Scipio Petting Zoo (August 8) and ruminations on current events

We don't often take advice from Aunt Sarah (especially recently) but when we do, we visit the Scipio petting zoo! She visited the zoo with some secret "friends" shortly after being released from jail last year and recommended that we take our children there sometime. 

Honestly, I don't know that this attraction is worth the drive for its own sake (it's not) but it's certainly worth stopping by on your way through to somewhere else.  

When we canceled our plans to explore Goblin Valley on our way home from Grover this summer (due to the Coal Hollow fire, which had closed down some roads we'd need to get home), everyone was a little disappointed, so Grandma suggested that we make a pit stop at the petting zoo on our way home, and that's what we did.

There was a good variety of animals to visit: sheep and goats, bunnies, emus, a baby zebra, some zonkeys, a camel, alpacas, llamas, and some tortoises. 

Here's Grandma showing Zoë how to be brave around the goats:

Fruita and petroglyphs and stuff

After visiting the alpaca ranch on Friday (August 10) we gave the children a tour of the "small stuff" around Capitol Reef National Park. None of us really felt like doing much hiking at that point in our trip anyway.

First we stopped by Panoramic Point for a picture:

It's an Alpaca Alpaca day!

On Friday morning (the 10th) we took the children to visit Circle Cliff Ranch, an alpaca ranch just outside of Bicknell. It's run by Diena, a retired elementary school principal, who (along with her husband) sold her home three years ago to live her dream of raising alpacas, spinning yarn from their fleece, and selling her handiwork.

Though retired, Diena is still passionate about education and opens her ranch up to visitors. Zoë, our resident llama lover, was particularly excited about our alpaca day. Alpacas aren't llamas, which we knew, but they are both closely related members of the camelid family and they look like alpacas so Zoë was thrilled (though intimidated) by all the alpacas.

Zoë, excited but scared

And so, for her, I decided to write this post about alpacas following the scheme of Llama Llama, as a tribute to one of Zoë's favourite authors, Anna Dewdney (keep in mind that I am not Ann Dewdney, however, so my poem isn't quite as cutesy as one of her would have been):

Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls: Hiking Sulphur Creek

Sulphur Creek is more or less an off-the-beaten path trail. It's never been maintained by the National Parks Service, though it's clearly inside Capitol Reef, and in the past there hasn't even been a map or anything to guide hikers. However, it has been gaining popularity over the past few years and now they have dedicated pull-outs for parking cars at either end of the trail (and although its still an unmaintained trail (on account of...it's a river) you can now get a map from the visitor center).

We didn't know any of that, however, because Andrew and I hadn't been to Capitol Reef since 2012 (just a few weeks before Benjamin was born) and Karen hadn't been to Capitol Reef since 2013 (when Dorothy passed away on Brimhall Double Bridge Trail (though Reid went just a few weeks ago with a scout troop)), so we just started doing what we'd normally done and had Karen drop us off at the Castle Rock trail head. But there's a new pull-out/parking area about a third of a mile before this now (just so you know).

While I nursed the baby, Grandpa took the other kids across the road to the dry creek bed (come to think of it, that's probably why they have the new pull-out area—so that you don't have to drag all your kids across the road to get to the proper trailhead). By the time I caught up with them Benjamin had found a rock that reminded him of a guitar and he was rocking out (in every way possible).

Musings from Miriam

When we were at Grover some of the things we did were Calf Creek and Sunset Point. The hike of Calf Creek was really hard. First we had to climb down a mountain, then it was just sand until we had to climb on top of a cliff. After we got to the pool, Rachel, Ben, and I jumped in the freezing cold water. We dared Dad and Mom to jump in. They both said they would, but they never really did. The hike up was harder. My dad said, "Go at your own pace. It isn't a race." And then he sped ahead...

And perhaps one day she'll finish that story.

But then again perhaps she won't because my children are notoriously terrible at journaling and I can't figure out how to motivate them to do it which is totally confusing to me because journaling is my favourite.

Calf Creek

I haven't hiked Calf Creek since 2005 (when I went camping in Grover with Andrew's family while he was still on his mission (not at all awkward; it's fine)). Ever since then I've just hung out at the cabin with the babies while Andrew's gone off hiking. This year, however, we decided to lug the baby out there (leaving Zoë behind with Grandma). 

We borrowed a hiking backpack from a friend because we imagined, from the comfort of our air conditioned home, that it would be "fun" to take both Zoë and Alexander on a hike or two with the big kids. But to do that we'd need two hiking backpacks (because Zoë is a bit of a whiner/three-year-old and we wouldn't be able to make her hike more than a mile). Even though we decided to only take Alexander to Calf Creek (because the hike is a little brutal, especially the hike back to the parking lot) we used our friend's backpack because it came with a sunshade and a pocket for a water reservoir/bladder/thing. In fact, I was so impressed with the backpack that the girls suggested we get a new backpack (since ours is rather ancient). 

I told them that our backpack was a wonderful backpack, that it had served us well for years, and that we weren't really in the market for a new hiking backpack since Alexander is the intended caboose of our little train. Getting a new backpack at this stage in the game would be somewhat pointless.

Anyway, we loaded Alexander into the backpack, which I wore for the descent, and we headed off into the rather desolate-looking landscape.