Arches Camping Trip

We arrived in Arches with decent weather, but within an hour, it started to look a little ominous. We spent the first night listening to lightning, thunder, heavy rain and lots of wind! The kids slept through it all, but I only got spotted sleep at best. The next morning was cold and rainy, and we had to prepare breakfast under a tarp and eat it in the Bell's trailer to stay warm. 

But by mid-morning, the rain had cleared and the sun came out. We took the kids on a few hikes around the park. We packed in lunch to double arch and had a picnic there, and then took a quick walk across the street to see the "windows" trail. Arches NP has over 2000 arches within the park, but these were the easiest and quickest hikes with the most arches that we thought the kids would enjoy.

We had 14 kids in our group! It was amazing trying to get everybody going in one direction, but they kept each other entertained and made the hiking a little more enjoyable by having buddies to play with along the way. He actually didn't hear too much complaining! And they loved the ham and cheese sandwiches, apples and grapes and goldfish crackers we had for lunch...I think hiking makes for hungry kids who aren't picky :)

The next night was better, but we did get hit with another rain storm. No thunder or lightning this time, which was good...I slept better! As the day before, it cleared out by mid-morning and we took the kids on a pretty difficult hike to delicate arch. It was 3 miles round trip, which is a big deal for these little legs. But they made it!

 Our final stay was in Goblin valley. The weather was much warmer and calmer. The night sleep was the best of the three tent-camping. We played around in the valley of the goblins, trying to make a destination to a cool cave, but our kids were just too wiped to complete it so we turned around to have lunch and pack-up camp.

We wore the kids out with activities. They loved the camping experience but they were equally excited to be back home!