Southern Utah to Boise Part I

Thirty days without Justin wasn’t very fun, but thankfully it was only thirty days.  He was home before we knew it.  We filled our time with family visits, a trip to Bear Lake, and potty training.  A previous attempt at potty training had proven disastrous.  Vivian hated it, and became completely resistant.  I abandoned the project on the advice of more experienced mothers.  Since then she had shown zero interest in repeating the effort.  I had tried every bribe I could think of, stickers, books, toys, a trike, candy, movies, trips to playgrounds and swimming pools, French fries…nothing worked.  She steadfastly maintained that she would “when I am bigger Mom.”  One night as we were getting ready for bed, I was talking to her about it again, and getting nowhere, when I mentioned that “if you could learn to use the toilet before Dad Bug gets home he would be really impressed.”  Her interest was instantly piqued and she parroted the statement back to me, presumably to check for accuracy.  I affirmed that she had it right, at which point she announced that she would be using the toilet now.  Not tomorrow, not later, but immediately.  She stood up, stripped her own diaper off, strolled into the bathroom, sat down on her training potty and did her business.  Seemingly just like that it was a done deal, because who doesn’t want to impress their dad bug I guess.  We had a few bumps in the road over the next few days while she learned how to manage her newly acquired skill of using the toilet.  She had no major accidents, and she insisted on teaching herself how to hoist herself on and off “the big toilet,” an accomplishment that she was eager to brag to Justin about the moment he arrived home.  He was adequately impressed, surprised, and flattered.

We only spent about 36 hours back in Logan before we packed up and left on a family vacation.  While it seemed that the rest of Utah was headed North to experience a total eclipse, we drove south and secured ourselves a campsite for two nights at Capitol Reef National Park, and had four more nights booked into the timeshare in St. George. 

We were so excited to have the family together again, and even more excited to be camping again.  

More excited than we seem to be in this photo

We hurried and set up camp, and decided to go to the visitor's center to pick up a map of hiking trails so we could plan out our next day in the park.  I had noticed a little marked trail from the campground to the visitor's center, and that said it was only 1.5 miles or something, so I talked Justin into leaving on foot.  About halfway there I think that Vivian wanted to trade me in for a new mom.  The trail that had started out looking deceptively shady and pleasant as it ran next to the river, was now a dirt path running next to the road in the blazing hot sun.  Naturally we hadn't brought any water.  A quarter of a mile out or so she was looking bright red, and whining for water, so Justin was forced to pack her the rest of the way to the visitor's center.  On the way back the sun was lower, it was cooler, and we stopped in one of the orchards in the park to pick free apples to eat.

Enjoying her free fresh apple.  They were actually pretty amazing.

The fruit orchards are really beautiful

The walk back was much better than the walk out.

In the midst of telling her dad about the lizard that just darted across the trail.

We got back to camp, and were greeted by this:

Half the campground was out taking pictures of our campsite

At the campground Vivian insisted on shouting everything she said at us like we were deaf.  So it was at high volume that she shouted "I am peeing my pants Mom!"  She was too.  She claimed that "well Dad Bug says that sometimes he pees in his pants," something that Dad Bug vehemently denied ever saying, but conceded that he may have been asked this question and responded in the affirmative because he wasn't really listening.  I had no idea how to handle the situation.  I wasn't sure whether or not she should be punished, since it was intentional.  I told Justin that I didn't want her to feel like she was being shamed, and then two seconds later turned around and...well, let's just say that for me that was easier said than done, and Justin had to kind of take the reigns for a bit.  She and I ended up in the bathrooms where I conducted a thorough wet wipe bath before we returned for dinner.  Our dinner went pretty well, although Vivian refused to eat most of hers, and the nearby campers stared at us like we were abusers while she wailed at us that she "hates dinner," midst our idle threats designed to get her to stay at the picnic table, stop throwing dirt, and put the rocks down.  They all failed, and by the end of dinner she looked like we had served her a plate of dirt.  We cleaned up and as soon as it was really dark she and Justin left the tent to lay out on the lawn and look at the stars.  She was mostly quiet for the first time that night, completely captivated by the milky way.  The stars out there are truly spectacular.  

The next morning we decided to try out a wide slot canyon called Grand Wash.  

This is Vivian playing around on the rocks in the parking lot.

Because it was slightly overcast, we were happy that a park ranger showed up to say that the forecast didn't call for enough rain to be a problem, and encouraged people to continue with the hike and just exercise common sense.  We set off on the hike, and it was really slow.  Vivian wanted to stop at every rock for a photo op.

