The Adventure

July was dominated by our family trip, which was much anticipated, very much the centerpiece of the summer. We even planned it, somewhat intentionally, to fall just about in the center. It worked out well since we had the beach trip on the front end and the kids have a sleepaway camp on the back end.

Several factors culminated in the trip becoming a reality. The beach trip with my family freed us up to not feel the pressure to do our own beach trip. The twins are at an age where they can physically do most things that the big kids can do. And, we realized we only have five more summers with Caroline after this one! The opportunities certainly aren’t going to be here forever.

We decided to give something different a shot at our planning meeting back at the first of the year, picked out the time of the summer, and left it at that. I spent the mid-winter months in the rental house cooking up the plan. I had an idea of what we should do based on a trip our good friends had done with their family the year before. I used that as a starting point and then used ChatGPT for most of the rest. AI is not for everything, but for planning a trip, it is incredibly helpful. By March, we had most of it booked and spent the rest of the time anxiously anticipating it, rounding out the details, and buying lots of stuff in hopeful preparation.

We called it our Western Adventure.

We left Charlotte very early on Tuesday morning and arrived in Vegas at 8:30a local time. That’s Char traveling like a boss in her handpicked travel fit, new backpack, with, of course, the nicest roller suitcase we own. The flight was relatively easy - our family takes up the entire row of an Airbus A321 😂 The twins hadn’t flown since they can remember, and even for Jennings, who actually has his own AAdvantage account, it had been a minute. They ate all the snacks and watched all the movies, so it went by quick. When we got to Vegas, we drove up and down the strip just to say we did and then hit the stop that L may have been looking forward to the most. In fairness, I did all the planning and she intentionally tried to not get much into the details beforehand. She did insist, though, that we hit In-n-Out Burger. After that, it was a quick stop at the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. I had been there as a kid, and given what I went to school for, it has always been an interest. The rest of us were a little too travel weary by that point, and it was over 100 that day, so we walked halfway across, took some pictures, and hit the road.

The first real stop on the trip was Zion National Park. We spent three nights in Zion, the most of any place on the trip, and AI was right - it is definitely the place to spend extra time. Almost everywhere you find yourself in the park or in the small town of Springdale, the view is like the background of the top left photo. The next picture is all of us at the end of the hike we took on our first day - Taylors Creek Trail in the Kolob Canyon section of the park. It’s a less busy part of the park and the trail follows a creek to the double arch, cave-like canyon wall. It was at the time of hiking it, instantly my favorite hike ever. That title kept getting challenged again and again as the trip went on. The next two are from our hike into The Narrows where you hike, not on a trail, but in and along the Virgin River into some insane slot canyons. The first photo shows the hike at its deepest, just over my waist. The second photo is about where we turned around, right at the beginning of a section called Wall Street - the picture shows you why. Flash floods are a thing out there, especially in the canyons, and especially dangerous in the slot canyons where there’s nowhere to go. There’s no checking the radar once you’re on the hike and given the days’ forecast we wanted to be out of the canyon by about 12p. We made it and ended up having time to spare before any late afternoon thunderstorms, but better that than getting caught! We had rented e-bikes the day of The Narrows, another popular and super fun activity in Zion. The Narrows is the last stop on the ~8-mile park road, which, in the summer, is closed to private vehicles. Only bikes and shuttle buses are on the road and again, the entire ride is looking out at scenery like you see behind us. The last picture is the last hike we did in Zion on our way out of the park and if you’re ever there, this should be a must-hike as it’s only a 2 mile out-and-back to an amazing overlook view of the park. We even saw bighorn sheep on this one!

