Payson and Fossil Springs

One thing we did for my mom's birthday was go on a family road trip to Payson and Fossil Springs. First we stopped in Payson to grab a big bucket o' chicken, and then we headed to a pretty little park shaded by ponderosa pines (you may recognize this park from my blog about our new year's eve trip to the snow).

"Faster, faster!" they yelled (I guess dizziness and nausea is appealing to the kiddos).

The general store manager opening it for business.


Paige organizing the merchandise at the general store.


Kass is always one to go her own way...


Brando was having fun, too.


And here's some very special mother/daughter time - oh, the love!


When lunch was over, we headed up to Strawberry to get to Fossil Springs for a short hike by the river. The road there is kinda crazy. You could literally drive off the edge of the mountain like Toonces the cat... and someone did. On our hike, we found an axle on the trail and saw the body of an old car caught in the trees and bushes above. I think we violated our rental agreement by driving on an unpaved, pothole filled, rock covered road - at one point, I totally expected a flat tire. I was having flashbacks of our Yellowstone trip where my dad totaled the rented minivan when he hit a giant block of concrete. That was fun, right Jill? Memories!




I have lots of pictures like this, but with different backgrounds and different babies.


Doesn't he look like an angel?


The "trail" to the falls was muddy, slippery, steep in places, blocked with boulders in others, and generally difficult to traverse. With all those kids, the going was very slow. Then there was the bent over tree that Kallie was so carefully trying to pass under when her uncle Chad stepped on it and conked her on the head! In his defense, he pretty much took care of her after that.

Once we realized that we didn't have time to make it to the falls, we decided we'd just stop to have some river fun.



"The water is perfect!" Kass said. "Okay, that means it's cold, but we won't die," we all thought.


My dad was the first one to brave the river.


We got into the river, and it was cold, but not deathly cold. Natalie kept grabbing huge handfuls of river moss and putting it on me - nasty! Overall, I'd say the river was too high adventure for the kids. When Lucy got in, Russ let go of her hand, and she started floating downstream. I grabbed her right away when I heard him yelling, but it was kind of stressful trying to keep all the kids from getting washed away. There my dad was, instructing the kids to keep their feet out in front of them if they get caught in the current. Awesome. Russ hadn't planned on getting in, but he had no choice when he lost his footing, getting a nasty scrape on his shin in the process. The current was so powerful in places that I couldn't even turn my legs around to get the leverage I needed to get myself out, much less the kids. It was crazy! Paige was freaking out because she felt unsafe, and then when she fell face first into a pool of moss, she was totally done. I think we all had some scrapes to show for that fun little adventure!


This pic is for Annalee - proof I was there!



On our way out, my dad had this bright idea to take a short cut straight up the mountain. You know this usually ends in some kind of adventure, and it did. We found a place that was not too steep, and we started climbing up the leaf covered mountainside, with Kallie whining all the way. She had had too much fun already. Everything was going fine until we got to the very last part, which was steep, slippery, and blocked by thorn bushes. My dad blazed the trail, only to find a fence at the top. Turns out, the fence and thorn bushes were put there purposely to deter people from blazing trails - it was a restoration area. Oops. Luckily, the fence wasn't too long, and we were able to walk down a ways to get around it and discover Jill blazing a separate trail and grabbing onto a stranger's walking stick to help her make it all the way up. There were a few people walking on that road because it turns out that the road was part of the trail to the falls - the EASY way - and we were just the weird group that came up from behind the fenced off area (what is wrong with those people?).

But it was super fun, and once our pants dried off and the kids fell asleep, it was all good. Oh wait - Brandon cried so much near the end of our drive that he puked. What a fabulous end to our day! Car seat barf is the best.