We decided we were going to go on an adventure today, but we hadn’t decided where when we woke up this morning. I talked about going to Zion National Park or to Snow Canyon, and Kyle threw out the idea of going to Antelope Island. We got a later start to the morning than I was hoping so we kind of threw out the idea of going to southern Utah. So we talked about hiking to the Y instead and I showed Kyle another park that I found and the map to get there. It took a road going by the west side of Utah Lake and Kyle said “Hey I’ve always wanted to drive on that side of the lake.” So we decided we would go to this park called “Little Sahara”. And then maybe hike to the Y if we still had time afterward. We packed a picnic lunch and got everyone dressed and out to the car and we were on our way.
The drive on the west side of the lake was beautiful. We drive on the other side all the time, but we almost never see it, aside from at a distance as we come over the mountain out of our valley. We got closer to where the GPS system on Kyle’s work phone was telling us we should be going. And then we passed the sign for the “Little Sahara”, but the GPS said that we had a few more miles to go before we got there. We decided to go to where it said we should go, and if we needed to we would turn around and head back for the road where the sign was. Well we got to where the GPS told us we wanted to go, but there wasn’t a real road there. So we decided to turn around and go back to where we saw the sign and that’s when Kyle told me about how there have been many complaints about that GPS program leading people on wild goose chases.
We started out by going to the visitors center to get a map and to let everyone make a potty stop, and then we went to one of their picnic areas. The park seems to be more of a place for people to bring their four wheelers and dune buggies to play on the sand dunes. I was hoping for something more of a nature exploration. There were a couple of areas fenced off that were off limits to vehicles and that’s where we spent our time. We had our lunch first, and then after picking up our stuff and reloading it into the car we took the kids over the hill to explore.
It was weird to see a landscape similar to the valley where we live, with the sage brush and the tumbleweeds, and then to see huge amounts of natural sand right there next to it. The sand was very soft and fine, different from the sand that you would find at the beach. The weather was just perfect for playing in the sand. I can’t imagine going to Little Sahara in the summer time when it is really hot. That would just be pure misery. But here it is almost the end of November and it was warm enough to be playing without wearing sweaters. You might notice that Jeremy is in shorts and a t-shirt and Kyle is wearing short sleeves as well. The kids really had a good time playing in the sand. Dinah decided she wanted to make sand angels:
Adam just hung around on his first day trip adventure:
The kids ran off and decided to slide down the sand hill:
Lydia loved being let loose in the sand, of course her favorite thing to do was to throw the sand. Thankfully it didn’t get in anybody’s eyes.
Daredevil Dinah was the first to climb the super tall and super steep hill:
Then the others had to prove they could do it too:
Kyle even helped Lydia climb partway up the hill, because Jeremy climbed up most of the way and then flipped out because he was stuck!
I was up towards the top of the hill on my own (I didn’t go up the steep side because I was wearing Adam) and there was sand untouched by foot prints. It was so pretty:
The kids had a blast, but once they got to the point where they would run off and not listen to what Kyle and I were telling them we decided it was time to go. We drove back to civilization and went to Applebee’s for dinner. Debby was working tonight so we saw her there. Then we came home and gave everyone a bath! I think I’m going to need to give the whole house a good cleaning now. As the kids pulled their shoes off in the entry way sand came out. Then they walked all over the house in their sandy socks before going into the bathrooms to pull off their socks to get in the bath, so more sand in the bathrooms. Lots of sand for me to clean up now. 🙂