Over breakfast we were so cold that Hyrum stuck his hand in the fire. Not necessarily something I would do, but to each his own. When he saw that his hand was covered in black soot he decided to play the part of Lamanite: he drew war paint, borrowed matt's hatchet, and had some fun. [another non-conventional camping thing he tried doing was throwing a marshmallow INTO the fire, pushing it around with a stick, then picking it up with his hand and eating it. Matt and I were slightly aghast--I think us Hatches are very normal.]

The park was fun. We hiked and ate. Towards the end of Saturday we decided we were tired, and were going to do all of the "driving hikes" aka "lazy man hikes". We found one that called for .2 miles of hiking. It was easy, and short. Then Matt and Hyrum discovered a small cave that they climbed up, yelling, "I don't think people my size were built to squeeze through here..." but they made it to the top, and continued hiking.

They are the two little dots at the top of this picture. They yelled for us to come up, so we climbed up to meet them (taking an alternate route). Once we got up, Matt had the brilliant idea to climb down a cliff on the other side. He was trying to convince everyone else to go down, too. Claudio said, "I'll follow you" and surprisingly he did. So he and Matt shimmied their way down a 20 foot drop off between two rocks about a foot apart. We wondered where they were going, since there was no exit that direction. They disappeared out of sight and the last thing we heard was, "Oh man those are definitely mountain lion tracks!!!" Then the vultures started cawing and hovering overhead.

We went back down the way we came up, and 15 minutes later Claudio and Matt started wandering back. They went through several more rock passes trying to get back. But they're both alive. Funny thing is, those two didn't say a word to each other the entire day of hiking side-by-side, and after they got lost and almost died you'd think they were best

friends.

After the climbing we decided that we wouldn't stay and camp another night. (TOO COLD, and it was looking like rain.) So we found a picnic area, made tinfoil dinners, and fried plantains in the only liquid we had: Sunny D. It smelled great, and tasted good. The wind started blowing everything away right when we finished eating, and as we finished packing the car up, a HUGE lightening storm began. We'd be driving along the road in the pitch dark, and a huge flash would light up the sky for a second showing the entire park as if it were daytime--pretty cool. As if it weren't fun enough driving in water-covered roads, an hour later it started to SNOW. (If any of you recall dad's stories of driving in the snow and not knowing where the edge of the road was, that's what it felt like. Part of the way the rumble strip had to guide us. The snow only delayed us an extra 1.5 hours, and we eventually made it home, to sleep in our WARM comfortable beds.

For those who haven't been to Arches--- I'd highly recommend it. but try going when its warmer. And don't stray from the beaten trail. And reserve a campsite, because its apparently "required."