Next stop, Bryce Canyon National Park about 2-2.5 hours northeast of Zion. Found the best little sandwich / coffee shop in a tiny town on the way, which made the perfect lunch stop after our Canyon Overlook hike. We only had one night in Bryce, but we felt like that was enough time to see the park. It’s at over 8,000 feet in elevation, so the high when we got there was 67 and it got down to 54 the night we were there! Felt incredible…except for those pictured in the first photo who found it a bit too chilly at 5:45a when we made it out to the canyon rim for sunrise. The park is famous for sunsets and sunrises over the canyon and its “hoodoo” rock spires. Pretty incredible experience to stand out there together and watch a new day dawn. We did a decent 4.5 mile loop trail down into the canyon and through the hoodoos after a big breakfast. Another hike that begged to go right to the top of the list. That’s the six of us in front of one of the more unique hoodoos and next is L and the kids ahead on the trail. After a picnic lunch at the rim at Bryce Point, we hit the road for Lake Powell, about 2.5 hours south, just across the border into Arizona. We drove through the town of Page past our hotel and straight to Horseshoe Bend. It’s about a mile hike through the straight up desert from the parking area to get to the viewing area, but, as you can see, it’s worth it. It’s an amazing view from about 1,000 feet up of the Colorado river doing a U-turn through the canyon it’s formed. We spent one night in Page and took a pontoon boat out on Lake Powell the next day. Very cool experience. The lake levels are super low, but it’s still a great recreational lake formed by the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado. House boating is huge on the lake - look just over L’s head. People rent them for the week and that’s their family vacation…fun idea for a future trip! We found a beach to anchor the boat and had just about the whole lake to ourselves right there. We had a blast having our picnic, swimming, and exploring the desert landscape.

We turned the boat in, jumped in the car, and drove to Grand Canyon. I had been once before as a teenager, but Lauren had never been. It was really fun to watch her and the kids experience It for the first time. We got up early the next day and were hiking the Bright Angel Trail down into the canyon by about 7:15a. Our goal was to get to the first waystation, a bathroom and water filling station 1.5 miles down. There’s another one of those 3 miles down, then the Havasupai Gardens are about 4.5 miles down, and the river is an amazing 7.8 miles down. We made it to our planned turnaround, but the way back out is the hard part unfortunately. It’s funny to watch everyone’s faces that you pass when you’re going down. They do not look like they’re having a ton of fun. We didn’t fare any better and made frequent stops like the one in the second picture. Totally worth it though and we took a selfie at the rim as a celebration. The next photo, first in the bottom row, is a max zoom photo on an iPhone 17Pro of Phantom Ranch. Amazing that there are buildings down there and even more amazing that they’ve been there for over 100 years! It’s a popular stop and rest and shelter spot for backpackers and rim-to-rim hikers. My favorite place on the rim was Kolb Studio. We watched the Ken Burns documentary on the national parks earlier this summer and it has a big feature on the Kolb brothers and their work at the Grand Canyon. Really neat to step foot in that house and see all of the history. We capped off the Grand Canyon visit with a super fancy breakfast at the El Tovar hotel on the rim where the kids got the same fancy hot chocolate that I got as a kid when I was there.

From there, we drove down to Phoenix, spent on night there at a resort with a giant water park, and flew back to CLT the next day. Epic trip. An adventure for sure. Everyone loved it and we are already thinking about where the next one might be!

We did do a bit of non-vacation, summer living in July… it’s hard to believe the trip itself only took up a little less than a third of the month. 👇

L somehow manages to make it through the summer weeks with no plans, keeps it fun for the kids, while balancing managing our household and working her job. Outings like Toy Story 5 certainly help! The boys did a one-week baseball camp in early July and loved it. Was glad for them to get the time on the field and have some fun while doing it. That’s Caroline with her go to “I’m bored” summer activity - baking. Arlie assumes her usual position whenever anyone even acts like they may be headed to the kitchen. She is a daft beggar.

I am just really thankful for the opportunity to do that trip. It did not go perfectly according to plan, and we had our fair share of hiccups and hard moments, but man, it was fun. We were blessed with great weather, relatively smooth travels, health, and safety. We saw things that are so worth seeing. Everyday, everywhere we turned, it was a new picture of God’s creation. So vast, so enormous, so diverse, so beautiful. It was truly awe inspiring and I just feel so privileged to have experienced it all, and to have experienced it all with our full family of 6. To God be the glory.

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” Psalm 8:3-4

PS…

Ah, Summer.