Desert "Babymoon"

Every spring Tim and I are compelled to get out of the cold snowy land we so loving call "The Clarktic Circle" and take a trip somewhere warm.  As a result, I have spent my birthday in some really amazing locations during my relationship with Tim.  We have gone on at least three desert road trips, exploring in the canyons around Moab, Cedar Mesa, Zion and Escalante.  We have also spent our spring break whitewater rafting in the Grand Canyon twice and have gone scuba diving in Belize twice, in Fiji (once for our honeymoon in June 2006 and again for a spring trip a couple of years later) and last year in Indonesia.  Admittedly the Indonesia trip was our last big trip (or so we hoped, and luckily it worked out that way) before Baby Stone.

And speaking of Baby Stone, this year we decided we needed to do a low key (read: inexpensive) spring trip.  So we packed up the truck, loaded up the dogs and headed out for another desert car camping, day hiking extravaganza.  The weather was perfect for hiking, mostly in the 60's with dips into the 30's at night.  We spent most of our 6 days/nights in the Cedar Mesa area exploring the Anasazi ruins in the tributary canyons of the Grand Gulch.

My favorite hike of the trip was on my 35th birthday, which also happened to be the day I started my 27th week of pregnancy.  The last week of the second trimester.  (I think these things really only mean something to pregnant LD nurses!)  Anyway, we hiked about 2 1/2 miles in to Slickhorn canyon looking for a ruin called the Perfect Kiva.  It is in an 800-1000 year old Anasazi cliff dwelling.  With just a day pack to carry, I was pleasantly surprised at my stamina hiking with my growing belly, although was pretty tired after the 5 miles round trip.  There was a little scrambling and elevation gain and loss, but mostly the hike was straight forward and we just took it slowly. Tim was super patient with my snail's pace. 

Alethea in the magical "Perfect Kiva" in Slickhorn Canyon on my 35th birthday.  I'm 27 weeks pregnant in this photo.

Tim carefully climbing in to the "Perfect Kiva" in Slickhorn canyon.

Tim in a collapsed Kiva in the Cold Springs Cave ruin in the Comb ridge wash area.

Ruin at the end of cold spring canyon in Comb ridge.

Row of metates.  

Tim photographing a ruin called Eagle's Nest in the Comb Ridge.  We stumbled upon this ruin while hiking on the rim above Cold Springs ruin.  It is hard to see in this photo, but in my opinion only Spiderman or someone with advanced rock climbing skills could access this ruin.  We are on one ridge with a 1000ft+ drop to the canyon below, looking at the next ridge over.

Baby Bella loves sitting in Tim's lap by the fire.  Walter is VERY wary of the fire.

To make sleeping more comfortable, Tim built this awesome sleeping platform and we used an 8" thick futon mattress to sleep on.  The drawers underneath kept all of our cooking supplies, dog food, water and few other items out of the way.  I have never been so comfortable camping!  The only drawback was that you sort have to slither in and out, and getting up to pee multiple times a night was less than fun, but really not too bad!

Walter and Bella in their matching sweaters.  Moab was cold this morning and Bella needed to be warmed up under the down sleeping bags.

The dogs having their morning snuggle with mom in the sleeping nest that Tim built.

We were pleasantly surprised to arrive home to a Clarktic Circle that looks more like May than March.  The valley is completely devoid of snow and even at our house, on a 8300ft pass, the snow is quickly receding.  In years past I would have been very sad that snow is so terrible, but this year I am thankful for a mild winter and really looking forward to starting our garden again soon.  We might even start some plants out in the greenhouse on April 1st.