day one: mile markers

We came to the southern part of our state for our adventures this time.


This part of the country has lots of things to keep us busy for a few days, and we're going to do our very best to salute it.

We began today by driving through Capital Reef.
Right away Eric and the babes discovered a robber fly, which was interesting, because they were just discussing this fascinating creature (Eric and Trev call them the Boba Fett of the insect world) the day before. Gotta love something that will capture any other insect -including bees and adding spiders- to inject neurotoxic and proteolytic enzymes to paralyze and digest the insides of other insects so they can suck out the innerds. shlep.

Trev got out his Fossil Finder and headed down a trail with his daddy and sister.
He found a rock that made for a fine shovel for digging fossils... but no luck finding a fossil.
But we're early in our trip yet...

We chose our motel (it's a good one, owned by hippie desert rats-- our favorite kind) and after making it our home (read: making it look like we've been living here for a month) and resting, we headed down the road... looking for a bit of beautiful water in the desert.
The children had earlier in the day been introduced to mile markers, and I'm pretty sure that Maddie will have a keen familiarity of numbers before this trip is through.

Upper Calf Falls trail was a six hundred plus foot descent to the bottom of the falls, in less than a mile.
Over slickrock slabs. Enough to give a Mama or Daddy a heart attack and tell the babes repeatedly "slow and easy".
But we made it.
The rock itself was mostly white sandstone, with these purplish black lava rocks everywhere, carried from from glaciers during the ice age. An interesting combination.

We met our very own dung beetle. Who knew?

note: for scale, on the top of the cliff you can see two trees on the mid-left side.

the bottom of the falls

Home again, home again, jiggety jig...

and we'll see tomorrow what else we'll find....