I beg your pardon in advance for typos - the anti-typing Stitch keeps trying to lay on my arm. He is currently pursuing me slowly across the couch and now has me wedged into the corner. However, this fearless blogger is determined to soldier on.

Harry is my new secret weapon against Lily's tantrums. Some time last week he started running up to Lily and giving her a hug, assuring her it was OK in his most patronizing grown-up voice. This didn't work, but offering her a pretend cookie did. She'd immediately stop crying and make lip-smacking sounds as she pretended to eat the cookie, and then would apparently forget what the crying was about in the first place. He learned to rapidly deploy this tactic if he happened to be the cause of the crying. But as all methods of manipulating a two-year-old go, it wasn't long before this stopped working. Harry had to incorporate other snack foods into his repertoire. First it was a single raisin, then a raisin and a cookie, and then crackers. I am left wondering what is worse - that my son tries to appease my daughter with imaginary junk food, or that it works.

In any case, this trick came in handy a few times on the car trip down south for some late season camping. We went the cushy route this time and stayed at a commercial campground in Moab (which Lily calls "Molab" and I just can't bear to correct her). Electrical hookups and a water spout at your site are nice amenities indeed. By late Friday afternoon meals were planned, sorted into ziploc bags and stored, camping gear was crammed into every available space in our supposedly huge Jeep, and we were on the road.

On the way down, we did some unconventional picnicking on the lawn of a gas station in Provo, then drove on before crashing for the night in the shining metropolis of Green River. This is the first time I have driven the narrow, winding and VERY rural route 6 in the dark. Despite these characteristics, it is a heavily traveled route by vacationers and truckers, who labor slowly up the steep grades in the mountain passes. We were behind one of these trucks somewhere between Price and Green River with a line of cars behind us. We were actually going 65, which I believe is the speed limit in this area. However, some of the drivers decided that this was not fast enough.

Cars started passing - not only us, but the truck in front of us as well, just staying in the left (ONCOMING) lane all the way through - with visible approaching headlights in the not-so-far distance ahead. Then other cars decided to pass, but wanted to get in front of the cars who had already passed the truck. So they just stayed in the oncoming lane and drove there. There was one thirty second stretch where I could see six vehicles ahead of me, at least three of them driving in the other lane. I asked Chris if he was seeing this too, or if I had fallen asleep and was having some bizarre stress nightmare. Finally I declared this was not the night for the Naun family to die and pulled over until most of the traffic had passed. Later on in the weekend, Chris checked the local news and found there had been a fatal car accident on that same stretch of road about thirty six hours after we had traveled it. The driver was - surprise surprise - trying to pass and hit a semi truck head on.

After a night's rest and breakfast in a truck stop so forgettable I cannot remember the name, we drove the last little bit to Moab and got ourselves settled in to camp while the kids played in the dirt and mostly behaved. We then visited the rather desperate playground before heading out on some backcountry roads to explore.

This new 4WD hobby is fun. I want to make it perfectly clear that we are not driving willy-nilly all over the fragile southwest desert, but that there are a lot of places in Utah that are only accessible by 4WD roads. They are too far to hike, and impassable by a normal car. We've been in Utah long enough that we've pretty much burned through the "off the pavement" tourist attractions. This time we explored Bull Canyon and only got lost 3 or 4 times, not bad. Could have been better if we had actually used the GPS! We did a little hike to see the Gemini Bridges from the canyon below. I do miss hiking and hope that we don't let "Jeeping" replace more active pursuits in the long run. However, Lily is at that stage where she is getting to be a strain on the back for carrying, but is not quite focused enough for a "serious" hike. I'm hoping by next summer she'll be ready. For now, I ended up carrying her in the "back-cack" for most of this one, but since it was a short hike, and I had been in the car much of the day, I was actually glad to burn the extra calories.

We went back to town and walked through to the other end for dinner. Then we walked back - although this time it was Harry that wound up on my back (and without the benefit of the ergonomic pack). He wore down my sympathy mostly because he had been sick just a few days earlier, still had a cough, and I believed he was probably telling the truth this time when he claimed to be tired.

So, here's the thing about camping in a campground where wood fires are not allowed. There are surprisingly few things to do after dark. This led us to drive up into the La Sal Mountains at dusk, and of course it was pitch black by the time we were half way. We anticipated this, but not the fact that all of this forest loop was apparently BLM land utilized for cattle ranching. Thus, we were dodging cows in the dark for much of the trip.

The kids were already asleep in the car by the time we got back - at the scandalously early hour of 8:00. The wind was blowing a bit and it took some work to convince Lily our tent would not blow away with us in it - she apparently remembers when this almost happened to us last April (scroll down to the "Canyonlands Adventure" post for a full account). As she drifted off to sleep, she'd quietly repeat "the tent's not going to blow away" to herself every time the wind rattled the walls.

The next morning brought sunshine and belgian waffles (electricity is good!). We ended up sharing an extra waffle with random fellow campers. I highly recommend this as a method of making new friends and spreading some goodwill. We spent all of day two exploring above the Colorado River - you should check out the pictures if you have not seen them yet, there were some really amazing sights. I have to sheepishly admit that I am getting slightly jaded with red rock country, and I did not fully realize how cool some of this stuff was until I saw the pictures at home. One of the features of our truck is locking differentials that you can turn on and off manually - this means that on slippery, steep terrain you can "lock" the front and/or back axle and force the wheels to turn together. This makes an amazing difference!

After another uneventful night in the tent, we packed up the next morning - while the kids played some more in the giant red sandbox that was our campsite - and headed home. After tubbies the kids were as good as new...although I did have to rinse the red dirt from the bottom of the tub before I showered yesterday morning.