Throughout the end of October, my family fully embraced the Halloween spirit through solid participation in costume contests, haunted houses, pumpkin carving, pumpkin seed roasting, and trick-or-treating. For the second year running, Genesee chose to live out her best Halloween life as a unicorn. Some dreams never die, I guess.

Ready, set, road trip!

On September 25th, we programmed our GPS for RedCliff Condos in the Spanish Valley of Moab, Utah.

After 1500 miles, 37 license plate sightings, 25 hours in and out of the Chevy Suburban, 19 “Are-we-there-yets,” 4 gas station visits, and one-night sleep at Sterling, Colorado’s Holiday Inn Express, we had finally arrived!

We settled just in time to watch the Sunday night Packer game, and then made plans to soak in the hot tub, frequent the Moab Food Truck Park, discover local playgrounds, shop the downtown boutiques, and eat lots of ice cream!

But, the main reason we made the trip was because Dad drew a muzzleloader tag to hunt elk, after a 12-year lottery wait. This required me to wake up at 5:00 a.m. each morning and trek a cumulative of 60 miles across the La Sal Mountains in my durable Merrell hiking boots (except for that one afternoon when my Crocs had to suffice), just to keep up with Dad’s zest to unravel the mysterious whereabouts of an elk bull hiding on tens of thousands of public acres that we had no familiarity of.

It was challenging and exhilarating, exhausting and peaceful… it was quality time spent with Dad.

Yet, despite giving it our all, the final score was:
Utah Elk: 1, Me & Dad: 0.

But not all was lost.

We gained a new appreciation for the beauty of Moab after visiting Dead Horse Point State Park and recreating our Mesa Arch family photo at the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park.

There exist no words to accurately capture how fabulous this corner of the world is, so we invented our own: “Moabulous.”

It was another trip for the books, especially for Genesee, who got to live her best life with easy access to Grandma, made-to-order bacon breakfasts, and unlimited data for streaming videos and downloading iPad games. The rest of our gang had a blast too, because when Genesee is happy, everybody is happy.