Today I had a fantastic day. It started off with a trip to the gardener's market where I was able to buy some fresh lettuce that looked yummy, as well as some new potatoes and some delicious cheese from a local dairy. Then, I headed to my brother's to pick up my nephew John. Yesterday, I talked to John, I told him that we could do whatever he wanted today and when I talked to him this morning, he told me that he wanted to hike the wind cave trail. I called Karen, my sister in law, and she wanted to join us as well. So, after I picked up John, we drove over to Karen's to pick her up and then headed up Logan Canyon.
Before I start talking about our hike, I should talk about the trail we decided to hike. The Wind Cave Trail is about 3.2 miles roundtrip and rises about 1000 feet in 1.6 miles, so it's a pretty steep trail. The trail is actually fairly tough and is classified as moderate difficulty.
When we arrived at the parking lot, John was super excited, so we headed to the trailhead with John carrying his backpack full of snacks. He led the way. As we headed up the trail, he started paying attention to his surroundings and was on the lookout for any wildlife. He has quite the imagination and at one point, we came upon a dead tree and John asked if it was a really big insect. Anyways, after a couple of very short piggyback rides, and the question, "Auntie...Why are you all wet?" we arrived at the wind cave.
The cave is quite large and we walked around on top and then headed down into the cave. John was slipping and sliding, which made me a little nervous since the cave is on the edge of a cliff, but we managed to grab a seat and start eating our snacks (thank you Brooke!). We ate some chocolate chip cookies, grapes, and string cheese and washed it down with Gatorade. We also took some pictures of us in the cave and on top of the cave. My brother is learry of having his kids' pics on the internet, so I'm not posting any of the pics, but they did turn out very quick. John, whose a pretty nervous little kid, was very brave and wanted to see the edge, so we carefully walked over and he looked around. You can see the road where we parked and he was so surprised that we had climbed so high. He also peed out of the wind cave which he's quite proud of.
On our way down, John said that his legs were tired, which we were expecting, but at some point the snacks kicked in and he practically ran down the mountain. We stopped a little spring and splashed around. John even took his shoes and socks off and walked around. We made it back to the car and then it was time for lunch.
Karen picked our lunch spot, so we headed to the Center Street Grill. John had his standard "ketchup, chicken strips, fries" and was really excited to see the donut that came with his kids meal. He kept asking to eat the donut, but we did manage to eat most of the chicken before it was time for our next adventure. My food was awesome and tasted great after the hike.
After lunch, we headed off to do some shoe shopping. My family is going to Hawaii in three weeks and John told me that he needed some new flipflops for the trip. We found some really cute Keens, but he wanted red and the store was out of red, so we headed to Payless, which is next to the Charlies, the ice cream place, which was next on the list. I let John have free reign on the shoe picking and after much decision and a close call with some knock off camo crocs, we left the store with some camo flip flops and some really cool water shoes. I couldn't believe he picked out the water socks, but he liked them, so oh well. We grabbed some ice cream at Charlies and then headed back to Grandmas.
John wanted to run through the sprinklers, so Karen and I changed clothes, John put on his new water socks, and we were off. John discovered that when his shoes get wet, sting rays appear, which made them even cooler (in his eyes). We ran through the sprinklers and watched an airplane do tricks, watered Grandma's flower pots and tomatoes and then John's family showed up. John helped his dad cut the grass and John's little sister Kate and I shared my raspberry shake and played with her new jewelry. Kate is 1 and is very into jewelry and shiny things (like Reese's PB cups).
After John left, Karen and I watered the garden, which takes 2 hours and caught up on all of the drama that goes on in our family. We worked on our tans in preparation for Hawaii. We talked about where personalities come from and I guess talked about the whole nature vs. nurture idea. We grabbed some sandwiches from Subway, watched a movie, and ended up at the grocerey store getting stuff for dinner tomorrow.
Now it's time for bed and I'm thinking that today was awesome. I think John said it all when we were sitting in the car. He said, "Audrey, that was SO fun!" I'm pretty sure that life really doesn't get much better than this!
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