On this lovely 11th morning of vacation, we got to sleep in all the way until 5am! Our only thing on the books today was our ATV tour of White Pocket which was just about as much fun as one could expect to have! We also had to pack everything up as we were not returning to our Air Bn'b house after the tour.
We did most of the packing and loading the previous night to minimize the work load in the morning, but we still had plenty to do and we got'er done... coffee in hand!
We got to Kanab Tours around 6:25am for our 6:30 appt. We were supposed to be there at 6:15 but that didn't, and wasn't going to happen. We got fitted for our helmets and goggles and piled back into the van to follow our guide, Austin, out to our area of fun times!
I must tell you a bit about this Austin fella. He was about as awesome of a guide a family could want and as fate would have it, he's also a high school science teacher in Kanab! As you might expect, he and Lesley, a former high school science teacher herself, hit it off right away and had some good conversations on the tour.
Back to the business at hand tho... Austin taught me (I'm driving) about the Polaris and how to use it, and also the sign language he would use if we had to switch gears or get into 4x4.
We parked just off of Hwy 89 and he got the ATV's off of the trailer. This is getting exciting! He gives us a bunch of instructions about where we'll stop first, use the last bathrooms that we'll see and so on.
He took off down this dirt/powdery road and I was probably tailgating by ATV standards and after a couple of miles, he pulled over to have a quick talk. He told me, stay back further to avoid eating so much dust. I can follow the dust clouds up ahead once he's out of site and he'll wait at any corners where we change directions. Ok, cool beans!
After that, he pretty much let us drive as fast as I wanted to go, which wasn't crazy fast as we were on loose gravel at this point.
Once we got on the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) roads, we went about as fast as you could because the sand would really hold your vessel in place around the curves and once I got confident with that, it was a LOT more fun!!!
What is truly incredible about this day is that the ATV's were only a SMALL PART of this amazing day and they would have been enough by themselves!
Lets get to some more pictures.
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| Our ride for the new 6 or 7 hours! I'd drive one of these on the interstate!! That's how much fun they are. However, driving this in the sand roads on the BLM roads was amazing! This is a picture at the last available bathrooms, which were at a campground right on the Arizona/Utah border (noted on the first pic). |
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| We stopped at Stateline Campground as they are the last facilities that a human will see for several hours. It seems like the crappers have a fly problem for some reason. That's a lot of good protein! |
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| Back into our rocketship and ready to ride!!! It's a long ride to our first stop and I cannot wait!! |
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| At our first stop... Not sure how long it has been since our potty break, but it was quite a bit of driving. |
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| Another pic from the same vantage point. |
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| Ready for a short hike and a little earth science on our first hike. Austin was great about taking family pictures! |
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| Resurrection moss. This got it's name because, as Austin demonstrated, one water hits this dormant moss, it immediately begins to come back to life. He took his bottled water and dumped some on it. Within 10 seconds or so, there were green spots that had appeared and it began to "come back to life". Pretty freakin' cool. |
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| Armor back on and ready to hit the "roads" to our next destination. |
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| I have no idea how much longer we drove the sand roads to get to here, which is our parking lot, and where we'll have lunch after the next 153 pictures... that's an exaggeration but there are a LOT of pictures if you choose to continue. |
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| On our first hike to a little cove. I'm keenly aware of wildlife that I wish NOT to see here! We're walking to the little cave in the upper right quadrant of the pic that looks like the top of the tree. |
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| The powerful and attractive Austin leading us on our way! |
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Petroglyphs, just outside of the small cave. There were several theories as to what these meant, but there is some REALLY old fencing in the area, which we saw a bit of, where they think they took a wide swath of land and funneled the wildlife thru a much narrower stretch of land to make hunting much easier! Purdy clever fellers and fellerettes!!! |
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| Rob, hold a vertebrate while listening to Austin tell stories. |
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| More artifacts that haven't (yet) been stolen. |
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A pack-rats nest. I climbed up to get a closer pic, praying that I didn't disturb the local resident(s).
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From the vantage point of the pack-rats nest. My fams, Austin and where we're heading next!
