arches national park: day one

our campsite

randy and i decided that we wanted to head down to arches for a family vacation with just us and the girls this year. we booked our campsite a couple months ago and last weekend, the time had finally come for us to go. we stuffed our little corolla to the gills and drove down last thursday as soon as madeleine's swim lessons were over.

the view from our campsite

when we arrived at the park, it was 2:45 and 101 degrees outside. all of you who laughed at me when i told you that we were going camping at arches at the end of june can wipe those smug smiles off your faces and read on. in my defense, when i booked the campsite, randy had registered for three spring term classes and this was the earliest we could go. by the time he decided not to take classes spring term, everything was booked up.

plus, i didn't realize it would be THAT hot.

another view from the campsite

randy and i tried to hurry and set up camp, but it wasn't fast enough for diane. she did not like the sudden heat, she did not like being slathered in sunscreen (including her hair because she refused to wear a hat), and she did not like the sand. and she certainly didn't like being ignored while she was struggled with these things. by the time we got everything set up, diane was inconsolable. we had dinner, which ended up being a little bit of a disaster itself, and then decided to try a small hike to calm down diane.

we loaded her into the hiking backpack and headed onto the trail that started directly across from our campsite. if you look really carefully in this picture, you can tell that diane is actually screaming in the backpack. well, maybe you can't, but i can actually still hear it when i look at the picture. 

madeleine pointing to a cairn. she loved spotting these along the trail.

after about five minutes of screaming, randy turned around with diane and took her on a car ride to cool her down both physically and emotionally. madeleine and i pressed on for a little longer and saw tapestry arch.
 

tapestry arch.

madeleine was getting tired, so we turned around and headed back to camp to see how things were going with diane. 

finally calmed down

just as we got back, randy pulled up and diane was sleeping in the back of the car, so we all piled in and drove around the park a little bit. randy and i discussed our plan of attack and decided that if diane woke up and wasn't doing better, we were just going to have to turn around and go home that night. we are not martyrs and we were not going to submit the rest of the camp to our screaming child.

thus began me madly snapping pictures out the window, not knowing if we were going to get another chance to do so. you'll note that i didn't roll the window down because i didn't want to wake diane up.

random shot from the car

more random rocks from the car

sand dune arch (you can't actually see the arch in the picture) from the car

skyline arch from the car

thankfully,  when we got back it was about 7:30 and finally starting to cool down. i gave the girls sponge baths in the bathroom sinks and that helped cool them down as well. we left diane in just her diaper, threw them into the tent all clean, and i read while they played around for a couple of hours. randy took off and did a small hike himself before dark (we still didn't know what the next day held for us and our temperamental child and thought it best to pack in whatever we could). he loves the heat and was probably in heaven hiking out there alone. i enjoyed the shade that our tent was in, my (finally) happy children, and a good book before we all dozed off together under a sky filled with bright stars.