A little hike in Dry Canyon

In eleven years here (give or take, but mostly take due to time spent living elsewhere) we've never gone hiking up Dry Canyon. First of all, I can hardly believe that my family has lived here for eleven years. Secondly, I can't believe it was ten years ago that Andrew took me to the homecoming dance at our high school, a fact I was reminded of on a friends Facebook page (because her husband took her to that very same dance ten years ago as well—apparently it was a good dance). Third of all, why have we never gone hiking up here?! It's, like, right up the street!

Last year we took the girls up Dry Canyon to take some pictures but we didn't quite get any hiking in so when my mom asked if we wanted to do anything with her tonight I suggested we visit the canyon. 

And so we did. But we didn't stay long because the sun was already starting to set by the time we left the house. Still, I think we managed to squeeze in just about the right amount of hiking for the girls (half an hour or so) and we got to watch the sunset, which was beautiful.

We didn't get very far up the trail before we decided we had better turn back so I'm still terribly curious about the rest of the trail. 

Rachel kept reminding us about bears and wolves and cougars and we hadn't brought a flashlight or any good getting-lost-at-night-in-the-mountains equipment so we decided to not take any chances...even though we could hear the sound of gurgling water and so wanted to investigate. Rachel is mostly worried about bears, in case you were wondering. She also kept asking if we thought woods or forests were scarier. I tried telling her that woods and forests are basically the same thing but she insisted that woods are much, much denser and thus scarier.



It was fun to get a little hike in with Naanii. We'll have to try to go again sometime when we have more time!

Rachel took a token picture of me with my mom. She also took several pictures of the ground.

We stopped to admire the view of Utah Lake and the beautiful sunset before continuing on down the trail.

I decided, once we were on fairly level ground, that it wouldn't hurt to let both the girls walk on their own, without being carried or piggy-backed or holding hands—just running free. That plan totally backfired when Rachel decided she had better force Miriam to hold hands with her and ended up tripping and falling into her and sending her flying into the brush.

Miriam was less than happy about that.

The hike, short as it was, was totally worth it. Sometimes I just can't wait to get out of this place (because living here seems to drive me all kinds of crazy) but then I see something wonderful, like the golden hues of sunset caressing the petals of a Black-eyed Susan, for example...

...and that one moment is so beautiful that I can forgive this wacky, wacky world we live in and feel a little bit of peace. It's amazing how good nature is for the soul.

On a lighter note, "it's not all that often you get all this neatness in one location. That's called neature!"