My family has been saving for several years to have a real family reunion and this year we finally made it happen. We all drove down to Capital Reef National Park in Utah, a park my whole family loves. We stayed in a beautiful Airbnb and played (sort of) in the park for a few days. It was really fun! Get ready for a Red Rock Overload.

Our first night there we enjoyed the view, the pickle ball court and the 9 Square game and the trampoline. The dog came with the neighbor’s house. lol.

The next morning Dad made Swedish pancakes for everyone-a family favorite. It was too windy to play on the property so we drove into the park only to find out that most of the park and the scenic drive were closed for construction ALL SUMMER. We were able to see quite a bit of beautiful but we were all bummed about the road closures.

Even though we didn’t get to see Capital Gorge, we did get to hike along Grand Wash which is pretty cool.

On the second day Levi came back from his morning run telling us that he’d found an amazing rock formation for us to hike to AND he found some abandoned puppies! First, the puppies:

He gave them some water but they were pretty worn out. Possibly traumatized by the huge wind storm the night before. Rock called animal control to report it and they said they had already gotten some calls on the puppies and that they would take care of it. We wrangled everybody up and headed to Levi’s rock formation which was actually called Lion’s Head. Only the knee and hip handicapped-Mom and Rock-couldn’t join us. 😦 But this area was SO cool! And it was even cool temperature-wise. We had beautiful weather our whole stay; in the high 70’s. We climbed around on these rocks for hours.

When we finished climbing the rocks and everyone else headed home, Levi insisted on making sure the puppies had been picked up. We checked and sure enough, they were still there! So we called animal control again and this time they actually got them. From animal control:

Levi was the hero of the day-he found the coolest place to hike AND he saved some puppies.

That afternoon we played more pickle ball, more 9 square, and this Hedbanz game which was super popular. Rosie was amazing at it!

We ordered some food in and finished off our leftovers before heading into the park one last time. We ended the night with smores.

I think we did pretty good for our first official reunion. We have a little left over in our $ pot so let’s keep saving and do it again!!

Stay tuned for Jam Packed June part III-Grand Junction and Trek!