UEA trip to Natural Bridges and Mesa Verde where we didn't actually go to either of those places

We had big plans for UEA.  Ben (being the seasoned back-country traveler that he is) pulled out a few of his books about Utah's parks, trails, and hikes. 

He spent a couple of hours planning our great camping, hiking, and sight-seeing weekend.  In fact, he talked so much about all these amazing places, that I was actually excited to go camping.  And I mean sleep in a tent and have no running water or toilets kind of camping.  Yep, I was on board and looking forward to it.  The big plan consisted of the following:  leave Wednesday evening, then Thursday we'd go to Mesa Verde and see the Indian ruins, Friday we'd go to Natural Bridges and hike to all the arches/bridges, and hopefully end at Horseshoe Canyon on Saturday with a hike to the Great Gallery.  (For years now, I've heard all about the spectacular petroglyphs at the Great Gallery ... and I was psyched that we were finally going to see them.)

It was a great plan.  But the great plan never really got past the planning phase.  In fact, the great plan pretty much fell apart.  Wednesday rolled around and Ben got swamped at work.  Thursday rolled around and we had a slight boomerang mis-hap.  We had pretty much abandoned all hope of going anywhere over the long weekend.  Until we decided the weather was just too nice not to get out and enjoy it, so we came up with Plan B.  Plan B consisted of the following:  join my sister and her family at Lake Powell.  Plan B was simple, but good.  We do love Lake Powell (so what if we were just there last month!), and we had a great time, so all was well ... I'll just have to wait a little longer to see those spectacular Great Gallery petroglyphs I've heard so much about.

Here's how the trip went down ...

We stayed in the slips on the Mounteers houseboat, so Luke took full advantage of this by fishing first thing in the morning.  (Nothing like doing a little fishing in your pj's!)

Emery was thrilled to finally retrieve his "sling-shot-harpoon-thing" after it had been in a Bullfrog warehouse for a month.  (Harpoons, boomerangs, what is it with all these weapons?!)

We hiked to the Indian ruins in Forgotten Canyon.

 

We explored the beach and found some cool rocks.

Of course, Emery wouldn't miss a chance to wakeboard.

And Sam shocked us by practically becoming a pro-wakeboarder ... the first time he ever tried to wakeboard!

Even Luke gave wakeboarding a shot.  I'm sure his stitches will be just fine after being in that nice clean lake water.  (Come to think of it, the doctor did say to keep those stitches clean and dry.  Hmmm.  I think we'll just take those antibiotics for an extra day or two.)

After dark, we carved some delightful pumpkins.

And the nice park rangers stopped by to judge the pumpkin carving contest.

There was no clear-cut winner.

My kids loved boating, swimming, tubing and cliff-jumping with their cousins for a few days.

 All in all, it turned out to be a great trip to Mesa Verde, Natural Bridges, Lake Powell!