Moab Vacationing (I finally finished this post!)

The three of us went on a little family vacation last weekend to Moab for some off-roading. We went with our friends the Evans family and had a blast. I really did have fun though I am very happy to be back home...=). We left last Wednesday morning. Ella and I were lucky enough to travel the whole way in the Evans' RV while Dave had to drive his truck the whole way by himself. The first day Dave was feeling under the weather so it was a bit rough but he felt 100% by Friday. We left home at 6:45am and arrived in Moab after dark. Justin and Brittany stayed in their RV at an RV park that was close by and we stayed at Days Inn. Dave said the hotel looked a lot nicer online than in person. They had a pool but it was closed and they had some hot tubs but we never seemed to get home early enough in the evening to want to relax in one. Our couch in our room looked like it had been through a lot. One of the cushions was permanently smashed down. The first night we could hear a fairly loud and annoying pounding/wooshing/rythmic noise that lasted all through the night. I'm not sure what it was but luckily it only lasted that first night. We thought we might try to change hotels but ours had a fridge and microwave (which come in very handy when you've got a baby) and none of the others had both so we decided to stick it out. Some things I DID like about our hotel (along with having a microwave and fridge) were that we had a king size bed, our room was one of the larger ones in the hotel, and our hotel served continental breakfast every morning. Ella did really well with sleeping in her playard too. I was nervous about her sleeping well on our trip but for the most part she slept when we did so that was wonderful...enough of my blabbing. Here are some pics: We were waiting at the RV park to start off-roading and Dave thought Ella might like to hang out in this tree...haha Ella hanging out in the RV. Here's Justin's Jeep at the begining of the trail "Hell's Revenge." Crazy enough, Justin broke his tie-rod going up that hill which wasn't half as bad as some of the stuff we did later. It's just a good thing it broke at the beginning and not in the middle of no where. Here's a picture of our view from the top of the hill. It was really pretty. Dave and Justin were able to get the Jeep back down the hill and off the trail. Me, Brittany, and the three kids all waited in the Jeep for at least an hour while Dave and Justin drove to different Auto Stores/shops looking for a replacement part. They ended up only finding one place that had it but it was really costly. That was the only option so they bought it. Dave and Justin fixed the Jeep pretty quickly once they had the part. By then it was 1:30pm. We had gotten to the trail at 10am. We decided to go get some lunch at a Pizza Hut in town since it was to cold outside for us to cook something on the trail like we'd planned. After lunch Justin and Dave fixed the alignment on the Jeep in the Pizza Hut parking lot. While they were fixing it the weather got crazy. It started SNOWING! Since the weather would make the rocks on the trails slick we decided to skip "Hell's Revenge" (I wasn't sad about that..hehe) and do an easier trail. I think it was called "Flippers and Fins"...it was "something" and Fins...I don't remember. But anywho...here are some pics from the trail... Justin's Jeep...I don't have many pics of our truck =(. I should've hopped out more to take more pictures but I'm a baby when it comes to cold weather. I'm hoping Brittany got some of us.For dinner we went back to the RV and Dave made everyone French Dip sandwiches..they were DELICIOUS! Here are the kids hanging out while we waited to eat. Lincoln is on the left. He's 3 years old and Dallin is the baby on the right. He's just 15 days or so younger than Ella. They got along pretty well except that Dallin had a facination with Ella's hair and had uncontrolable impulses to pull it =S. Ella didn't seem to mind too much though. Lincoln thought Ella's name was "Bella" which I thought was cute. Friday's off-roading went a lot smoother than Thursday. Nothing broke (except Dave's rear locker wouldn't work...=(...so that sucked but we still made it through ok). We went on a TON of trails this day but this is the first trail we went on. As you can see Dave is very excited. That motorcyclist to the right was walking up with another motorcyclist (not pictured) to talk to Dave about our truck. I guess they saw us driving around town that morning and wanted to ask Dave about it. They were pretty funny and very excited about Dave's off-roading beast. They knew a ton about trucks! They followed us to some obstacles to see how it did on the trail.There were a lot of motorcycles and 4 wheelers on the trails. pictures really don't do the scenery justice. It was so beautiful out there. There were red rock mountains all over and the snow covered rockies were off in the distance. You could see the colorado river too. It was GORGEOUS! This is the obstacle we were trying to drive up when we realized our rear locker wouldn't lock...it was "lovely." We were far to the left where it's like going up a wall. We could've done it if our locker were working. We ended up driving up on the right side; it was more of a slope. I believe this is called "Pig Mountain." It's called that because it actually looks like a pig. The snout is on the right side. We stopped for some lunch out on the trail. Dave grilled some hamburgers for everyone and we let our kids roam free and stretch out their limbs a bit. The trail lead up this huge hill on the left and then turns right back around and leads down the same side more to the right...I personally think it was HIGHLY unnecessary but we did it anyway...I looked something like this...while driving down it. It was fairly steep...I do NOT like steep.We Got out to look around and stretch our legs a bit. Justin thought there was a lookout up here. It ended up not being the lookout he had in mind but the view was beautiful nonetheless =). Dave took this dang cute pic of Justin and Brittany. I would've loved for them to have taken our picture just like that but I'm TERRIFIED of heights and my hands were clammy just watching them lean over the edge like that!Dave's got some CRAZY balancing skills!Just kidding! We were actually on this hill =). Here's a crazy obstacle called The "something" Crack ( I can't remember but it's pretty deep down there. Justin was walking around in the crack and the sides went up past his head! Here are Dave and Ella hanging out while we're waiting for our turn to drive over "the crack." I was safely outside of the vehicle taking pictures/video footage while Dave drove over that. I was VERY nervous. My hands got clammy once again..=S. He DID get over without any trouble! I have a video clip of Justin's Jeep and Dave's truck driving over it. I'll post those at the end of this post.I don't know why but I LOVE dead trees/leafless ones (as long as they're not in our yard or anything) and I love them even more at sunset...pretty. Here's "Big Bird," obviously named that because the rock LOOKS like a giant bird! It looks awesome in person! I wish my camera did better at night...oh well...I'll get my Canon someday =). This rock was at the end of our last trail. By that time I was SOOO happy to be heading back to town. I can only be happy off-roading for so long. Dave was nice about my cranky-ness there at the end. Thanks babe...I LOVE YOU! I'm glad I could hang out with Dave doing what he loves (even if I don't love it). Dave said, and I quote,"Moab is like my Disneyland!" He had so much fun =)! I wasn't quite THAT enthusiastic but I had fun and I'm glad Dave really had fun.