Day 10: Horses and Healing

Last night was a tough one, with both boys up coughing and sneezing off and on all night. We are thinking they caught something from all those other hands touching the chains at Angels Landing, but who knows for sure? Either way, it was so hard to hear them struggling to breathe and sleep. We used the child ibuprofen we brought with us on the cross-country trip, which we hadn’t ever opened.

We evaluated in the morning how they were doing, as I had pre-bought a horseback riding trip. They decided it was still a go. We laid low until the 10 a.m. ride and then headed out.

Once there, we were assigned our horses: Nicholas got Rocket, Cooper got Buddy, Rob got Dandy, and Kelly got Pete. We then saddled up for our 90-minute ride. It was mainly through a very peaceful pine forest with some breathtaking views of the Grand Staircase and Bryce Canyon at the midpoint.

The ride was followed by more relaxing time at the campsite, reading and playing some more Monopoly Deal. Later Cooper had an energy spike that was too much for the RV, so we headed out again. This time it was for a short 1-mile hike to Mossy Cave. Morale was a bit low as we were hiking to the cave, but once we headed over to the waterfall and got our feet wet in the river, everyone perked up. It was the perfect amount of effort and not too crowded given it was 5 p.m. on a Sunday.

We returned home for dinner, showers, and an earlier bedtime. At dinner on the metal picnic table seats we all realized we have saddle bum (super sore bums from our horseback riding). Glad we just did the 1.5 hour version. We ended the night reading Wonder to the boys; thanks for the loan Nicole. They are absolutely loving it, and it has been a reminder that reading to them is just as much fun as having them read to us.