Easter equates to a candy filled vacation

We all know it! Easter is a weird holiday. We know of its weird-it-ties yet we accept and love the holiday because, it has the best candy.  Thats right Santa, your treats take a back seat to the offerings of the Easter bunny. There I said it.

I do love Easter candy! As evident by the pile of candy wrappers on my nightstand. Most days of the year, I dont eat candy. I really do not care for it. Then Easter rolls around and I find myself looking like this in front of an Easter Candy isle at some store. I dont know what happens to me. It just happens. I accept it like gravity, the passing of the sun, or the graying of my hair. It just is.

Casi, December 25, 1999

The other thing I like about Easter is camping. We do not camp during Easter too often.  Well,OK, just twice; including this years trip. But doesn't twice practicality make it a tradition?   Well then, the two times we have done it. I have loved it!!! (with three exclamation points)

Our tinner family + cute Claire

For us a vacation usually equates to many bloopers (I prefer to call them adventures!). And this trip was no different. It started off with lots and lots of snow and the cancellation of part of our group (we missed you Brandon, Kate, Dillon and the baking Baby Shepard!)  

All this snow is from one storm and as you can see its still coming down. The dove taking refuge in my feeder has been diligently working on a nest in my pine. I can hardly wait for the babies to show up. Maybe I will post some pictures. I tried taking a picture. Once. But then one of the Dove made total eye contact right through the camera. This made me uncomfortable. So I stopped. 

Due to the storm, we wanted to leave early; before the evening traffic started. This means, that we ran around the house for an hour, calling out things to pack, sweating, running, yelling. It was a chaotic mess. Very much like all the trips we always take. We are too busy to be organized about our trips and so packing tends to be fraught with chaos. There is a part of me that likes it this way. You can not have adventures if you are well prepared.

Eventually, we crawled into the car and headed down the road. I remember feeling that we had done a great job and was excited that we were only 20 minutes past 4:00 pm (our goal time).

Our next two blooper adventures plagued us the entire trip. Well it really was poor Casi that suffered. We discovered this "bump in the road" after arriving at the Needles district of Canyonlands NP,  when Casi looked at me with fear in her eyes and said "Where is my bag?" We determined after a short search (there really is not many places to look in the camper) that her bag was sitting in her room. At home. Leaving her with, PJ bottoms (purple with polka dots), a T-shirt, tennis shoes (no socks), a hat, and coat for a 4 day trip.

The second blooper was forgetting the cot for Casi to sleep on. *sigh*

On a side note: Casi, being a thirteen year old girl without any clothes or a bed to sleep on, had a freak-in awesome attitude about it! BTW: if you want to see Casi's perspective regarding this trip, and these "adventures" you really should visit her blog. She actually wrote more than a few lines and its pretty funny.

And soooooo.....

Easter came early. On April fools day. Providing the kids with camel backs, candy, shorts, tee shirts, crazy socks, and flip flops. What a perceptive bunny!*

* See this is why I like bloopers adventures. If we were prepared we would have not had an Aprils fools day Easter!

The gifts, proof of Tanners inherited obsession of Easter Candy, the kids with their gifts, the crazy socks and Claire.

As with most of our bloopers adventures, they always work out. Cassi now had one outfit. It was cold for the weather we were having but, luckily Claires parents sent a pair of insulated rain pants. Thanks, Claires parents and Claire!

  A happy and warm Casi and Claire!

The first trail, we hiked, passed varied terrain; across Elephant Canyon to the edge of Chesler Park. 3/4's of the way, to the view below, was a dessert meadow circled by the colorful, weather-smoothed rocks of the Needles. I have never seen such a perfect desert meadow. The sage, grasses, and red hued soil felt untouched by human influences. Within it was a perfect garden of cryptologic soil intertwined and connected the plants; never seeing, perhaps, a sheep or cow graze within it. I did not take a photo of this meadow. Instead I just mentally wandered within the beauty, that a photo could not contain.

View  of the Needles from  Chesler park trail. I love sky. 

It is rare, in southern Utah, to see so much water. The shallow potholes, the higher humidity, and dense and often times dark cloud cover were a welcome guest to the often hot and dry climate we usually enjoy.

More pictures of water. On this day the sun was out; bleaching my photos. Sad. 

This large  (about 10-12 feet wide in the largest section) pothole (above) is filled with water and the alien creatures of desert potholes; Tadpole shrimp and clam shrimp. 

Note on desert shrimp: The desert shrimp, as they are also called, live in the potholes of Utah's, Canyon Lands but have also been  discovered in the country of Iraq and Midland, Texas. The desert shrimp's microscopic eggs can remain dormant for a season or for hundreds if not millions of years, and can survive temperatures of extremes of over 124 degrees F and below zero. Isn't that cool! The eggs are strewn with the wind and will hatch only after a certain amount of water pressure is present, thus ensuring a new generation lives on. Not all of the eggs will hatch with each season.  

In all honesty the pothole life was young, tiny, and a bit disappointing to the kids (and me!). The last time we saw these they were towards the end of their season (in May) and they were HUGE!

