Here's just a taste...

We went on an amazing road trip from June 27--July 5th with our friends, the Hollingsworths. This was our third annual road trip with them and their three kids. This year we went down to Moab and Blanding, UT, and we went to 5 amazing national parks/monuments and hiked into some indian ruins in Blanding that very few people know about. Blake Hollingsworth spent a lot of time down here as a teen, so he was excited to show us the wonders of Southern Utah. It was very hot! We all wore Camelbacks throughout the day to stay hydrated and were very grateful for the air-conditioned mini-van we got to climb into after each hike. Cameron ended up taking about 500 hundred pictures and Blake took a lot more than that. I don't have the time or energy to go through them all and post my favorites but here is just a taste of some of the stuff we saw:

We hiked through the "jungle" and scaled a cliff to get to this ruin near Blanding, UT. It was built by the Pueblo Indians about 1000 A.D.

Some of the Hollingsworth gang packing out their kids in the "jungle." I could have sworn we were in the desert until we went on this hike!

This was Natural Bridges National Park. The amazing bridges we saw are bigger and thicker than the arches.

Brittyn and the other kids were amazing as we dragged them down mountains and into canyons to find indian ruins.

Another bridge at National Bridges National Park. There were very few people in this park on the 4th of July. Could the 100 degree weather be a reason?

An Indian village at Mesa Verde National Park (in Colorado.) We only got to see two of the villages here, both with ranger led tours, but it was way worth it.

We got to the top of this hill, looking for the ruin one of Blake's friends had given us coordinates to. We saw this and just had to figure out a way down to get into them. On the way down, we discovered two more that had been hidden by trees. We were so crazy to do this with three kids. Lots of catcuses (cacti?), slick rock, lizards, and NO TRAIL! It was so fun!

This is Blake measuring his hands against those who lived here thousands of years ago. This was in the one of the ruins we hiked into. We also found pieces of pottery and tons more petroglyphs.

This tower/house was the first ruin we found on this trip. Blake had been here when he was a kid and was sooo excited to show us everything. We go to go inside, which was pretty cool.

This is Balanced Rock, the famous rock formation at Arches National Park.

This is Delicate Arch, another very famous formation at Arches. Cameron and I got up early and hiked to this one alone. We had to go early because of the heat and there were a lot of steep cliffs so we were glad the kids were not here. The sun was just coming up when we got up there and there were only two other couples. Way cool!

This is view from the road driving through Arches National Park. It was so different there than anything I have ever seen.

This was me and Cameron's favorite arch, "Double Arch." The picture just doesn't do it justice.

This was Landscape Arch, which was huge and breathtaking. The Hollingsworths didn't make it all the way to the arch because it was so hot and it was hard to walk through the sand at the end. Those poor kids, they were troopers!

This is a view of the "Island in the Sky" at Canyonlands National Park. THis area had some pretty fantastic geography.

This is right under one of the Natural Bridges we hiked into. There was shade and water down there! There were also a lot of petroglyphs on the walls of the formation.

Brittyn, I know exactly how you felt. We all slept good in our tents every night.

Carter was so tired he didn't care the position he was in. I think he was just ready to be done!