Spring Break--the Sand

Our school district has super short spring breaks, just two days long plus the weekend and possibly a parent-teacher conference day, so five days in total. That makes it hard to go far. (I wish the break was longer, plane tickets are much cheaper in the spring than in the summer and at Christmas Break!) 

We decided to make the most of it. The kids and I were in the mood for a warm beach, so we headed to Sand Hollow State Park near St. George for the first couple nights. I was slightly sick the first day, so we took it easy with eye and dental appointments (might as well get those out of the way instead of driving an extra 250+ miles roundtrip). Then we went to the cheap movie theater and watched the new Star Wars movie. We're enough behind the times that we were the only ones in the whole movie theater. That was pretty cool. We enjoyed the movie and then headed to the sand. 

All the designated campsites were full, so we went to primitive camping, which is space on the beach with port-a-potties half a mile away. Fortunately we lucked out and got a picnic table. While I rested, the kids started digging in the sand. It was cold enough that they kept all their clothes on, and before long we needed coats. Then it was time to enjoy the kids' favorite camping meal: top ramen. 

After dinner we hiked up on the nearby hill, which was part sand topped with lava. We had a nice view of our end of the reservoir.

I really enjoyed looking at all the flowers.

The next morning started with some bird watching--mergansers, coots, and ducks.

As I wandered around in the morning light, I found this crab spider camoflauged on its flower. I went back several times to check on it, and it was always on the same flower.

We had fun looking at tracks in the sand. These are little insect tracks.

It warmed up a bit, so that meant it was time to play in the water! The water was just 56 degrees F, so a bit chilly for swimming. But we had an inflatable raft. We soon discovered we didn't have any oars. So we made a substitute and I tied a cord to the boat, and the kids took turns going out in the lake.

Eventually they both jumped in and ended up totally soaked. They loved it.

We went into Hurricane later that day and checked it out. Then we camped one more night before leaving the next morning to our next destination.

To be continued...