Tight spaces and Dino tracks

Tight spaces and Dino tracks

7-04-16

DAY 16

The Petrified Forest Campground is nice - it even has a reservoir with a dock that's great for swimming. Since it is the 4th of July, this is extra nice because we are really missing being at Rangeley with everyone and jumping off the dock. There are lots of birds and lizards for us to see as well.. There are tons of beautiful birds that Maya and I took many cool pics of. The black one in the nest was called an American Coot, and the one sitting in the water with a nice reflection still hasn't been identified, and the tiny birds squashed in the mud nests are white-throated swifts.

Today, we got to sleep in a little (if you can call sleeping in until 8am sleeping in). In order to get to the places we wanted to, we needed to go out some rough roads (Hole-in-the-Rock Rd and Egypt), so today was the day to test the super van's powers and it passed with flying colors. This meant we could do some huge adventure the next few days. But first, we needed to check out some slot canyons.

Our hiking today took us to Spooky, Peek-a-boo, and Dry Fork canyons. Unfortunately, we didn't have a good map, so what was supposed to be a pretty easy 3.5 mile hike ended up being 7 very hot miles because we did the entire Dry Fork part. James was cooked after Dry Fork, so Papa and he passed on tackling Spooky and Peek-a-boo.These two canyons were super narrow and really tricky to squeeze through, but not technical. Maya, Mama, and I kicked butt though even though Mama almost got stuck once. They were amazing narrows and we were really glad we did them. It is hard to believe that water created these beautiful slots. However, these miles were probably the hardest 7 miles ever - desert hiking is so hot and the sand makes it worse. Seeing Papa and James at the end was quite a relief.

Next, was when we tested the super van out on Egypt Road. No one thought we could make it, but we did! Hooray for the super van.

Afterwards, we went to find dinosaur tracks. Escalante is apparently a hot bed for finding dinosaurs which has only been discovered in about the last decade. The tracks were not at all what I expected they would look like so it was tricky finding them. It was cool to think that we were walking right where dinosaurs roamed the Earth millions of years ago.

In all, it was a very different 4th of July than usual, but we're glad we are here and having this adventure of a lifetime.. and we even got to jump off a dock at the campground.