My people waiting for me to catch back up after we realized that I left the keys in the car and had to run back to lock up.

Trying to pose just like me.

Eventually the inevitable happened, and Vivian announced that she had to go to the bathroom.  My previous attempts to get her to learn to do her business outdoors had been entirely unsuccessful.  I had done some reading online and read several mothers recommend turning that task over to dad.  It worked like a charm.  For some reason dads have the gift of making peeing on rocks and dirt seem fun I guess.  After that she wanted to stop and take a bathroom break around every corner.  These are pictures that we took during one of them:

I was frantically yelling at him to stop eating the dirt.

Still ignoring me...

...and now laughing about it.

Tell me that this picture doesn't make you want to squeeze those thighs...his, not mine.

It went on like this all day, and we really covered very little ground, but we were definitely having fun.

I love how he looks in dad mode. 

She never misses an opportunity to get as grubby as possible.

This is our favorite picture from the day.  What must it be like to see the world through the eyes of a 3 year old...

On the hike back out we were excited to see a little herd of bighorn sheep running through the canyon.

Her last photo before we made it back to the car.

After that we drove around the park looking at scenery while Vivian took a much needed little nap in her carseat.  When she woke up we found a place where it seemed like we could go wading in the river.  We were in the river for all of about five minutes before one of Vivian's flip flops got washed downstream and I got sent downstream after it.  This is when it became clear that perhaps the current was a bit much for wading.  I couldn't really make it back upstream, I had to get out and walk back.

Ivan loved splashing in it.

Thanks to Justin who captured these unflattering moments.  The worst will not be made public.

You can't see the little waterfall in the picture, but I couldn't get back up to it.  The flip flop was caught in a whirlpool, it's the only reason it wasn't washed away forever.

We called it a day after that, and returned to camp for dinner.  We had chili for dinner.  Ivan got his hands on Vivians bowl and dumped the entire contents out all over the picnic table.  Vivian thought it was hilarious, and Ivan was thrilled that he had done something to amuse her.  She still periodically laughs about the day that he ate dirt and dumped out her dinner.  Sometimes the future with these two feels scary.  The rest of the evening was mercifully uneventful.

The next morning we woke up, packed up camp and set out for St. George.  We decided to go through Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.  It was a really beautiful drive, but we found ourselves on several stretches that seemed alarmingly desolate.

The colors out there are amazing.

I did not love this road.

We're headed right into that storm

The drive was going so well, until Vivian announced that she had to go to the bathroom, and then less than a minute later, before I could even get her out of the car and to the side of the road, that it was too late.  Very frustrating.  Turns out that potty trained at home doesn't fully translate to potty trained on the road.  We had a talk about advance notice, and thankfully there has not been a repeat incident.  However, a little further down the road and we got advance notice, but the squatting wasn't great, so we were down one more outfit.  Sometimes it wasn't clear to me who was actually doing more learning here, her or us.

Regardless we continued on, and decided to stop in at Bryce Canyon for a family picture at the Amphitheater there.  It's amazing, and a couple of years ago we had attempted a family picture there that had failed because the camera battery died.  So this was our chance.  We drove into the park, and first went to a few other scenic overlooks.  There was a lightening storm in the area, but it seemed far enough away that we weren't terribly concerned.

The amphitheater.

We finally arrived at the amphitheater, and immediately Vivian had to go to the bathroom again, no bathrooms there, we found a spot, her squat was anything but a squat, and we were down one more outfit.  It was a very frustrating scenario, but we finally got her in her last remaining clean outfit and hustled out to the amphitheater.  We located a nice British couple and asked them if they wouldn't mind snapping our picture.  We were preparing our pose.  The storm was off in the distance, but probably a little closer than I would have liked.  Suddenly the woman's eyes got huge, and in a panicked voice she said that Vivian's hair was standing on end.  Then she looked at me, and said mine was the same way.  No picture.  We packed up and ran for the treeline.  We didn't get our picture in front of the amphitheater, but we also didn't get struck by lightening, and we're super grateful for that.  This is the family picture we got instead, it wasn't quite what we had in mind, but hey, at least we're all still in it:

After that we stopped for our sign picture and then got back on the road before our luck ran out.

We checked into the timeshare in St. George with a heap of dirty laundry, super glad to see the washer and dryer in our unit. I'm going to break it into parts here, in the interest of keeping this from being too enormous.