A Recap: Asian Adventure Part 2

I made it back alive! Here's a run-down of my lil camping trip.

We left Wednesday morning (late, of course) and drove down to Monument Valley with a short stop in Moab for lunch and then later a teeny town called Blanding to see a teeny museum that had a teeny Anasazi ruin we could wander through. When we got to our deluxe campground (complete with laundry, showers and a pool), I was surprised at how surprisingly speedy the students were at unloading all of our gear and setting up tents. They did all the cooking, cleaning up, setting up and taking down. You don't really expect it from such indoorsy city folk, but aside from being kind of whiny after our 5 hour hike, they were really quite tough.

Thursday we met up with Lorenz, our Navajo tour guide who took us to his land in Monument Valley for a very long hike. To get to the starting point, we had to drive about 25 minutes on dirt roads. Actually, considering I was driving a Prius, it was more like off-roading. Very exciting. Lorenz took us bushwhacking through canyons and up cliffs and showed us some petroglyphs and pictographs. And he played some tunes on his Navajo drum and flute. He knew everything (if you're planning a trip to Monument Valley, I highly recommend giving him a call for a tour of his land. But call me first because I don't have his number handy). And we found out that he was one of those "lucky" Native Americans who went to American boarding school where they cut his long locks of hair and he wasn't allowed to speak Navajo (punishable by soap in the mouth or worse). He had some fascinating stories to share.

Friday we left Monument Valley and headed to Hovenweep National Monument to see more Anasazi ruins. After a few hours there, we drove up to Moab and set up camp. Then the students went out into town on a scavenger hunt to find information rather than things (the point was to get them speaking with locals). To top it all off, we decided it would be a good idea to try to hike to Delicate Arch before bed. Which was a good idea, in theory, but didn't work out so well once we lost the trail and couldn't see a bloody thing under the super thick cloud cover. Those of you who've hiked this trail may recall the area of slick rock where the trail kind of goes away- that's where we lost it. And since we didn't want to be completely lost and stranded in the middle of the park (can you imagine!), we decided it would be wise to turn back.

Saturday was the day I had been dreading all week: rafting. And I'll admit it. Despite my fears, yes, rafting was fun. I liked it a lot. I'd even go again. BUT. My fears were well founded! About 3/4 of the way down the river, the raft I was in was "dump-trucked" (I think that's what they call it- maybe), meaning a nice wave hit us just before it crested, folding our raft in half and throwing all of us out. The raft landed on my shoulder, someone else landed on my head, and then another student grabbed my hair thinking it was a stable surface to pull themselves up on, pulling me underwater in the process. Miraculously, the students handled things very well. All of them ended up floating patiently by the raft until we could pull them back in. No tears, no casualties, and only 1 missing flip flop.

It was a really great trip.