Goblin Valley Spring Break

We didn't have big plans for Spring Break this year (sidenote:  a couple of years ago we stayed in a beach house on the Florida Gulf Coast for Spring Break - now my kids have rather high Spring Break expectations), but decided to sneak in a quick trip to Goblin Valley.  

We started the trip off with a stop by Living Planet Aquarium and a hotel stay in Price.  FYI, the swimming pool at the Price Holiday Inn has the warmest hotel pool water I have ever been in.  I loved it.  So did Molly, who surprised herself repeatedly by clapping with excitement and then wondering where the splashes were coming from.  

 

It was a perfect little trip.  The weather was delightful.  The kids were (mostly) cooperative.  And Goblin Valley is beautiful and haunting and interesting and a fantastic place to let kids just run loose (okay, maybe not totally loose - there are some rather tall rocks).  They had such a good time.

Ben managed to find the only mud puddle in the desert.  Of course.  That kid!

Cole spent the day describing a movie plot he came up with as we wandered through the rocks.  It does seem to inspire such things.  It looks other-worldly, so of course it was the perfect setting for his fantastical ideas.  

At one point, Cole and Annie and I scampered through a little crack in the rocks to a tall rock valley.  It was pretty incredible and Cole was actually so touched by its beauty that he teared up.  A minute or so later, I came around a corner and Annie was sitting on a rock looking up and I heard her say to herself, "I will remember this day forever."  That was a fairly rewarding moment as a parent. 

I heard each kid separately declare, "this is the best day ever!"  On the way home, our kids informed us that they would like to go to Goblin Valley for every Spring Break, so I suppose it was a success.  They loved it.  We all did.