The Easter holiday was a strong component of this trip In giving Casi clothes, in providing the kids with Camel packs so that Nate did not have to accommodate all of their provisions in one very tiny backpack( My backpack tends to fill up with my gear;  binoculars, camera, sketch book) and in providing entertainment to Tanner so the rest of us could obsessively play "phase 10" while consuming the Easter candy that I love.

On the first night of Phase 10 obsession, Tanner ran back and forth with an Easter kite, held on a short line,  trying to get it into the air. He would appear in the window running east, disappear beyond the windows view, then return running west the kite bouncing on his heals. Over and over and over again. The rest of us appreciating the campers warmth and our game of Phase 10 would give off random chuckles as we saw him fly by.

On the last night, Nate and I and (for a brief moment) the girls climbed the rock behind our camp and flew the kit with him.

Casi's easter outfit. Those socks gave me (and many other hikers, rangers, ect) so much joy the whole trip.

Nate and Tanner flying kit

I know this picture is a bit blurry but I love Tanners expression and the silhouetted plane with the western reflection of the setting sun.

The view east from the top of the camp rock. 

The view west. 6 shooter rock; a prominent feature in the Needles landscape.

The park is full of Native American History. This could be observed through the many hikes, pictographs, ruins, and exuberant Rangers and Ranger programs. We appreciated this history by walking Cave Spring and Roadside Ruin hikes, and by going to an enthusiastic ranger program that went on and on and on. And on. I spent the last 20 minutes of the ranger's program thinking about how Glacier NP's program put theirs to shame and wondering if my bottom would recover from the half log seat I was occupying. I would guess that Glacier has the funds to support their powerpoint presentations (crazy, right?) but they also put in the time to organize what they wanted to say; the Needles lacked this organization, making it hard, sadly, to keep your interest focused on what they wanted to share. Instead, my mind occupied itself with the preservation of my bottom. Not bad subject matter, if you ask me.

 

A little Branch history. Casi 5/2004. Casi 3/2010. She is still a cute-ee!

Our last hike was Squaw canyon to Big spring. It is the shortest loop hike in the Needles (at 8 miles), with easy walking along flat valley floors and just one strenuous part across a high pass that links the two drainages. I think it will be this "strenuous part" that we will all remember. Casi and Claire especially were all grins during this part. I blame the slickrock. It is pretty fun to walk on. 

Tanner and Nate climbing up out of the "drainage". Casi and the view from on top.

View of squaw canyon, six shooter point and surrounding canyons.

Casi's easter socks, again. They still give me great joy.

 

We, of course, kept with the holiday spirit and did some Easter egg coloring. 

The last Easter blooper adventure surprise was Tanners, during another obsessive Phase 10 evening, the day before the real Easter. I had The Easter bunny had placed a few Easter surprises for the actual morning of Easter within a drawer in the camper. Tanner discovering this drawer, opened the curtain that separates the master bed from the rest of the camper and states, "MOM, DAD, We need to talk!" in all seriousness. The rest of us responded with laughter but then, he broke down in tears.

Recently, Tanner has been coming home from school with questions about Santa and the Easter bunny due to the other kids being privy on the down low. So when he opened that curtain, I thought of my options.  I could cover the discovery (lie some more) or let him know. I chose to tell him.

I went back and spoke with him and he responded with phrases like "Its all a lie. The infamous statement "You lied!" also came out. And I was afraid, it was all true. I could not lie more. I felt shamed. It was strange that a culturally accepted lie could feel so bad through the black and white eyes of my 6 year old. So I let him be. And asked that when he settled down that he would come and talk to me.

A few minutes later he came out and sat on my lap; curling into the fetal position to protect himself from this world without mythical gift giving creatures. I did not know what to say and started rambling about how horrible of a lier I was. How I always misspoke, poorly hid gifts, or left things out in the open that would help with the discovery. "Its a relief that I do not have to continue, always worried of being discovered". I then spoke of how Casi found out. This lead to others speaking of their stories and all of us in laughter about the whole thing. Including Tanner. I was saved.

In retrospect, I think I should have not told him about the bunny. The evidence, on this, is in how he decided to interpret it all.  He give up the bunny but has chosen to keep Santa. He still wants to believe and I guess, I will continue to lie so he can.

We woke up Easter morning to a bright sunny day. The morning was warm enough that I could hide the discovered Easter eggs without a coat. Hiding candy filled eggs of blue, green, pink, yellow, orange, and purple in trees, rock crevices, within green plants, up on top of camp rock, between roots, behind fire pits and under logs. The kids followed with pastel baskets.

I then walked my last morning walk for the trip. As I walked by our neighboring camp, our neighbor asked "Where those your kids with the baskets this  morning?

I replied, "yes" and watched as his two boys played out on the camp rock in the background, highlighted by the sun.

"That was a good idea." he said.

I looked back at him and smiled. "Thanks" I responded and walked on.

Have I mentioned how much I love camping at Easter?