Adventures in St George

Ahhhhhh St George. Love the place. A piece of my heart will always be there.

We spent last weekend down there enjoying the warm sun and brilliant blue skies against the red rock while fixing up a few things on our house there to prep it for what we earnestly hope will be a somewhat quick sale. It's so hard to say goodbye to a home we designed and built ourselves and that we've loved so dearly. But our renters moved out and we're feeling we need to stay here for the forseeable future so it feels  like time to pass good old "Krawnchie Boo" (the name the kids gave the house ages ago) along to new owners. It was so nice to stay at our beautiful home again and enjoy those views and all the great amenities we don't have here (not-so-steep stairs, tons of windows, huge kitchen, big mudroom, open floor plan, a big bathtub, theater room - I'd better stop before I forget that we really DO love the house we live in now and that there are simply trade-off's).

It was great to visit old friends and go to our old church. It was also great to do something I've wanted to do since we moved to St George seven years ago - climb Red Mountain (the mountain we could see from every room in our house, the landmark that defines our area of St George).

Here's the view of Red Mountain that we woke up to every morning for the 6 years we lived in St George:

Hiking Red Mountain was a little harder than I expected. I knew it would be a serious climb. I knew there would be plenty of steep rock climbing sections. I knew it would be best to just take the three older kids and leave the twins playing at a friends' house because while they are great hikers and wouldn't bat an eye at the difficulty of the hike, they'd be scary to have along with all those drop-offs.

What I didn't know was that the hike would involve countless super-steep stretches of loose rock and dirt. I love love love hiking but I really really really don't like that feeling of sliding down a cliff that the loose rock and dirt offers. In fact, I'll go ahead and use that "h" word. I hate hiking on steep places with loose rock and dirt.

See that barely-there path? All loose rock with lots of sliding -
and I couldn't stop and pull out my camera to capture the worst parts....

Isaac at the half-way spot

ready for the final steepest assent! See that part behind Ashton?
It's just loose dirt you have to crawl through going straight up.

It was a gorgeous, perfect day. There were some sketchy areas but it was OK and we all made it up to the very top.  The views were breathtaking and we had the whole mountain to ourselves. We could see Snow Canyon, our house, our church, all our friends' houses and pretty much all of St George from up there. It was BEAUTIFUL and so worth the climb.

The way down was not fun, to say the least. I was fine as I hiked along with Eliza, listening to her tell me the plot lines of several books she's read lately and keeping my mind off how much I hated all the stretches of loose rock and dirt that made me feel like I might slip to my death at any moment. Then when it just kept going FOREVER and Eliza got ahead of me and Jared was nice enough to stay behind and keep his slow, fraidy-cat wife company, I started being a baby. My hair was in my face and I couldn't see anything. The rock slides seemed never-ending. Crawling/sliding backwards down a steep mountain with prickles in my hands and dirt in my shoes was really getting to me. Jared was so patient as I inched along and the kids were already almost to the bottom. He gallantly pulled out one of his shoelaces to tie back my hair and told me I was doing a great job (a lie but hey, it was nice). My legs were burning and I felt like sitting down and giving up and that make me feel like a wimp and I HATE feeling like a wimp. But there was no choice other than to keep going and ultimately, slowly but surely, I got down that mountain in one piece. We were about 2 hours late picking up the twins. Luckily it worked out fine for the dear friends they were with.

I was humbled. My legs were like jello (and my thighs have been killing me since then!). But I did it. I've hiked Red Mountain. I'm glad we did it. But I've vowed never again to hike in dirt and rock slides!

If you happen to know of anyone looking for a great house in St George or if you're just curious to see our house there, here's a link to the blog we made about the house:
http://snowcanyonhome.blogspot.com/