Quick Trip

Not only have we managed to have one or more members of our family away on a trip, short or long, every weekend since the beginning of the year, but our lives have been crazy and between those little jaunts. So naturally we decided to go on another quick trip. Saturday night Scott and I went up to Park City. I am in the process of buying a music store and we had a lot of things to talk about which we never have time to talk about it home so it was a really nice getaway. I can't even remember if we did anything except a lot of talking.

The next day we went home for church and a Sleeping Beauty matinee and all the responsibilities that come with Sunday. Trajan and Micaela and Coco and bill went to the Sleeping Beauty performance with me, as well as Ruby and Araceli.  After Sleeping Beauty Scott met me in Salt Lake. Ruby drive Freestone and Araceli home while Scott and I took the little kids to price. Ptolemy and Tziporah were the only ones who wanted to go. Ruby is so funny. A week ago she was SO tired and I said, "Ruby, you can rest when there's a school holiday." She looked up at me with a smirk and said in a mocking voice, "Hey kids it's a school holiday! We're leaving for great basin national park at 2 a.m.!" Touche. We let the big kids stay home and relax.

We loved having only two kids! Family of four! Easy! We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Price which is an hour and a half or two away from Salt Lake. We swam, we got in the hot tub, we went to Dairy Queen and got blizzards. It was a rip-roaring time in Price, Carbon County Utah.

The next day was Martin Luther King jr. Day and we made our way to Canyonlands National Park. Our goal was some short hikes with some scenic landscapes. We chose Mesa Arch and a couple of other short hikes. Did you know the national parks are free on federal holidays? Yeah, you just drive right in.

Puddles, stacking rocks and being generally enthused.

With apologies to dancers everywhere, this is Scott's arabesque.

Tziporah's cairn. We looked for fairies in all the crevasses. For a good while, we just relaxed on the edge of this massive drop off. OK, it may not have been the most relaxing venue in the world but as long as you don't fall to your death it's pretty chill. There were lots of holes in the rocks where fairies may have lived. I think we saw some. We can't be sure. It was pretty great having only two kids who are both in basically the same phase. We didn't have any bored teenagers rolling their eyes and wondering when we were going to go on to the next thing. We just slowed down and lived in the moment. It is such a good feeling to be out there seeing new vistas.

Funny story. Driving home we stopped at a Burger King in Green River. It was one of those restaurants attached to a gas station. The guy that took our order was less than friendly. I was probably preoccupied with wondering why he was so sad or why he didn't like friendly little me, and I left my purse on a table at Burger King. There were some crazy vibes in that burger king. I didn't realize it at the time but I did realize once we got on the road that I had left my diet coke back at Burger King. I thought to myself "I'm not going to tell Scott about this. That's so annoying that I did that. I just wasted a dollar and now I don't have a Diet Coke to drink." I didn't have any phone service for the next couple of hours but when we got back to Price I listen to my messages. There was one from the woman that works at the gas station adjacent to Burger King and she informed me that I had left my wallet. For hell sakes! Turns out that the guy that works at Burger King found my purse and being the nice guy that he did not appear to be on the surface, he took the purse to the woman that works at the gas station so she could go through it and find my ID. She promised to mail my purse back to me the next day.
Incidentally, the reason we stopped in Price on the way home was to pick up Ptolemy's Kindle that he left in the hotel. We cannot be trusted! Something weird was going on on this trip. Maybe it's the fact that I am trying to buy this music store and there are so many things going on at home that we're just completely unfocused. Ptolemy ran into the hotel to retrieve the Kindle and came back out saying, "I need Mom's ID." Scott and I just laughed. My ID was in my wallet two hours back in Green River. Who are we?! We did get home in one piece and my purse arrived two days later, complete with the popcorn I was eating and the newspaper I was reading and had set down next to the purse. I sent the nice woman a thank you note and a "finder's fee." I love the expression "Live by what you know, not by what you fear." I know that people are basically good. I don't live in fear because I know through experience that there are a lot of good people out there. I could be wrong, but I have certainly encountered some good people.