at Jack in the Box. Then we headed to the Air BnB and hung out for the night.
The Air BnB had a pool, which would have been lovely to use, but due to the lack of spring weather, we ended up enjoying the perimeter of the pool rather than the interior of the pool (save for a couple episodes of polar bear plunging by the kids that lasted about three seconds).
My dirty pants and shoes after hiking in the red sand
Kids enjoying the sun
(Side note: our friend, Marissa, who stopped by our Air BnB one night and stuck her hand in the water said that this pool was colder than the river water in Zion National Park).
We spent a couple of days hiking in the area.
Gunlock Falls
Three Falls (we ended up doing this hike twice)
We even got Amber to participate... on not just one hike, but THREE! And she secretly loved it!
(Amber = not a hiker).
Red Reef with proof of Amber
Amber crossed rivers
and Amber accidentally hiked up there!
(We took the back way, and she didn't even know that's where she would end up!)
For the first time, Nicky wasn't with us on the trip. He went to Disneyland with the performing arts for school. Scotty and I are facing the reality that this is going to happen more and more in the coming years.
Even though the first day in Hurricane was freezing, we ended up having two nicer days. It made for great hiking weather because we weren't overheated, but we also weren’t miserably cold.
On our last evening, our friends who were also in the area stopped by to say hi.
Marcus and Scotty in their matching dorky dad pants from Costco
The Saint George area was waaaay oversaturated with people from Salt Lake. We saw three families we knew at pit stops on the way down there, and several of our neighbors were either there while we were there or arrived the day we left. Anyone who didn't go to Saint George went to Disneyland. Typical Utahns on spring break!
It was nice to get away for a few days, and we hit everything early enough that the crowds weren't too bad (thank heavens).
Nicky was supposed to get home before us, but they had a lot of bus trouble (flat tires and breakdowns), so he ended up getting home nine hours behind schedule. Despite the bus issues, he had a blast, and we had a blast, so it was fun to meet up after our separate vacations and swap experiences.
(Sigh… he’s so grown up! I love it but kind of wish he could stay right where he’s at currently. Nicky is golden right now. I would never go back to toddler hell with him, but I also don’t want him to grow up anymore and get ruined by the world).
And thus… four of the ten days of spring break were spent on an adventure. I’m glad we got to get away for a little while!
I saw your son at Disneyland! I didn’t know for sure if it was him, but now I know it was.
ReplyDeleteEveryone and their mom went to st George for spring break... Everyone.
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