Friday Family Fun: Descending Into Another Canyon

This is becoming a regular feature, apparently, because every Friday we have an adventure with A. Lots of exploring to be done in a new place, you know, and A. is not the man to sit around at home.

A week ago we went to a manmade lake at a state park an hour away. There was a perfect sand beach, clear water to swim in, pavilions for picnics . . . it was great. Unfortunately, the only photos are on A.'s flip phone, and for some reason, Blogger won't let me upload them here. So no pictures for you for that one.

But yesterday when we went into another canyon to go fishing? Well! You want pictures? I got SO MANY pictures.

Our destination this time was a little settlement deep in the middle of nowhere in a canyon. And when I say nowhere, I mean nowhere. We drove for thirty miles and saw maybe four ranch homes before we even turned off onto the dirt road into the canyon.

Can you see the tiny house way in the distance? That's where we were going.

There is a church still in this mostly abandoned settlement. The building is listing alarmingly and buttressed on one side, but still set up for services. It was locked, but we peeked in the windows.

The children announced their desire for food, so I got out some of the fruit and their water bottles from the cooler for a church-step snack.

Poppy was confined to her stroller, due to the unsuitably rocky, weedy, and hard ground surrounding the church. It was not crawling terrain. More snake terrain.

There was a ranch adjoining the church property, and a very bored horse wandered over to see what all the excitement was.

Or maybe just to eat some more.

Fortified by cherries, grapes, and water, we all got back in the van and continued down the somewhat washed-out road to the creek at the bottom.

If I were an Instagrammer, I would totally start an account featuring our van and all the crazy places it takes us.

There was some catfish fishing.

In the surprisingly large creek.

A. baited the hook with some salami and cheese from our picnic lunch. There were a few fish on the line, but the boys didn't manage to land them.

It was a much nicer spot than I was expecting, though. Most importantly for Poppy, there was a grassy area in the shade where she could sit and crawl around.

Of course, she crawls right into the sun, but at least there's shade to put her back in to.

I was there too, properly be-hatted this time.

And in the shade. And wearing sunscreen. There's no such thing as too much sun protection here.

We had our picnic lunch in the grass after everyone had had enough of fishing.

And then we continued on the dirt road to an even more remote settlement where there were actually irrigated fields at the bottom of the canyon. We didn't spend much time down there, nor did I take any photos. That sort of tiny, remote place is not the place to be nosy. It was very cool, though.

I also harvested some prickly pear fruits to experiment with, but that will be its own post. Get excited.