June - Arches trip with Friends

      Steve and I took off the weekend and had Grandpa and Grandma Barclay watch Andrea while we went to the Arches with our friends.  Steve has worked his IT job on campus with these friends for two or more years and we have built a really strong relationship with them.  We knew that their working together days were coming to an end because Jason just graduated and took a job in Oregon, Brandon will graduate this December, and Steve will graduate this April.  Once they are no longer students they can no longer work in their current office.  So, we decided to take a big trip all together before we all started heading our separate directions.  We had a little planning meeting one Sunday and decided on the Arches.  It ended up being a wonderful weekend even though several things went wrong, but that's actually what made it so fun! :-)
       We began our trip by going golfing together with Brandon and Annie in the morning, then we hurried and finished packing our things and headed for Manti.  Obviously we hurried a little too fast, because we forgot our tent, dutch oven, and flashlights.  All of which are pretty essential things, but lucky we stopped in Manti first.  We realized we forgot our tent and dutch oven when we got to Manti, so mom and dad let us borrow theirs.  We decided to stay the night in Manti so Jason and Alysha could meet up with us.  Then we packed everything in mom and dad's suburban and headed for the arches.  The weather was crazy this year.  We had been getting tons of rain, so the river was so high that half of the camp grounds were under water.  It took  a while to find a spot, but we finally found one.  Immediately we tried to set up our tent so we could claim our spot.  After about 15 minutes of trying to put different pieces together we just assumed that we must not have all the parts.  It was a big Boy Scout tent that I had never seen before, so I personally had no idea how to set it up.  Eventually we gave up and rolled the tent back up.  Come to find out later, we really did have all the parts, but we just didn't know how to set it up right. :-)
        Finally we headed for the park and hiked to the doubles arch and took some great pictures.

We headed back kind of early to make dinner, because I knew dinner might take a while.  While cooking dinner back at the camp ground we were suddenly stopped by an extremely large sound that sounded like a gun shot.  I looked at our neighbors and they were staring at us.  I honestly thought they had just shot a gun at us, because that is how loud the sound was.  Steve quickly said, "Check the tires."  All the boys rushed over to the suburban and started checking the tires.  They could tell that one of them had just exploded.  It still had most of the air in it, but big pieces of rubber and burst off of the tire.  Within minutes Steve and Jason were gone in the suburban trying to get it on the road and out where we had cell phone reception.  A few minutes later Alysha took off in their car to go and find the boys.  The only problem was Jason didn't take his phone with him and she didn't know Steve's number.  Back at camp Brandon, Annie and I got dinner ready.  They were gone for at least two hours.  Finally they all came back.  Steve had called my dad and found out that the spare underneath was a full sized tire, so he got underneath the car, took off the spare, finally got the jack out, and changed the tire.  He was filthy when he got back, but everything was just fine and they all made it back together. :-)  Dinner was great and we had a nice relaxing evening.  Steve and Brandon slept on cots and Annie and I slept in the suburban.  I actually think the boys got the better sleeping arrangements, but that's ok.  Annie and I stayed up talking until everyone else had long been asleep.  We were just like sisters having a campout together. :-)
 

      Nicole and Brian were able to meet up with us that night as well, so the next day we had an amazing breakfast prepared by Steve and then we headed out to the park for the day.  Steve's breakfast recipe: 1 lb of bacon, 1 bag of Potatoes O' Brian, 1/2 - 1 lb of cheese, 12 eggs. Cook them all and mix them all together.  We put them on tortillas for a yummy breakfast burrito.  Thank you for an awesome breakfast honey! :-)
       We saw several fun things in the park.  Devil's Garden, Sand dune Arch, Landscape Arch, etc.  Here are some awesome pics.

 The girls having fun in the sand! :-)

 Brian and his wife Nicole were the daring ones who decided to climb even higher. It definitely made for a good picture!

 Definitely putting off the vibe boys!

 Steve climbed pretty far up the slate canyon area of the park.

       Now for our last crazy story of the trip.  Our last hike of the day was to be the Delicate Arch (the arch on the Utah license plate.)  We were a little less than half way up the trail when an elderly couple from the Netherlands hiking back down from the arch.  We were on slick red rock and the wife tripped just a few feet away from all of us.  She tripped and tried to catch herself with her hands, but then rolled a few times before stopping.  We all rushed over to her to help her up and see if she was ok.  As soon as we got her sitting up it was obvious that her wrist was broken.  Her arm and hand were on completely different levels, not in a straight line at all.  She was in a lot of pain, so we all worked together and laid her back on backpacks and arms.  Steve and Brian took off running for the parking lot where they could get service and call 911.  It was such a neat experience because the Lord totally put us there for a reason.  Even though they were from the Netherlands they could speak German and Nicole had studied abroad in Vienna and spoke German, so she was able to communicate enough with them.  Two other couples ended up stopping.   All of us were from the Provo area and all of us were LDS. We were able to ask the husband if the boys could give her a blessing and they accepted, so the men gave her a blessing and immediately she started to calm down.  One of the other couples who stopped was an EMT and had a nice first aid kit with him.  He used different clothes to wrap it up and make a sling while the girls all held a T-shirt about her to create shade.  Then eventually she felt well enough to start walking down the hill along with the help of the boys.  The forest rangers got there by the time that we were almost all the way back to the parking lot anyway, so she ended up walking the entire way back to the ambulance waiting for her in the parking lot.  It was also another little miracle that there was a surgeon in the Moab hospital that could operate on her wrist that day.  Long story short, we never made it to the delicate arch, so many of us have still not seen it, but our experience was so much more worth it.  We were able to share the gospel in some little way with this cute elderly couple and make some friends.  We had a blast with our BYU friends and we will always cherish this small weekend trip to the Arches with them!