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| It's obvious that Austin is explaining something to the group, but I'm behind and taking pictures so I'm not sure what he was saying. |
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| Next up were some Moqui Marbles, and they're somewhat fascinating. You can read more about them here. At the most basic level, from the included link that I encourage you to go read: "Moqui marbles are small, brownish-black balls composed of iron oxide and sandstone that formed underground when iron minerals precipitated from flowing groundwater. They occur in many places in southern Utah either embedded in or gathered loosely into “puddles” on the ground near outcrops of Jurassic age Navajo Sandstone.". |
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| Austin explained that after rains, more Moqui Marbles rise up thru the cracks filled with sand. |
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| This was a bit of a funny point on the tour. When you know where to look, you can see a part of Zion and Bryce Canyon from here. There's another point called Martha's Nipple which Austin hesitantly said and apologized for the name. We assured him that with two teenaged boys in tow, that "nipples" were sort of a theme of vacation at this point. He found that funny and I think we all became closer in this moment. LOL! |
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| If you can look at this picture and NOT recall the Saturday morning cartoons with "the Thing", we cannot be friends. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, wait until about the 1 minute mark of this video to see what I remember. Warning: it will make you dumber... |
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| We've done alright for nearly 30 years together! A little gray on both of us but I can't imagine it any other way. This beautiful lady plans all of these adventures and does a fantastic job at it! |
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| Some of the only other humanoids that we saw on our adventure! Talk about a near perfect day!!! |
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| So cool!!!! The rock demonstrating some shifting over the years! |
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| This looked like a wooden door on a cave opening from a distance, but it's really a discoloring of the stone. |
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| There's the strip of bacon! |
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| Amazing! |
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| Entering some different territory! |
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| Notice the sand to Rob's left, and directly behind him and Austin. |
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| This is the "clam shell". As I was climbing up to this, I began thinking more and more about the climb down. Sort of like getting on a roof from a ladder. Much easier getting up on the roof than getting back down. Too late... |
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| Caleb on the descent. |
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| It think this may have been on the climb up but I can't remember... |
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| ...and, Austin thought it would be funny to take a picture of mom & dads butts as we try to get back down safely. That sand is some shifty companion!!! This is also a grand way to split the seam of your pants if you happen to be a hefty fella like meself. |
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| That's where we're heading next, along with Caleb's arm photo bombing me. I don't see much of a path now that I'm back down safely from the clam shell. Now that we've added some very fine sand into the equation, I'm getting a little leery of these stones and narrow passages. |
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Hmmmmm... I'm old and fat, but the sand seems to be gone. Highly encouraging!
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| Ah, there she is! Still a bit of a climb, but thank goodness this stone has some really good grip, sans sand!! |
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| The clam shell from the our new vantage point. |
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| Note that the scenery has changed significantly! |
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| More of the shifting over time. |
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| The Swan. Can you see it? |
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| The 2 above pictures are of a mini fault. Super cool. Maybe the coolest thing of vacation but that is hard to determine. I should have laid flat on my big belly to get a better picture of this as it was fascinating! I plan to come back to this same spot in 10,003 years to see the progress that it's made! |
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This is the next stage of the Resurrection Moss - a fossil. The dark stuff that we saw early on, turns to white with the black specks in it. The black specks are spores that STILL come back to life when it rains. - Update: Lesley doesn't think that my memory of the black dots is correct, which probably means that she is correct. I sure thought that Austin said something about the spores but I'm having trouble finding references on the world wide interwebs.
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| We're pretty much done with White Pocket at this point. If you have a super keen eye, you can spot our two ATV's parked off in the distance. |
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| MMMmmmmmmmmm... dead trees with cool backgrounds! |
At the point when we got back to the ATV's, we drank lots of water and had our lunch. I had made some fancy sammy's the night before and Austin was a little jealous. I told him that had I known that he was going to be awesome, I would have made him one too! He felt terrible that our lunch had dislodged in his cooler and my sammy got a bit wet causing soggy bread. The first thing I told him was, "Dude, look at me!! If my sammy is half of what I packed, it's probably for the best!". He still felt bad but that's nonsense. I told him about some summer's detasseling corn in Iowa and what you eat when things go South... No biggie at all!
It was at lunch that Austin took our families temperature on going further or heading back, after talking during the hike about our hectic vacation schedule and where we're heading next. The question centered around going further to Window Rock, or heading back. Screw heading back, lets keep driving these bad boys and get the most out of this day!!!
This is the first time on this trip that we got a hint at how things run. He said that not every tour gets the option, depending on how the people are. If they are extremely timid driving the ATV, they don't get the options as it takes much longer to do the basic tour and the add-ons are simply NOT an option. Austin expressed many times how much fun he was having with us and it was up to us to do as much stuff as possible. We opted for that!!!
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| So back into our rocketship for more adventure! We drove thru a private farm where he had to stop and open/close gate as we entered/exited and at one point, had to dodge some very large cattle. That was a bit of a surprise! |
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| This is the Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit at Window Rock. It might just be me, but I think I look a LOT better in a tight helmet and goggles... |
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| Getting our armor on for the trip back to our van. |
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| A good view of the sand I mentioned that holds the ATV's in the lane around curves when your driver is gunning it! |
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| On the gravel road back... the last few are more of the same. |
On the way back, Austin told me, "you can go as fast as you're comfortable with, just be advised that when there's hills a bit later in the drive, that a few of those are followed by curves on loose gravel.". Duly noted! I think our rocketships top speed was 63. Oh what fun it is to ride in a polaris atv!
After the tour, Caleb got into drive on our way back to Kanab, and to get a little mountain driving experience. He did a great job for about 45-50 minutes before we needed to find a bathroom.
Mama Chaos drove after that from Mt. Caramel Junction, to Tropic, UT. I drove from Tropic until Torrey, UT. We checked into the Capital Reef Resort and went for supper at their Pioneer Kitchen. Some good kibble there! Caleb had chicken enchiladas, Mama had salmon and Rob had their Cowboy burger. Everything was excellent and I just snacked off of everyone's plates as we always have too much food on vaca that we can't take with us.
The boys and I played some football catch out behind our room in an open yard that had a cool back drop.
I am exhausted and should have gone to bed an hour ago. I suppose that I can take some solace in the fact that that we can sleep in until about 8am tomorrow!
See you next time!
