Goose Eggs and a Delicate Arch

This weekend we decided to hike to Delicate Arch with the Oscarsons. Chip and Marie-Laure are far more seasoned hikers than we. They have been known to throw two kids in backpacks and take off up Y-Mount or in Yosemite, and so their kids know what hiking is about. I had to try to market it to our children as "You know that time you climbed up to the castle in Fuessen? Hiking is like that only longer and with no castle at the end. People do it for fun. Especially in Utah where there are lots of great places to hike. Understand?"

We drove down on Sunday after church and stayed in Moab, where we walked through the downtown, had Mexican food for dinner, and tried out the motel's hot tub. We watched ice skating finals on TV, and Rob attended a very entertaining evening of cowboy poetry at the Moab Art and Recreation Center.

As soon as he left, I told the kids to stop jumping on the beds. Maddie saw Sebastian launching off, and so she grabbed his feet, thereby swinging him like a pendulum into the nightstand and giving him a huge goose egg on his temple, thus proving my point that if you jump on the beds, you will get hurt. I would have panicked over the huge swollen bruise, except that I had just seen one the day before on Matilde Oscarson when she fell off the trampoline at our house. Since her parents had cancelled their cross-country skiing date and taken her to the doctor's office instead, I knew that the forehead was a great place to conk oneself on the head. I also knew all of the signs for a concussion so that I could quiz Sebastian for confusion and dizziness and watch for vomiting and problems with dilation in the eyes. So I knew he was fine.

Monday morning we had breakfast at the Pancake Haus and used the hot tub again. We bought groceries and picked out some red sandstones as souvenirs. Then we met up with the Oscarsons at the Delicate Arch trailhead, where they landed after a harrowing journey in the snow down highway 6. The hike was perfect for the kids. There are old ranch remains, petroglyphs, and several different kinds of terrain in a very short space. The kids didn't complain once about the hike (which was in stark contrast to the road trip in the minivan with the movies playing). Maddie and Matilde walked together, and Ethan and Will scouted for gun-shaped sticks and rocks to climb. Linnea and Sebastian walked a good portion of the trip as well.

It was mostly overcast and windy, but up at Delicate Arch, it was really blowing, which is why the kids' favorite spot was under this ledge. This picture shows Matilde's eye off pretty well. She still has a lot more swelling than Sebastian. And if you think that Chip did this to her (as Chip is worried that people might be thinking), he didn't. We did. Between this and Tomas's broken arm at our house last week, I think that we're a terrible childcare risk right now. We'll revisit that once we have some more sleep.


Comments

M-L said…
You beat us to the post. Thanks for a great hike. It was worth the wind and the snow storm going up Soldier Summit. Let's do it again!

Popular posts from this blog

Mohr im Hemd

The Trip Home: A Report Card

Gumdroppapalooza