September 30, 2013
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Epic Road Trip, Day 9, part 5
We took the long way home, of course. The kids enjoyed sitting in the car with the A/C on full blast watching the scenery go by. They were fine with me stopping to take pictures as long as A) I didn't make them get out of the car and B) I left the car running.
I really wanted to hike the trail to this arch but the kids were refusing even when I threw the logic at them that they can cool off later, that they won't get this opportunity again anytime soon, that it would be fun and the photos would be great. They didn't care, they were done. So I got this picture, and gave up and drove on.
Another place I wanted to explore but it was too much effort to get the kids out into the heat. At this point they were not only refusing to get out, they'd lost interest in the scenery, too. So I let it be and took photos and didn't even try to involve them.
We left the park and headed back to our last night at camp. Along the way we stopped at an Earthcache featuring two large rock plateaus called the Merrimac and the Monitor.
And a close up of the Merrimac:
And a close up of the Monitor:
There at the viewpoint, I saw this little tugboat rock that made me laugh since the other rocks were named for ships.
The sun was setting as we made our way to camp.
When we got back, we saw the ravens had pulled bristles from my broom. Pretty funny, huh? What was more crazy was that we'd left out the pack of baby wipes, which they'd ripped open and festooned the entire campsite with the wipes. We spent some time running around pulling them off cactus spines and out of junipers and dust. This wasn't as bad as when we'd left the curtains open the day before so the tent had some ventilation and wasn't a sauna when we got back; the fine red dust had covered everything inside and we had to shake out our sleeping bags, pillows and clothing (for those that hadn't bothered putting away dirty clothes or zipping up their bag of clean clothes). But still, camp was a mess both nights we came home after a long day out.
We decided it was time to go to the point and watch the sun set the rest of the way from there.
The sun setting caused the colors to go all soft and I thought it was really pretty.
Quin got kinda bored and was feeling grouchy so he climbed to the highest point he could find and sat slumped on top of the rock and pouted. That ended up being the perfect photo op as the sun sunk down right behind him. He looks like he's meditating or something.
The sun went lower but there weren't many clouds in the sky so I had no expectations for a spectacular sunset. We got back in the car and drove slowly down the road, watching the sun dip lower and lower, which is when the color started happening.
We watched it set, then we'd zoom to the next rise and watch that big ball of sun drop below the horizon again.
Then, to close out the day, a final shot. It was 8:00pm, it had cooled to a comfy temperature and we were all tired so we went back to camp and went to sleep.
