Insanities R Us

Last week was spring break. Rob had mentioned that he had never been to Bryce Canyon, and so last Friday, when I made reservations at a motel down there, the kids and I decided to surprise him. At our house, it's easier to surprise Papa than those kidlets; especially at the end of the semester. We were going to leave Tuesday night and come back Thursday night. So I packed up the car on Monday and was all ready to put the finishing touches on it Tuesday, then Will woke up with a fever and I had a sore throat, and the weather forecast continued to get more and more dismal. We made an executive decision to tell Papa. He called in a favor so he could skip his final, and the motel graciously let us postpone for two days:

Here is what it looked like on Thursday. Will was better, I was not, but we left anyway and had good roads despite flurries over the summits.

We went strait to the park and directly to Sunset Point where we tumbled out of the car. We peeked over the edge and toddled down the path a little way. Then the kids and I decided to take the Navajo Loop while Rob (who had the baby in a backpack) stayed above. This was foolhardy in the extreme, since none of us could remember if the hike was easy or strenuous. It turned out to be moderate, made more complicated by the mud and ice on the trail (there was a sign saying "beware: trail is icy" so I can't blame anything on the most excellent park service folk). Sebastian was wearing tennis shoes and clung to my hand the entire way down Wall Street. As we got further down, it got colder and more slippery, until at the bottom we watched a serious dude hiker, with not one but two hiking poles, biff it completely. At that point, Will decided that he was going to tushy-toboggan his way out and Maddie followed suit. Sebi made his way cautiously all the way to the bottom, only to decide that he had to try it too. Thankfully, the trail was "a cakewalk" (for Harry) once we reached the bottom, and much warmer. The kids hugged trees, watched chipmunks, and clowned around in the sun. We stopped at some benches and had a snack, since I had thrown on the pack with food in it -- as in the snacks for all the hiking for the entire trip; including the four pound bag of Kirkland trail mix. Then we started to ascend again and that backpack got mighty heavy. It got more difficult when Sebi decided that he needed to hold onto me because of the mud, and Maddie needed to give me the camera so she could concentrate. We all came out of it fine, but I had a purple face. Rob and Fluffy were there waiting at the top, jealous they hadn't come too (but I was so grateful! I would have been terrified of that drop with the baby always tipping to one side). While it was absolutely crazy to have done the Navajo Loop without preparing better, it worked in our favor: we got to the top, went to wash off our boots, and the sky darkened and began to snow -- for the rest of the afternoon, evening and night.

The only evidence that we were all there. Except that obviously we weren't all there.

Rob and Fluffy doing the HooDoo Groove Move. This was Queen's Garden trail on day three, which was much warmer and mellower, and even at that, Sebi wanted to take off or put on an article of clothing every time we made a turn in the trail.

The other insane factor on our trip is that Joss still takes three naps a day. Because Rob, Liesl, Lois and Katie have all pitched in with toting kids around, Joss is used to sleeping in his crib and only in his crib. This meant that more than once, Rob and the other kids went out exploring Henrieville and Tropic while I put him down and listened to him cry. He did beautifully the first night, but after two days of disrupted napping, he woke up in the motel at 12:30, I nursed him to sleep, he woke up back in the crib, I nursed him to sleep until 2:00am and left him in our bed. Rob woke up to the baby in the bed and put him back in his crib, where he woke up again and Rob brought him to me to nurse him to sleep. I explained that I'd already been doing this for two hours and that now Rob owed me a milkshake. At 3:30am we agreed that this wasn't going to work, and Rob stumbled out of the motel room with a squalling baby and car keys. He drove all over and they hung out in Tropic with Joss crawling all over the car and honking the horn a few times just for good measure. Rob came back at 6:00am with the firm conviction that Fluffy doesn't do motels for another three years at least. Ever.

"Except for Barcelona this summer." I reminded him, "And of course Salzburg and Dorfgastein and Hallstadt, right?" And he peeped and muttered and put a pillow over his head. He claims that if the trip had lasted one more day that Joss would have 'gone Jack-Jack' and spontaneously burst into flame. Could be.

Day two was still snowy, and we began by driving the length of the park, stopping at each lookout point to get out and freeze. It had warmed up by the time we came back to the ampitheater, so Rob and the kids did the Navajo Loop again while Fluff and I sauntered back and forth between Sunset and Sunrise Points. Then we stopped at the visitor center to warm up and get the kids hyped up to be junior rangers. The best part of the program is that they pick up trash. By that time, our van was a rolling dumpster filled with red mud, and finding trash was no problem.

While in the visitor center Sebi started messing around with his tooth during the film. Rob pulled it out. Sebastian was more than surprised -- he was a little traumatized, but we assured him that this was his meal ticket to earn money for his Wii "numchuck". I am still traumatized. He wasn't supposed to be gap-toothed by my reckoning for another two years at least! All it takes is one little hole to make them look so grown up. And for those of you keeping track, the tooth fairy did better than usual, delivering even to Utah backcountry (although it was a random sampler of loose change, which was viewed as scatterbrained).

The kids toboggan down Wall Street. The last day there we had breakfast in the lodge. It was amazing to see what a civilizing influence a hot meal can be. We hiked, kids took their junior ranger oaths, Joss fell into an exhausted stupor in the backpack, everyone ate ice cream and there was much shrieking all the way home. I suppose we shouldn't have attempted it, but I think the kids had a memorable time and got more out of the break than they would have if we'd stayed at home. And now, everything has been neglected while we've been gone. We've got to get our noses back to the grindstone if we're ever going to get off to Vienna!