The Great Outdoors

We have been talking for a few weeks about taking Nate to St. George to see some dinosaur tracks I remember from when I was a kid. After further discussion and suggestions from Grandpa Atwood we decided that Nate would be more interested in seeing a volcano. Snow Canyon just outside of St. George is a great place to go with kids. We did actually hike to the top of an old cinder cone volcano. The hike was only 1.5 miles round trip, but it was a challenging one with slippery rocks and steep slopes especially at the top. Nate did quite well. He's quite the hiker these days. The hike up was well worth it. There was volcanic rock everywhere and the view from the top was incredible. This volcano erupted as recently as 27,000 years ago. Wow. Thank goodness that was a long time ago, but amazing there is still so much to see after that long.

Since the hike wasn't too long we had enough time and energy to do a little bit more. We had to stop at the sand dunes. We didn't stay very long because we wanted to check out another short hike, but Nate could have stayed all day. Diagonal from the sand dunes is a very short hike up to some sandstone where pioneers wrote their names in axle grease. Imagining pioneers coming through this canyon over a hundred years ago is quite a thing to imagine. Very humbling considering the ease in which we travel now. Nate loves climbing up the rocks and at times gave us heart attacks. He's good at climbing up, but scared coming down some places so we had to say no to him climbing up the the pioneer names. He was half way up before we could stop him.

Hard to see, but the pioneer names are up in that archway. That's a long way up.

On Friday Nate and I went to a Valentine's Day party with a new homeschool group. Nate had a blast and got almost 60 valentines. Luckily we were able to trade him candy for money. Don't worry we let him have a few pieces. He won't be scarred for life.

Eddie has been doing longer hikes with some friends from work every other weekend. On Saturday they hiked to the top of Black Mountain out in the Henderson area.  Phantom has been going with him and is their hiking group's mascot now I think.

Nate and I are doing a tour of the Ethel M Chocolate Factory tomorrow morning with another homeschool group. On Thursday night my good friend, Monique, is flying in from Reno and staying through Monday. It will be a fun weekend.