*No Pictures Note: When transferring ALL my pictures from my camera to my external hard drive, something went wrong and MOST of my pictures are gone :( Pictures will be back in future posts!
Monday, July 11, 2016- Timpanogos
Cave National Monument
Waking up in the car was a downer, but
we were out of the campsite and on the road in record time! …
especially since there wasn't a clothing change or breakfast right
away. We used the Cascade Springs bathrooms and then took 92 West towards
Timpanogos Cave National Monument and stopped at a picnic area
for a breakfast of sausage (that we skipped last night due to two
sleeping children and a lazy mom), hashbrowns, mushrooms, and french
beans. The kids picked vegetables the night before with the exact
same menu explained to them, but I guess a good night's rest helps
kids realize that they hate vegetables if they are cooked outside of
their home kitchen...
Timpanogos Cave National Monument was
great! We showed up about 9, wandered through the Visitor Center,
watched their very informative and interesting video, and then bought
tickets for a cave tour, $18 and an hour wait... Do Not expect to get
a same-time tour, even on a Monday!
*Side note- I am sitting in front of our
campfire (only the 2nd one this trip) and remembering as I
do every time, that I hate campfires! They smell lovely now but since
I put my warm shirt on before the sun goes down, I'm going to smell
it for days :( What is saving the day is another round of Sangria,
from a bag in a box for $17 including tax, in my handy-dandy EcoVessel mug!*
We purchased our tickets and started
working on our Jr. Ranger books, both the Timpanogos Cave National
Park Book and the Centenial National Park book, which no one has told
us about until today. The Timpanogos book was fairly simple and the
kids both whizzed through it in time to use the restroom, refill
hydration packs, and start our hike to the cave. When I had purchased
the tickets, they said that the whole tour, including the independent
hike up to the cave entrance, would be 90 minutes or so. The
information I missed was the hike up the mountain, 1,092 feet to be exact. I will tell you that it was stupidly
long and insanely worth it! Chuck Roast almost 'died' at least 20
times on the way up while Pumpkin, 6 ½ and active as all get up, was
so impatient to keep climbing with his full hydration pack and
reversible cold weather layering jacket on the whole way. A NPS Volunteer kept
catching up to us as she meandered her way up that she joined us on
our hike. Pumpkin loved making friends with her and everyone else
that passed us. We met another NPS Volunteer a little over ½ way up
that was registered to have and show bird feathers, including some
from a Golden Eagle, different Hawks, and some Owls. The kids were
amazed and kept having to be reminded that they couldn't touch the
feathers and to be extremely careful with the foot/tallon replica of
a Golden Eagle. It was a great way to take a break without feeling
like we were wasting time, my personal problem with hiking with Chuck
Roast, since Pumpkin is something of my hiking soul mate. A little before ¾ of the way
up, we saw a round disk marker in the tar of the trail with the number 15 etched into it. When we asked the volunteer what it was, we found out
that when they were building the path to the cave entrance, each
person that went up to work on a section of the path was given a
metal token with a number on it. The number indicated the location of
work that needed to be done and when that section was done, the token
was placed in the wet tar. The tokens start with 0 at the cave
entrance, which we forgot to look for after the last chance bathroom
stop and a rush to join the tour the was supposed to start before
ours. We looked for tokens the rest of the way up and it helped the
hike seem a bit more bearable.
