July Part III: The Beach

And then the beach.  Off to Crescent Beach, Florida for a week of family beach time.  The daily routine went something like this.  Wake up, watch the sunrise, do yoga/go surfing, eat breakfast, go to the beach, go to the pool, eat lunch, rest, go to the beach, go to the pool, eat dinner, sleep.  And read books in between.  All this done with 21 members of the Chapin Family. 

It was wonderful, relaxing and lovely.

Cousin Love!

One evening we went in to St. Augustine and checked out the fort.  

Here is the sunrise.

Every year when we go to the beach, Stuart makes a maze on the sand at low tide.  This year he made 2.  The first was a turtle and the second was a shark.

Turtle!

 Shark!

 Keith brought the magic carpet for some awesome surf sessions.

Playing in the sand was always a big hit with the kids.  All I had to do was dig a big hole in the sand, let it fill in with some water and voila! Kid magnet.  Drippy castles, wall building,  then defend against the incoming tide.

This old tortoise seems to show up every year.  

This year Stuart made a video with his new GoPro video camera.  Click on the link below to see it up loaded to YouTube.  Or just watch it here.  I hope it works. 

Crescent Beach 2014: Chapin Family

July Part II: City of Rocks

After the river trip, we headed home for a quick turn around.  Unpack from the river trip.  Repack for the climbing trip.  Off to City of Rocks, Idaho.  We reserved a campsite for a week of climbing, hoping for the best.  Although we did not get a ton of photos, we had a wonderful time climbing.  Each day we got up early, had a hearty breakfast and headed to a climbing destination.  Mostly we followed the shade each day, climbing on the west faces in the mornings and the east faces in the afternoons.  The boys set up their hammocks and read books or looked for forts in the rocks.  Stuart and I climbed.  It was wonderful.

Here are some of the images we captured along the way.

Sunset looking up valley toward "The City."

One evening after climbing we decided to explore the "Window Arch."

We went to a geology ranger talk and found out that the name for the carved rock is "Tafoni." Here is Wren climbing through some tafoni.

 And Dakota "hiding" in some tafoni.

 And the sun captured in the tafoni.

 Although most of the days just Stuart and I climbed, it seems like all the climbing pictures are of Wren and Dakota.  Here is Wren climbing with his tape gloves. 

 And Dakota having a good time going up.  He did not really like the going back down part.

 This is what the City of Rocks looks like.  There are lots of giant granite formations scattered all through out the area.  So much climbing. 

Wren had the camera for a little walk and took this photo and the next.

 I blew this image up so you could see the chipmunk peeking up from behind the rock.

July Part I: Desolation/Grey Canyons of the Green River

We spent the first part of July on the Green River in Utah.  This is an 85 mile section of mellow Class III whitewater.  We spend 9 days on the river and it was wonderful.  We took another family (The Mumms) from Walla Walla.

Here are some of the highlight photos.

We took 2 rafts.  One heavier for Stuart to row with his big muscles : ) and one a bit lighter for Heidi and the Mumms to row and learn.

Happy Stuart at the oars!

Amazing scenery every day!

Sunset at one of our favorite camps!

 We brought 4 hammocks for the kids.  They were a big hit!

 Another Sunset picture.

One day we stopped for a petroglyph panel.  It was fantastic.

Lunch stop with good scenery.

Camp one night had a mud pit.  The boys loved it.
 

 On our layover day we hike up the Golden Stairs to this view spot!  Amazing.

This is the camp that melted our sandals.  Really. The soles of our shoes de-laminated and came  off our shoes.

 Sunrise!

I will post more photos from this trip when I get them from the Mumms.  We have not been in town at the same time since we got back from the trip but this gives you a little taster for the trip.