State Park Scavenger Hunt-South East Parks

This past weekend, we decided it was once again time to tackle some more State Parks as part of the scavenger hunt.  We ventured a little further this time and were able to hit four parks.

We left Friday after Jason was done with work and drove down to Monticello where we stayed the night at a hotel.  It had seemed like a good idea to split the driving up this way until Leila decided she didn't want to sleep until almost 1AM!  Even then, she woke up every hour until 4 and then finally slept in bed with me (kicking Jason out) until almost 8.  Little Stink!

We checked out of the hotel and continued making our way south, almost all the way to the Utah border, to our first park of the day: Goosenecks.  We were shocked that the park only consisted of one overlook, some primitive campsites, and a couple picnic areas.  That said, the overlook was absolutely stunning!

We started backtracking and made our way to Blanding where the Edge of the Cedars park was located.  Where Goosenecks was small in that it was just one overlook, Edge of the Cedars was small in that it was a museum.  I guess state parks come in all shapes and sizes.

Our third park of the day was Dead Horse Point, near Moab.  The area around Moab has always been one of my favorite places and the scenery at Dead Horse Point was no exception!

Our last stop before heading home was Green River.  This park was unique in that it encompassed a golf course!  We were pretty tired from our sleepless night and didn't stay here long, but it was a nice little park.

State Parks Scavenger Hunt-Park City Area

I read a news article earlier this week about the Utah State Parks putting together a scavenger hunt this summer.  They were going to have different tasks that you could complete at each park for points from June 1-August 31.  I thought it sounded intriguing, and once I saw that the majority of tasks were doable for my little family, I signed us up and we went on our first State Park outing yesterday.  In my competitive, slightly OCD manner, I split all of the parks into zones and figured we could easily tackle a zone each weekend.  This weekend we opted to go for the ones up near Park City.  We went to East Canyon and Rockport.

The tasks at these ones proved more challenging than they first appeared, but we still had a great time and a beautiful drive.  I look forward to exploring more of the parks this summer!

Sundance Lift

I get quite a few great perks from working for Ancestry.com and one of them this summer was getting two free lift tickets to ride the lift at Sundance for half a day.  Friday morning was when I got the passes and since Jason was working, Ashley was kind enough to tag along with Leila and I.  I was nervous Leila wasn't going to sit still and would fall off the lift, but she actually did really well.

The biggest problem was that I hadn't accounted for the drop in temperature at the top of the mountain and hadn't dressed Leila very warmly.  So we only hiked around for a brief bit a little once we reached the top.

Then we headed back down the mountain and Ashley lent Leila her sweatshirt (at least someone was prepared) and I had Elmo playing on my phone to keep her distracted.

It was a beautiful day and a great excuse to get out of the house!