We’ve been pushing the kids pretty hard; 9 National Parks/Monuments in two weeks. At some point, I was waiting for the first breakdown, and it came on our first day at Bryce Canyon. We got on the Queen’s Garden Trail early to beat the heat and the crowds. The blue-bird day accentuated the contrast between the pink Hoodoos and the deep green trees. Personally, I was high on nature, virtually skipping along the winding trail, mouth gaping at the beauty. We were only about 1.5 miles into our hike, when Korin and I noticed that the kids weren’t hiking, but shuffling along, staring mostly at their shoes. We knew this was the day. At some point, tired kid legs just won’t go anymore. We wrapped up our planned hike early, hiked back to our truck through Wall Street (which is amazing) and spent the rest of the day driving through the park. At one point, we tricked the kids into doing an extra 1 mile loop with us through the Bristlecone Pine trail (which was amazing). After that, they were on to us, and started their revolt. We were back at the campsite by noon, and spent the rest of the day at the campground pool. Eli found some kids that also had RC cars, but it wasn’t too long before he wrecked his car pretty badly. We need new parts to continue. Total bummer!
That evening, I noticed that the inside of the front tires of our pick-up were nearly bald. This was bad news, so I called around to try and find tires, and a place that would do a much needed alignment. Thankfully a nearby tire repair shop had my size, and were willing to do an alignment on a Saturday morning (Thank the Lord!). I spent the next morning at the repair shop. Somehow the bolt on the front tie rod had come loose. The kids were happy about our truck situation because that meant I couldn’t put them back on a trail somewhere. They got to spend the day in the pop-up resting, playing board games, and watching movies. We even got to experience a short hail storm in the pop-up! That evening, we did a 0.8 mile trail to Mossy Cave, and enjoyed part of the Fairyland Loop. We are looking forward to our next trip to Bryce Canyon!
Beautiful!
Way to keep a sharp eye on the equipment!