Utah, Day 5

We got up early again so we could hike the Y before it got too awfully hot.  Craig came up with the brilliant idea to promise the kids a trip to Soda-licious if they could do the hike without whining.  We had to take lots of breaks-- that hike is steep and I'm still blaming the high altitude.  But we did it!  And we didn't complain the whole time, so I count that as a huge success.

Trailhead

Enjoying the view of Provo et al.  (Seriously, we had to take so many breaks!)

Bentley got sick of wearing his bucket hat, so I took it.  Ryder and I are so cute together!

Getting so close!

I love how, once you get there, you can see how weird the Y is shaped in order to look good from the ground.  I could never figure out something like that!

Colton has this way of sitting so stoically

Similar to hiking Delicate Arch, the trip down was easier on the lungs, but harder on the feet and knees.  We kept seeing people running down the mountain, and I just can't comprehend the point in doing that at all.  Save your knees, people!!!  Plus, with all that loose gravel, I'm pretty sure I'd slip and fall if I tried to run.  Other people are nuts.

We went straight from the hike to a nearby waterpark, which is called Splash Summit, but will forever be Seven Peaks in my mind.  I dropped Craig and the kids off and went to visit my good friend from grad school, Laresa.  As I've done with everyone else, I forgot to take pictures of the two of us together (seriously, what is wrong with me???), but we had a great time catching up.  And since Laresa has about a billion cats, it was really good that Craig didn't come along with me!  He would have died.  And then I joined my family back at the water park (I may have stopped at Waffle Love on my way-- their Nutella waffle with raspberries is to die for!).

I found Bentley right away.  He did NOT like the water park and was protesting by sitting under a tree.  Apparently they made you pay extra to use the innertubes (?!?!?!?) and he got yelled at for using one in the lazy river, so he was done after that.  I can't say that I blame him-- that's a pretty stupid policy, and totally different than any other water park I've ever been to.  Eventually I found Craig and the rest of my brood.  We splashed in the wave pool for a bit and they showed me how they could jump into the pool from the trapeze and then it was time to get going.

Ryder is tricky!

We stopped at Sodalicious, as promised, and also got me some Creamery chocolate milk.  Everyone LOVED their dirty sodas, so that was great.

Then we went back to the townhouse and showered, which felt delightful (even with that stupid, lame-o shower head).  Craig and I had a date night all planned: we were going to eat dinner at the Bombay House and then do a session at the Provo City Center Temple.  We used to attend Stake Conference in that building, back when it was the Provo Tabernacle.  It tragically burned down in 2010, and so when they rebuilt it, they made it into a temple and tried to preserve the historical aspects of it, which is really cool.  I was excited to see the inside!

The kids were all set to make mac'n'cheese for themselves (the thick and creamy kind!), and I had just finished putting on my makeup and was about to start washing a load of towels when the doorbell rang.  Craig answered it and came running back up the stairs looking slightly ill as he explained: "I messed up our reservation.  We were supposed to have left this morning and the people who actually reserved it for tonight are here."

Oh, dear.

Now, I have to say a couple things here.  First of all, Craig literally planned this entire trip.  I was so overwhelmed getting ready for company and end-of-school stuff that my only contribution was to nod in agreement whenever he told me he'd made a reservation or booked a tour.  So if he made one mistake on our entire two week itinerary, he still did great.  I cannot fault Craig for this at all.

Second, there had been PLENTY of clues that we were supposed to be out of there, but we'd been blithely ignoring all of them.  The rental company had been trying to call Craig all morning, but since he didn't recognize the number, he let it go to voicemail.  And because sometimes modern technology likes to be super fun, his phone didn't alert him to any of the voicemails they left until he was literally on the phone with them and suddenly his phone wouldn't stop dinging.  Also, a cleaning crew had been through and cleaned the entire place and made all the beds while we were out hiking and splashing, so we'd been surprised at that when we walked in the door (and wondered why they hadn't waited until we left the next day), but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and I was just delighted to have such a clean place again.  But that definitely should have tipped us off.

And I have a third thing to talk about: a lot of times in a marriage, you take on different roles.  And in our marriage, Craig is the calm one and I tend to be the uptight, bordering-on-hysterical one.  BUT NOT THIS TIME.  I became preternaturally calm as I asked the new renters to please give us one hour to get ourselves out of there, and then we ran around packing up as fast as we could.  It was slightly eery, hearing myself gently encouraging the kids to get everything gathered and calling them Sweetie as I directed everyone's frantic energy like some sort of motherly air traffic controller.  I managed to find all of our own pillows which had been hidden throughout the house by (what must have been) a very confused cleaning crew.  We found Ryder's blankie mixed in with a bag full of clean linens up on a closet shelf, I pulled all the dirty towels out of the washing machine (and counted my lucky stars that I hadn't started it yet so they were relatively dry at least) and stuffed them in a garbage bag.  Bentley and Kendra packed all our food into our food bin.  At one point Craig and I were alone in our bedroom trying to shove piles of dirty clothes into one suitcase, and clean clothes in another, and I said, "So I think we should just begin driving home, right?  There's no point in getting a hotel here so we can begin driving tomorrow" and Craig confirmed that he'd been thinking the exact same thing.

So that was that!

We were in the car and driving in 40 minutes flat, a new record by any stretch of the imagination.  I drove first so Craig could make a hotel reservation for us in Laramie, Wyoming, which we got to around midnight.  6 hours of unexpected driving (out of 30) on Day 1.  And that was the end of our time in Utah!  It was an abrupt, adrenaline-pumping way to finish, and I'm totally bummed that we didn't get to eat at the Bombay House or go inside the Provo City Center Temple.  But I guess I can look forward to doing those things the next time we're in town.  Maybe if Bentley gets accepted to BYU... 🤞🤞🤞

Can you see the rainbow off in the distance?  I really like Wyoming-- there's something so wild and free about it.  And the kids kept seeing antelope, which is just super cool.

The next two days were about 12 hours of driving each (stopping near St. Louis again, but not getting frozen custard since it was 10am and we really did need to get home).  And even though it all felt so crazy, it was awfully nice to get home a day early and have Saturday to catch our breath.

We got home in a terrific rainstorm, the pets were happy to see us, and after living in such tight quarters and having so much company before we left, our house felt HUGE and homey.  Everyone was so happy to sleep in their own beds again finally.

What a great trip!