halfway through our vacation, we made a great exodus to another suite, located in a different building. they were super booked because of a huge family reunion, and because we asked to extend our stay while we were there, they put us in the only available room they had left. it was kind of a bummer--it was definitely an older building, and it felt, looked, and smelled older. the boy's room was in the front of the suite, and it was light pretty much all day long. this resulted in 1) nap time being compromised, and 2) pace becoming our alarm clock again--back to the usual 545/6am! so...with so much time back on our hands in the morning, we packed our days full of activities!
this day was pretty busy--we fit a lot in during the day, and it was our anniversary day, so we really wanted to include a nice dinner in there, too. we started out by visiting the red cliffs reserve visitors center. this was a cute little center in the heart of town. they had great maps of the reserve, showed the trails for hikers/bikers (no motorized vehicles allowed!), and had great pictures and a couple live examples of the species the reserve is designed to protect.
pace brought along his " 'noculers" to check out the reptiles. we saw a shedding gila monster, tarantula, scorpion, and 3 tortoises. one of the tortoises decided to get really active while we were there and run some laps around his enclosure.
david changed the camera settings to make the tortoise appear as though he's running laps around the hare during this race...
after the reserve we wandered by the temple to walk around the grounds (which i put in the next post, otherwise this one would have been way too long), and then on to the johnson dinosaur museum! i am always astounded when i look around certain geographical features and realize it had once been under water, and a desert was once a muddy rain forest! just a decade or so ago, a developer was digging down to start a new neighborhood, and his front end loader ran across these dinosaur tracks! now it's a museum!
here's a perfect example: whatever pace does, max does! silly boys.
there was a dig site out back that the boys loved. hand-held metal dino feet to make tracks, areas to dig, brush away sand and find fake dino bones, etc.
as we were taking this photo, a couple walked by and asked if we could take their picture. they were celebrating their 55th wedding anniversary! that'll be us in 44 years--ha ha.
here's david's nap time adventure: he checked out a canyon that started in red cliffs campground. he ended up doing some canyoneering along the way!
for dinner we went to the painted pony restaurant. max was totally happy entertaining himself during dinner--posing for david's camera (zoolander came to mind)--he'd literally hold a pose for a good 5-10 seconds, then do it again. pace, on the other hand, was not such a happy camper. he fell asleep really late for his nap, and i had to wake him up so we could make our reservation on time. and he had a weird rash on his arm, so i'd given him benedryl and hydrocortisone cream...and he was pretty moody from the benedryl. it was all we could do to avoid a meltdown during dinner. he did great, and was happy to let me carry him back to the car, and then back to our room for movie night.
our fancy-shmancy meal (appetizers: i ordered french onion soup--it was served in a hollowed out onion laid on a bed of salt; david ordered grilled quail with greens and a rice cake (both of these could have been the entree and we would have been stuffed full!); the entrees: david ordered duck wrapped in bacon with apple chips and a celery root puree, and i ended up ordering a salad as my entree, the spinach salad with a seared scallop and grapefruit slices):
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