Sand Mountain

After driving for what seemed like an eternity (it is soooo much better to drive with small children during the night), we arrived at my mom and dad's house in Fallon. We relaxed for the remainder of Sunday and decided to make plans to visit Sand Mountain the next day. Considering the fact that it was extremely hot at my parents house, we figured that Sand Mountain would be an inferno. We decided to head up there for dinner (a little hot dog and marshmallow roast), and climb Sand Mountain.

When we arrived we were the ONLY ones there. It was rather eerie. I have never been out there without some sort of dune buggie or 4-wheeler tearing up the side of the mountain. We built our fire and roasted sandy (due to the wind) hot dogs (yes the grit definately added to the flavor), and roasted marshmallows. Jace, of course, would have nothing to do with the processed meat but of course took to the s'mores.

After feasting we decided to see how far up the mountain we could make it before darkness really set in. The kids chose the course for the tallest peak and about halfway up we were questioning our sanity. It was tough but even tougher carrying a HEAVY 2-year old on your back. Travis and I took turns carrying the boxes (which were to be used as our sleds for the way down) and carrying Jace. Luckily Shane was a real trooper and made it the whole way by himself. For brief stints of time Jace would climb himself. I use the word "climb" loosely because the entire time he was on his hands and knees crawling all the while saying, "I'm dying, I got a stitch in my side." I wonder where he heard that from?

We finally reached the summit and it is so disappointing that the pictures really aren't that great because it was really beautiful from the top. My mom kept Brett (thankfully) at the bottom and took pictures of our progress from the bottom. In the last picture of the collage (bottom right) you can make out our little figures on the top. We tried using the boxes that we had hauled all the way to the top as our sleds but they were a bust. We ended up running all the way down. It is always so frustating that you can make it down in like an 8th of the time that you made it up. Thank goodness for that though because I was TIRED. Hiking in sand is very TIRING, hence Jace's comments about being DEAD. We had a blast though and are greatful that there are such great things like this to do with our kids at Grandma and Grandpa Dahl's house.