Breaking out of here

This post was started back in April, but never finished. 

Spring break 2014 found us breaking out of the winter gloom and heading for the sun of southern (eastern?) Utah--destination Moab, Arches, Goblin Valley, and camping bliss (so we told ourselves). It had been 3 years since we last camped, and the memory of the 6 year old vomiting, J's sudden onset of strep throat, and the dirty 12-month old, crawling everywhere in the mud and dirt was finally settling into the distant recesses of our memories. 

Until the first night camping, when we froze (somehow the tarp that covers our tent was separated from the tent in the move) and when H woke up in the night and promptly lost his dinner all over the sleeping bag. Thankfully, because of the freezing temperatures, we had covered him with an extra sleeping bag, so the clean-up wasn't entirely miserable, and thankfully, the vomiting was a 1-time occurrence. 

The rest of the trip was spent hiking to Delicate Arch and a few other arches: 

We also spent a fun--but extremely windy--afternoon in Goblin Valley. It was so windy, though, that the dust was everywhere and stung our eyes badly.

Because of the wind, only a few of us (the non-wimpy ones) ventured into the TOTALLY AWESOME slot canyon next to Goblin Valley. We paid the price on the way back, hiking with our hands over our eyes.