Dead Horse State Park

Well, we made the long drive back down to Norwood in time for school to get going once again. Time for the summer tan and the days of spending time with wife and baby to diminish to instead spend the time drilling mathematics into the minds of those who would rather talk about the Hangover. But we were lucky enough to have my mom and Carl come down to visit us during that first week. They were able to hang out with Jacqueline and Zyla during the day and then me in the evening. We got the fine idea to take a trip to Moab on the weekend. Carl wanted to go check out Dead Horse State Park. They drove their trailer out to our house and this would cut off part of their drive. 

It was a 2-3 hour drive for us, which was not much of a big deal after the long trip we had just been through. Mom and Carl left early, but they only beat us by just a bit. Once we had settled into our campsite, we decided to go for a walk. Carl drove out to Dead Horse Point, while Mom, Jacqueline, Zyla and I decided to take the trail that would take us past Shafer Overlook and Meander Overlook. The trail took off right from the campground which made it easy. The trail bounced back and forth from viewpoints, to desert, to slickrock. It was not too bad of a trail being mostly flat since it was on the edge of a huge abyss. 

We skipped over going out to Big Horn Overlook because the ladies were not feeling it. Zyla was doing great and was awake for much of the hike looking around. She was really fitting into the Bjorn a lot better now so that she could look around and drool all over it. The best view of the whole hike was Meander Overlook where we could see the Colorado down below taking a big trip around a butte with a nice fin of rock on top of it. We continued the rest of the hike which took us out to the point. The view there was awesome with cliffs and you could see the entire La Sal Range. We hung out there for a bit, but honestly it was rather windy out there and we headed back to camp. We had some good food and played some games together. Mainly we looked at the cute baby and enjoyed the time together. Once the sun was getting ready to go down, we decided to drive to the point and see the sunset.

 Unfortunately, Jacqueline and Zyla were not able to go with us because it was getting too close to the little ones bedtime. This was going to be a brand new experience for Zyla as it was the first time camping out. We figured this would be a good place because the temperature would be warm at night. We decided to put her in her changing box with pillows around it in the front seat of the Xterra and see how it goes. The sunset by the way was great. It was almost like we got there a little late because it was tough to get a good picture. We left there and Mom and I walked back to hang out with Jacqueline. Carl went to the interpretive program which was less then exciting. We slept great that night and Zyla did better than even at home. It left us with promise that we would have a hiker/camper/backpacker on our hands. We ate breakfast with everyone, then went our seperate ways preparing for the long school year ahead in Norwood.