Bonus post - RV Trip

Oops. Not sure how I missed these pictures in my camera roll, or how I forgot about an entire day of our trip… probably because I’m digging in the dregs of my memory trying to document March when it’s now August. Whose memory lasts that long anyway? Not mine. 

Anyway, we did have another day on our vacation. And this time it was in beautiful, snowy Bryce Canyon.

We were pretty tired after having hiked all day for the previous three days, but we decided to at least hike around the rim. Something about hiking along paved trails makes my kids exceptionally whiny… dirt trails are fun, paved trails are not. It’s as simple as that I guess. Thankfully Eliza had some pretty fabulous hair to keep us distracted from the whining. 

Along our mile stroll we had several people stop and admire our cute little puppy. And every time they did the kids found new vigor to keep going. External validation is powerful stuff.

At one point we saw some hikers in the far distance hiking down into the canyon and we wondered how we could get ourselves there. And at another point we saw a sign pointing the way. The signs were clear that you couldn't take a dog on anything but paved trails (so they wouldn't attack the wildlife or destroy any fauna), but we figured that if we carried Maisy like a little child it would be okay. And down we went.

Or started to go anyway.

As we trekked down, the people who were trekking up were mumbling and grumbling and one after another after another after another was covered in mud up to her knees, or his hips, and one guy had mud caked all the way up to his neck. When the third well-intentioned person stopped their upward progress to warn me (pointing to my boot) that I would not be able to make it due to a giant mud section not to far away, I started to listen and decided that maybe this hike wasn't the one on which to test myself. I don't actually like to be caked in mud and I wasn't sure how I'd clean out the boot if it looked like all the others' muddy feet passing by. So I decided to turn back while the rest of my family continued on. 

Which I didn't mind one bit because of how much I love to be alone with my camera.

 

Turns out they didn't make it much further than I did. They walked down to the muddy area and decided to turn back instead of fight through it.

Which I was not sad about given the difficulty of cleaning up something of that sort when you're traveling around in an RV.