Uinta Mountains

Last weekend, I took my first vacation to Utah in nearly a year. The day after arriving in Utah, we packed our tents and headed out for a camping trip in the Uinta Mountains. Shortly after setting up camp, we wandered down to a nearby lake, where I was able to prove to Lincoln and Noah that I'm the greatest rock-skipper in the history of the world. Later that night, Lincoln and Noah crawled into their sleeping bags and requested that I tell them several scary, but true, stories about my childhood. Long after the boys fell asleep, I took a short walk outside our tent to count the stars and bask in the light of a full moon, (and ponder the reasons why everyone else in the world seemed to be able to sleep but me).

The next morning, we packed our tents and hiked a short way to some fly fishing on the south fork of the Ashley River. I somehow hooked a fish on my very first cast into the river, which apparently qualified me as the world's greatest rock-skipper/fly fisherman. After catching and releasing all of the fish in the river, we packed up our fishing poles and drove to a safe spot to shoot my dad's old single-shot 22 rifle and my grandpa's 22 pistol. As we shot a few rounds at an old rusty can, I was able to convince Lincoln and Noah that it would be best if we let the rabbits (and all of the other animals they wanted to kill) go free.

Despite foiling the boys' hunting plans, I believe Lincoln and Noah accomplished everything else they set out to do on our trip. They even succeeded in overwhelming their Aunt Melanie with an endless barrage of questions during the 4-hour car ride home. I can't feel too sorry for Melanie, however, because I had previously warned her to pace herself within minutes of our departure from Orem. But she recklessly spurned my advice and proceeded to answer all of the boys' questions (in even more detail than the boys themselves anticipated) during the first 30 minutes of the trip. Despite Melanie's poor judgment, I'm confident that she still found a moment or two to appreciate the beauty of another family adventure in the Uintas. I know I did.