escalante.

escalante started out fantastic and then ended with a dust storm.  how exciting.  actually it was very exciting.  i'm used to trips having some kind of adventure.


so the first night we got there it was a little windy but not too bad.  the next morning no problems.  we went through peek-a-boo and spooky canyons, came back, had lunch, then went to upper cash creek falls.  all with little to no problems.  however when we returned the wind had picked up.


cooking dinner (which was delicioso chicken fajitas) was difficult since your food filled with red sand.  the wind would come in huge gusts that constantly blew things over.  i was a wee bit concerned about falling so i'd just 'go down' with the wind.  which of course looked ridiculous.  


jason (the guy we all affectionately call hercules) decided to eat his dinner in the car and said it was "the best part of his evening".  if hercules said that... then the wind was bad, really bad.


our campsite was on a plateau and so we were completely at the wind's mercy.  tent poles were bending, everything was blowing away and we definitely had to move or do something.  two guys took off to try and find another campsite out of the wind...which didn't happen since it was memorial day weekend. while they were gone we started hauling stuff into cars preparing for a move.  as an alternative, just down the hill to the northwest was a wash where i thought we could possibly set up a tent.  


i stood on the plateau, matt stood halfway down the hill and jason stood in the wash.  whenever a big gust of wind came i would frantically wave my arms(while trying to stay on my feet) to let jason know so he could measure the strength of the wind below.  his verdict conveyed up the hill through matt. 


we decided to set up a five man tent in the wash (it was somewhat protected from the wind) and then the two drivers would sleep in their cars.  as we all settled in the tent (which we set up in the dark) we passed around wipes to try and clean off a bit.  our skin, clothes, ears, hair...everything was coated in red sand.  every time danya and i would touch our hair sand would fall out.  so gross.


during the night we were all pretty toasty, five people with five really warm sleeping bags equals a warm night.  the wind kept up which meant that tent snapped back and forth all night.  then periodically you'd hear and feel sand rain down from the top of the tent onto us. 


oh.  and the three boys all took turns snoring.  needless to say, my best sleep happened once i turned on my ipod.  


the next morning (still terribly windy) we were so glad to go to church.  a chance to clean off in an actual bathroom (if you haven't tried to go to the bathroom in a very windy desert it's a definite must) and mostly just to get out of the wind for a few hours.  


added bonus that president snow of the presidency of the seventy was there with his wife. 


after church we had a little pow wow and unanimously decided to not spend another night in escalante.  we finished our itinerary for the day and then just sucked it up and drove home...props to nycole and jon for safely enduring the long drive.


well.  it was quite the memorial day weekend.  and b the w...it seems when our group gets together for a large scale adventure it always ends up that wind is a factor.  interesting.