"It's A Nice Family Hike!" Christensen Reunion Day 4, July 5, 2012

A Day in Kanarraville, Utah...

 After spending a night with Uncle Stephen in Hurricane, we woke up with plans to take a nice, family hike in Kanarraville.  The hike was recommended by Uncle Stephen and it sounded like a lot of fun, easy enough for the whole family, a stream to cross/ play in, not a lot of elevation change and only a mile or two long.  Sounds dandy, count us all in!

We packed a picnic lunch and headed for the small town park.  Lunch was yummy.  The park took many of us back to our childhoods, back when playground equipment was fun and maybe a little more dangerous.  Our kids hadn't seen such tall scalding hot metal slides with no safety bars all around the top.  Those were fun.  Even Ryan and I got in on the fun.

 Then there was this lovely "toy," something even foreign to an old kid like me.  I was a large metal ring hanging from several chains attached to the top of a large metal pole.  Kids hold onto the ring and run, then hang on tight.  The kids and even Matt couldn't resist a chance on that one.  I would have tried it if I wasn't already battling dizzy spells.  While I was watching the fun, it became apparent as to why these "toys" don't exist anymore.  I think a 1/3 of those who tried it walked away with gravel burns from when their hands gave out and their knees ate the dirt, then almost like a domino affect, it was a 3-kid-pile-up as they would each swing around and hit the kid that had fallen off, thus causing them to fall off.  But that didn't stop the fun.

 After the park, we started on the hike which started off rather brutally up a steep rocky climb in the hot desert sun, but once you got past that, it was only a short distance to the stream.

 This is what a "family hike" really means- adults get ready to carry your little ones.

A little more than two miles in, after crossing the river several times, our family didn't meet the Kanarraville Falls, our destination, but we did find a fun place to play in the stream.  Others in our group continued to the falls, but the climb just got more and more difficult from where we were, so we stayed and played and snapped a few pictures.

Quite the hike.  I didn't expect it to be as difficult as it was, but I made it (at least 4 miles roundtrip), and our kids had fun, and Steve was good about carrying Amara on the way back.  We all definitely earned our sleep that night!