After camp there were 6 of us adventure staff who were going to be at camp/not going home right away. We tossed around quite a few ideas of what we should do… then we finally decided to go camping in Utah at Canyonlands National Park. It was really fun and relaxing. We took our time getting there. We left Monday morning and arrived there that evening. We stopped at the CO National Monument on the way, which is in Grand Junction, CO I think. It was pretty amazing as well. Really funny.. there was this couch and loveseat in the middle of the monument…pretty comfy too! Completely against the Leave No Trace (LNT) principles, but had a great view. (more pics on facebook, check them out.)
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051235&l=d3f5c&id=68602654
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051231&l=1113d&id=68602654
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051280&l=105b5&id=68602654
crazy couch in the middle of the co natl monument
When we got to our campsite we cooked up some Zatarain’s jambalaya, pretty yummy! Really good for camping or backpacking. We slept in our tents, the weather was really nice. Not too hot or cold. The next day we went down to the visitor center of the park and found about a creek about 30 min away with a nice little hike, so we went there. It was really fun because it was pretty warm out. We took our time and played around in the creek. At the end of the hike was this really cool land bridge. It was way above our heads so you couldn’t really get to it and I don’t think you were supposed to walk on it anyway, but it was really cool looking. And there was the this little spring that came out of the rock which was the source for the creek. It was so tiny.
really cool land bridge
amazing little creek
And there was poison ivy everywhere!!! And it was huge, like in trees! I’ve never seen so much of it or seen it so big before. I was a little paranoid, but thankfully I did not catch it. We went into the town of Moab after our hike. We went to the Peace Tree Leaf, this cute little juice bar, ice cream, café place. I would like to own a place like it one day. I got a parsley, carrot, apple, beet juice. It was yummy. I know.. you probably think I’m crazy, but.. it grows on you. And its so good for you too. We walked around the town a bit and went into the shops. It was so crazy because literally every person we passed spoke another language! A lot of French people were there. It was really strange because Moab is in the middle of the desert and in the middle of NOWHERE, so these people weren’t just stopping through. Then we went back to our campsite. It was so beautiful just hiking around and looking at all the canyons. It just stretched for miles and miles. It was only like 7 hours from the Rockies of CO, yet looked completely different. What an amazing and diverse world we live in. What a great Creator we have. We slept another night and then in the morning on our way out we stopped at Mesa Arch. It was beautiful. The miles of canyons reminded me of star wars or some type of space movie.
beautiful canyons that stretched for miles! this was the view through the mesa arch
It was nice camping without having to worry about little teenagers and just hanging out and eating whenever we wanted and it was just really relaxed. We drove back and made it back pretty quickly.
me, madison, chad and abi at mesa arch
