Poison Spider Mesa

  Made a short trip to Moab where my Dad and I biked poison spider mesa while Heidi took the kids to arches.  Clara was worried when we read on the internet that three bikers had died on the trail.  Returning back via the portal trail found myself staring a long ways down into the Colorado river.  Of course I was walking my bike at that point so I was okay.   

This is Clara's drawing of the ride.  Lately Clara thinks she might like to be an illustrator.  

We wanted to hike the fiery furnace but the ranger informed us there was a 5 year old age limit.  Tried to convince the ranger to let us go.  He was very diplomatic and said he thought we would be fine but as a government worker part of a bureaucracy he couldn't even imply to give us permission.  We did a different hike to some petroglyphs.  The furnace will have to wait.  

It was great having grandparents along for the trip.

We celebrated Luke and Hannah's birthdays with Nemo and Buffalo birthday cake.  Luke has fallen in love with the ocean and carries around a large plastic shark that he calls "Bruce".   Hannah has wanted to have a buffalo birthday since we saw some buffalo on antelope island.   She is very funny.   When she was exhausted and I told her to close her eyes and go to bed she said, "I don't want to close my eyes.  They don't work when I close them!"