Moab

I love lush greenly things, but I also love brilliantly rusty hoodoos rebelliously spiking up to the sky.

Our home is a remarkable place to live... ghost towns, the old west and outlaws, glowing earth... I feel so blessed that we have so much wonder offered to us.

Before we headed out of town Sunday morning Madeleine and Trev received their two biggest birthday presents (early)... a 3ds for one, and a nine inch dvd player for the other.  I am still admiring my brilliance over that dvd player idea.  (That particular one can be easily strapped to the headrest of the front passenger seat, as well....)  Not only perfect for the car, but perfect for Maddie at home for making little hidey-holes and curling up with a favorite movie.
So the children were given their gifts, along with a couple of new movies and a few new 3ds and ds games.... and they loaded up while Eric and I were still packing up the car.  :)   Two hours early?
We tried to get them out; to sit in the house as we were heading out on a long drive... but no.  Strapped in for an hour or two before the oil is checked, the wiper fluid is filled, and all Mama's camera gear is safely loaded up.

Moab was wonderful.

The first day, while our dear truck was in the shop, we wandered dinosaur trails (the rental car).

 

One was filled with visible, touchable bones still inside the mountain -which was so awesomely cool-

and another was a trail of fossilized muddy footprints left by a sauropod.  This one is interesting, as the trail (the footprints) go along in a straight line, then all of a sudden they make a sharp left, ninety degrees.  Now being chased by something, hmm?

Very cool, again.

Our days at Moab were filled with sun, breaks to the inn for a swim and shade, diners, and gorgeous red earth.

It was, naturally, hothothot.. but somehow it wasn't unbearable or too shocking.
No doubt that had something to do with those daily and nightly dips we (they) were taking.

One day while we were out gallivanting, we found this old dugout, and then a few yards from it, a mine entrance.  It was just a small thing -a one man operation, it looked like- seemed like it belonged to an old prospector.  It could be that he was looking for uranium (newly found in the area), or it could be that he (or She, I s'pose) was on the lookout for gold. 
Doesn't sound like much, does it?  But trekking through sagebrush and intense heat and finding old mines and hidey holes is pretty dang cool, if you ask me.

Dinosaurs, the museum,

Canyonlands, Arches, abandoned mines and abandoned log cabins, Newspaper Rock, giant frogs, crawdads,

seeing Euro children (eight years old? nine?) swimmin' in just her drawers in the inn's pool (I loved that!! Ha!)... dreamy.  Had all the things I love best.

 

 

 

Beautiful.