And All the Bumper Stickers Said "Utah Rocks!'

Yesterday we returned home from our trip around the Grand Circle in Utah.  To be honest, I didn’t know that the “Grand Circle” was a thing until I saw Matt using it as a hashtag on Instagram. It makes sense though, because it did feel like we drove in circles. We drove in and out of three of the four corner states so many times that our phones no longer knew what was up and kept displaying the wrong times.  We arrived for our anniversary dinner at The Grand Canyon Lodge a full hour ahead of our reservations having no idea that we were in the wrong time zone. It didn’t help that it gets dark in Utah almost two full hours later than at home.  We were like little disoriented mole rats, wandering around in the daylight, squinting, bumping into each other and scratching our heads. Where are we? What time is it? 

We had fun though.  The kids did great in the car. We only had to tell them to shut up or stop fighting around twenty times throughout the whole trip. If you’re a parent, you know that’s a low number when you’re talking about several 5-6 hour drives, so we’re grateful.  If you’re not a parent and you just read those lines, I’m pretty sure I just provided plenty of motivation for you to use birth control. 

I only have one complaint about the trip. Matt isn't going to enjoy reading this because he's the one who plans these things and makes out agenda, but I can’t pretend to feel something that I don’t feel, and I'm sorry to say, I don't hold affection for Utah. I do not have any desire to go back to her anytime soon. If you love Utah, I think that’s fantastic. I can even say that I'd see why, because she has some breathtaking qualities. We saw a lot of pretty things, but most of the pretty things we saw were.....rocks.

Big Rocks

Balanced rocks. 

Weeping rocks.

Rocks with holes in them. 

Arched rocks. 

Monumental rocks. 

 Rocks with ancient writing on them.

Inverted rock, also known as canyonlands

Vast amounts of inverted rock, also known as The Grand Canyon

You’ll notice that that’s a lot of rock. At one point I said to Matt, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but is there any part of this trip that does not involve taking pictures of rocks?” And he shook his head and told me to wait for Vegas. 

Rocks do not inspire me. 

We did this trip when I was a kid, and I remember feeling the same way.  Give me an ocean, give me a green forest, give me a huge oak tree with swags of Spanish Moss dripping from it's branches, give me anything but red and orange rocks on a martian landscape.  I do not love it. They do not fulfill me, motivate me, refresh me. In fact, in a weird way, they make me feel empty and a little uneasy. (Although that could be chalked up to the fact that my kids were always climbing high up on the arches and cliff edges.)

If you look close, you'll see the teeny tiny figures of my kids and Matt way up there. There's a cliff behind them with a sheer drop. Whenever they did this, I usually stayed on the ground and tried not to look at how high up they were. And that friends, is how I survived their climbing shenanigans all 12 days of this trip. It was my smart and savvy way of avoiding heart and panic attacks. 

All that is not to say that I didn't enjoy our vacation.  I repeat, I liked our vacation. It was much better camping in a trailer instead of a tent. Like I said, the kids had a great time climbing around on everything in sight.  We saw some amazing skies that I’ll talk about later in the week.  It became a thing to take pictures of J meditating in different spaces, and that was fun. Also, despite the trailer, I did the roughest camping of my life on this trip, which I’ll talk about soon.  But for now, I'm done with rocks. If you see me in the next few weeks, please refrain from using the words "sandstone", "erosion", or "geologic time" when you're around me.  I've had my fill. 

I almost want to end this with a rock pun, like “You guys rock!” or “Rock on”, or, “You can take it for GRANITE that I’ll be back soon”, but I won’t. 

You’re welcome.

P.S- I think it's pretty obvious that the picture of the Grand Canyon isn't mine. It's Matt's.  He's a good photographer. Follow him on Instagram @mcauthron.