The Adventures of Ron, Lori, Lacey, and Riley

Pictures:

Download high resolution copies of photographs here

Videos:

Download copies of videos here

So Craig and Kristina threw together a last minute trip to Moab this past weekend. Lori had some prior obligations, but told me that I could go if I took the kids!! (Later she reneged on half of that offer and had me leave Riley home with her. Ryan and 2 of his kids also came. 2 wifeless fathers and 3 motherless children on a 2 night camping trip resulted in more than one instance of near mutiny, but all turned out well in the end. Good thing the Stitchers were there to provide at least one complete, fully-staffed family to bring some stability to the weekend.

The known camping casualties included AT LEAST:

one bashed jaw/ head/ facial area (swingset injury)
one bonked nose (slide injury)
one sore bum (playground ladder injury)
one fistful of sand in eyes
and dozens of caterpillars accidentaly murdered, maimed, psychologically abused and/or reduced to homelessness due to the efforts of well-intentioned children to feed, house, bath, and/or entertain them

4x4 trail casualties included:

one bent tailpipe
one bent transfercase skidplate
one front axle (birfield joint)
one front hub
one lower door body cladding scrape
and a handful of bumper scrapes and dings

Anyhow,

Here are some detailed versions of some of the pictures in the slideshow above (most of my 4x4 pictures are of Craig's 4Runner, hopefully Ryan has some pictures of my Jeep, will post more as they become available)

This couple in the campsite next to us sat in those camp chairs with their backs to us and chain smoked the entire time we were there. I don't think either of them even got up to use the bathroom, eat, or sleep. On Sunday morning, the woman stood up to begin breaking camp, I got this rare photograph of the momentus event:

From Moab 5/2/09 Pix

On Saturday afternoon, on the Hell's Revenge trail, a big black cloud came rushing in and it went from mild weather to high winds, HEAVY rain, hail, lightening and then back to mild weather in about 15 to 20 minutes. This picture was taken about 60 seconds after the heavy downpour started. I looked North and saw this stunning scene of the storm making its way across Arches National Park: