La Sal Mountain Loop

Our Saturday adventure took us on a drive over the La Sal Mountain loop. It was beautiful with amazing views and great weather (the wind finally stopped blowing so hard). The pictures are in reverse order so scroll to the bottom of the post and read up. I'm too tired to re-arrange all 10 pictures in the correct order. It was chilly on top of the mountains. The kids were amazed at the destruction caused by a forest fire last summer. Gracie kept worrying that we would "fall off the mountain" and Alex wanted to know why they didn't put up those "bars that keep you from falling off the road" (guard rails). It was so much fun. WE LOVE DADDY NOT WORKING ON SATURDAYS!!!

After the long trip, we enjoyed a family swim at our pool. Kirill took this nice picture of Alex. He also took some of his parents. Lucky for me, I post the pictures on the blog and can edit out such photos. I put a bathing suit on so my kids can swim and enjoy themselves and that is the ONLY reason.

Caroline's favorite part of the trip was picking up the rocks around the firepit and throwing them.

Alex riding shotgun while Kirill drives the girls on the stage.

The Red Cliffs Lodge had a wagon and teepees for the kids to play in. Kirill and Alex played "Jim Hardie"--the star of the old TV series Wells Fargo. Matt's parents sent us a number of episodes on DVD and the boys love to watch them with Matt. Alex's only complaint is that "everything is brown and black, why don't they make it colorful."

After our big drive over and around the mountains, we stopped by the Red Cliffs Lodge. A beautiful place right on the Colorado River. Luckily for us, they were serving lunch and we had an amazing Memorial Day picnic overlooking the river and I didn't even have to cook it! Great lunch served daily from March 1-Nov 1. Right after we finished 90 rafters descended on the place, so we timed it just right.

More pictures from Castle Valley. I haven't looked this up, but I think this is the Nuns (on the left) and Priest (on the right, single rock) Rocks.

We drove through beautiful mountains and on the other side of the mountains, you can see this...Castle Valley and some amazing views.

The girls weren't too sure about being up so high so they wanted to hold Daddy's hands. I love this picture.

Our first overlook was amazing! We could see Moab in the distance as well as several other places. Alex loves to pick flowers for me. It is very sweet.

Starting off on our journey, we met several cows by the roadside. It was kind of like Yellowstone, but with cows, not buffalo, moose or bears. The kids were thrilled with the cows and Courtney loved the "baby cows."