*Cute note: I look up at Pumpkin
sitting next to me as I type and she is sitting Just like grandpa;
resting comfortably in the fold-up chair, arms crossed, legs crossed
at the ankles, and a relaxed gaze off in the distance, looking so
content and at peace. It was a lovely sight and I never noticed how
wonderfully cozy and desirable the position looked until my own child
settled into it so naturally.*
The cave tour itself was amazing! We
had a tour guide from Florida who was studying some natural science
field in Maine and he was animated and clearly loved what he was
talking about! He seemed a little annoyed at Pumpkin's almost constant
comments and questions and even responded occasionally with 'I know,
I work here', but made sure to point out how cute Chuck Roast's
random and barely coherent or relevant comments were. Although the tour guide did
seem to become more supportive of Pumpkin's added voice after hearing
Chuck Roast refer to them as his sister and the guide realized that
he had been referring to Pumpkin as a sir the whole time... I made
sure to note how valuable Pumpkin's observations and questions were,
since they were all interesting and well observed and mostly things I
remembered hearing in the video or reading about in the Visitor
Center but had forgotten almost immediately after moving on to a new
piece of information. Needless to say, the kids loved the tour! On
the way down, we found marker number 15 again and the hike down was
much easier because 1) we were going downhill, duh! and 2) trying to
find all the markers back down the trail took our mind off how much energy we were using.
***PSA for parents with small children
taking the Timpanogos Cave tour: use the markers, which start at 78
just past the safety talk before hiking up the hill! Not all of them
are visible but the search is distracting. AND I saw a mom whose
child was playing Red Light Green Light up the trail and that might have been useful on the long hike up. Start your tour
prior to 1 hour before your tour time (I imagine if you have a small
child and explain the time it will take to get up, they'll let you
leave early) and play either game and take a rest at each bench up
the trail.***
I realized how freaked out I get in
caves when we entered the deepest room in the cave, 300 feet below
the surface. Afterwards, I mentioned this to the tour guide who
seemed confused as to why I joined the tour but understood when I
explained that all my fears and misgivings have to be ignored to some
degree if I want my children to experience the world the way I was
allowed to when growing up. My parents let us do all sorts of exciting
things, and I remember wondering why my mom we never as excited as we
were when we did things like rock jump over a rough river without a
second thought before each leap or when we cliff jumped with my dad.
I get it now. Sorry mom for putting you through the heart-wrenching
feeling each time a child goes remotely near danger, like Chuck Roast
every time he didn't get the answer he wanted and starting sulking
away from me, straight toward the edge of the the path that immediately dropped
off to a dangerous rock fall the entire way up the mountain without any guardrail!
After the tour, the kids were sworn in
as Jr. Park Rangers, we had a treat from the Snack Bar, and filled
our hydration pack bladders and 5 gallon water container before
heading into town to find a liquor store, which is not as easy to
find as you might think and the one we found did not have anything
cold, which is not car-camping friendly since we're not packing a
cooler with ice, but sangria is decent when warm and it came in a box
with 34 GLASSES in it :D We filled up with gas, a whole $11.67 worth,
grabbed gas station dinner since the tour took us well past lunch
time and the Snack Bar was overpriced for hot dogs. We headed back
into Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest and drove for miles to find a
dispersed campsite. We eventually turned onto Scenic Byway 114 and
hit the jackpot. Pumpkin started to get car sick towards the end and
the first site we found, we stayed, and as soon as the tent was set
up, Pumpkin threw up. I covered it with dirt, which I'm sure was not
the right decision, but no one told me what to do when someone throws
up a little more than 2 car-lengths away from the tent. Our site is
the one in the middle of the the circle that offers 2 other sites,
but one was very uneven and one was just too far for Pumpkin to
handle before having to get out of the car to dry-heave and I was
done trying to take off-roads with my Impala for the day.
*Please send money
for my new off-roading vehicle fund- this was the 6th
night of at least 2 off-roading trips we took to find a campsite, all of which made some
interesting noises from the underside of my car, but I'm getting
better at navigating some very intense 'roads'*
I set up the tent
while Pumpkin took a break and Chuck Roast slept. We settled in for a
fire and are just now hearing motorbikes traveling Very near our
campsite, but am very relieved to see that they just passed our site
on an off-the-main-road trail. The kids snacked on the rest of the
french beans and the last 10 minutes have been constant whining to go
into the tent.
Time to sign off, douse the fire so it's cool to the touch ALWAYS DO THIS and then crawl into the tent for some card games before bed.
Time to sign off, douse the fire so it's cool to the touch ALWAYS DO THIS and then crawl into the tent for some card games before bed.
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