So, on our first full day, we took them on a hike. A "nice, two-mile hike" up the side of a local mountain. We thought the girls might make it most of the way and started Lota in the backpack. She thought she was pretty cool. Lota is nine months old.
Yep, less than a week from her broken arm incident, Em needed to hike on her own. We have been having a wonderful time trying to convince her that she needs to ask for help sometimes. As of this post, we have been utterly ineffective at convincing her of this. She just tries and tries to do everything on her own until she either erupts in an angry scream or a frustrated cry. Poor girl. She didn't tolerate the medicine and hasn't wanted pain killers since the very first day (when I made her take them) so I must assume the pain was tolerable and hopefully doesn't even hurt anymore.
The girls did walk on their own for quite a while, but this trail turned into a nice steep switch-back and even adults have a hard time with that, so we let them ride.
The views got pretty good right away, so that was a nice reward.
So, there are Alex and Katherine.
When we got to the saddle, we ate a little food and K decided to make a fire from all the wood she was finding.
Yep, that's Em carrying a giant rock, with her broken arm, to the fake fire.
Unfortunately when we got right up to the top (all we needed to do was skirt around that ridge on the left) there was so much snow that we decided it was too dangerous to carry the girls across it, so we took a break and headed back down.
Yep, climbing on rocks too.
It was a good hike, just wish I was prepared for an eight mile hike instead of an easy four miler! So prepared was I that I got a nice huge blister out of it! :-)
So, after one long day, we decided a second long day was definitely in order and we headed off to Joshua Tree National Park. It is a little over an hour from here and well, it's a desert...it's hot...
The way we let our girls dress, you would think we are hippies! Well, we are not but for whatever reason, clothes don't bother me one bit and since the girls LOVE to pick out their own clothes, the only thing I fight over is shoes. We wear proper shoes to the proper places. :-)
Look like Death Valley? Yeah, that's why we don't visit often.
To remind ourselves that there is life in the desert, we found the flowers on the cacti and took photos...it was that or the sand!
Em was willing to touch it...
Where's Waldo?
Even caught a bee, although he's just passing through.
The short of it is that we did several short hikes and lots of rock climbing - particularly whenever the baby needed to eat. We didn't have the camera most of the time but we pulled it out at the last stop so we could prove that one week post broken arm, Em was rock climbing.
K had a blast! She spent the entire day in the heat climbing on rocks with Dad. He taught her all kinds of tricks that she decided to show me the first chance she got. (For a couple hours, I 'got' to hang out in the car while Em took a much needed nap). So even though there aren't any pics of Em doing all this, she really did do it too! But by the time I was out of the car with K, she had to show me and Dad and Em got really far ahead. K is in a phase where she wants to be just like Mom...except that she "wears dresses and skirts and not pants and shorts, like a boy."
Ok, one last picture of life...there is life in the desert people, always remember that. I never want to visit the desert again but I am glad I went there. My perspective is forever changed.
Well, they continued on their journey on Sunday and I have no excuse as to why I haven't updated sooner. Have a wonderful day and to all those in the midwest, I am sorry your winter has been so long! I pray it ends soon! God Bless!!
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