Friends of ours came to visit us from Thunder Bay, which is located on the north shore of Lake Superior in Canada.  The landscape were they come from is full of coniferous trees, enormous bodies of water (Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world) and literally hundreds of thousands of rivers and lakes.  There is so much water and greenery.

Somehow, it seemed the obvious choice but to bring them to Utah on their first visit of the Western United States.

We drove two hours south of Moab into the southeast corner of Utah with them and visited different archeological sites. In this part of the country there is very little water, if any, the earth is dry, the trees short, and the desert is sprinkled with sage, cactus, and rocks.  To get to some of these sites was quite easy.  A short hike from the car was all that was required to see ruins and to discover thousand-year old sites full of old pot chards and other little artifacts (which we put back exactly where we found them as archeological site etiquette demands). This proved to be a true delight for our ten year old visitor.

The other site that we visited required us to backpack in and to stay the night.  We found an amazing campsite on flat river rocks that overlooked an enormous canyon.  A cliff-skirting hike was required to get to the cliff-dwelling that we visited.  This was a scary but worthwhile adventure.  Although Cora (who is two years old) accompanied us on all these adventures she did not go on this part of the hike. She stayed behind and played in the dried up river beds, looking at frogs, tadpoles and snakes that were stuck in deep water pits that were filled by flash floods probably a few weeks earlier.  Since Zach is ten years old, he introduced Cora to exploring small crevices for live creatures.  It held Cora’s attention more than anything else ever did.

It is great to travel outdoors with another family. You get to learn how others interpret the natural world, what they do to get prepared for a trip and how they camp.  It was really a delight to share this terrain with them since they are very comfortable in the outdoors.  What was interesting was to see that most of their skills were very transferable to this new environment, but others were not. For example, they were suspicious of my concern that we did not have enough containers to carry the right amount of water.  I insisted that we stop and purchase a large dromedary to carry water.  This water became invaluable on the cliff dwelling section of the trip.    Having another child along during a trip makes it fun for your own child, even one who is comparatively much older. Coralie found it so exciting to see how Zach was a capable outdoors person and what he was interested in.  Everyone on a trip can really open their horizons when they are in the company of new people.

I really recommend visiting the area south of Moab.  It provides such an amazing landscape and has so many interesting historical sites to visit.  You would need to find yourself a book on the area to better find pictographs, petroglyphs and archeological sites.  If you are not a huge outdoor adventurer you can find drive-up sites near the town of Moab.

Heidi

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