This Easter was a bit different than most. We usually get together with my sister and her family and spend the day in the San Rafael Swell, having an Easter egg hunt for the kids and trying to avoid the crowds of people camped down there. This year we were also joined by Chris, his friend (and now ours) Kristin, and the Hunt family. It was pretty crazy having 11 people staying in my tiny house, plus six more over for dinner on Friday.
Chris showed up in town on Thursday evening, but all we did was go shopping that night. The next day I only had to work four hours, and after work Chris and I spent several hours geocaching. The Hunts and Kristin showed up later that evening, and Sam and Mark and their kids came over for dinner of pizza and salad. After dinner we set out to find some night caches, which was a cold but fun experience. Everyone returned to my house and we stayed up until after 2:00 AM having drinks and visiting and generally being loud. I’m surprised none of my neighbors complained.
On Saturday morning a few of us set out on ATVs and did some 4-wheeling north of Price. We did a bit of hiking and found quite a few geocaches. It was a dusty ride and it got pretty cold on the return trip. After getting home and showering, everyone went to Grogg’s for dinner. We called ahead so that they were able to accommodate our large group, and it was an excellent dinner. We drove up Spring Canyon near Helper after dinner to find another night cache, one that Mark and I had found a couple of years ago. We found all of the stages except one, which left us with incomplete GPS coordinates for the final stage. I knew the general area where the final stage began, but it was still difficult to find in the dark. We found it after driving past it several times, then hiked up and found the cache container and everyone else signed the logbook. Everyone except my sister and her family spent the rest of the evening at my house, though it was much more low-key than the previous evening.
After a quick pancake breakfast Sunday morning, all 17 of us headed out to the San Rafael Swell in four vehicles. As soon as we hit the gravel road leading into the Swell near Castle Dale, we began stopping to find geocaches every so often. We worked our way to near Hambrick Bottom, the same place we did Easter three years ago. We hiked around a lot, had an Easter egg hunt, ate lunch, and generally just hung out and visited before everyone had to go home. When we were done, the Hunts headed home to the south, Sam and Mark went north toward Price, Chris and Kristin stayed in the Swell and did some caching and sightseeing at the Wedge, and my family and I took our time driving toward Price and found a couple of places to hide geocaches the next time we’re in the area.
Here are some photos from the weekend. It was an incredibly fun weekend, and though it seemed longer than most, Monday came much too early. We’ll all be getting together again for a camping trip soon, though, and we can continue where we left off yesterday.