Rocky Mountain Hike

Hello! This is Onion Ring and my second post. I am probably going to make a few mistakes so just ignore them. Last week our family went on a hike up Rock Canyon.

Recently my brother Buttermilk Sky and I, have been getting into The Lord of the Rings. Our family likes to name things and so it follows to reason that many of the things that we saw, we named them from things in Lord of the Rings. This mountain we named Caradhras.

When we find something we think is cool we either name it something we've heard or make up a name. This is Riverrock

We came up to a large stone formation on the side of the road. Buttermilk went closer and discovered that the side was like a stair. We started climbing. We got fairly far before mom called us back. We named it Cirith Ungol which was the winding stair up into the lair of Shelob.

Here are all of us in a convenient indent in the rock furthur on.

We also climbed up into this place. We named it the Entrance to Moria because in the book there are two trees like gateposts standing on either side of the door like here. You can't really see the one on the right but you can see the branches of the one on the left.

We came to this rock that we had come to the last time we had visited and named it Amon Hen, the Mount of Sight.

We found the remains of some old car in the dried up riverbed right on the side of the road. If anyone knows what it is please comment.

The goal of our hike was to come to an old drinking fountain. We named it the Mirror of Galadriel.

Eggs found this staff on the side of the road on the way back and has it to this day.

On the way back it was cold and we warmed up on Amon Hen.

It was a fun hike.

The Heber Creeper

We recently took a ride on the Heber Creeper. (Technically, it's now called the Heber Valley Railroad.)

The train pictured below is not the one on which we rode, but I thought it looked really cool.

Junior was very nervous about going on this train ride. Apparently he still does not trust us due to past trauma.

As soon as we got going, he cheered up.

It was a nice, slow ride. It is a historic train, after all.

Uh, oh--somebody lost something. Luckily, none of us lost anything like that.

The scenery was gorgeous.

The train was robbed during our ride.

Things got a little intense there for a while.

I read online reviews about these rides before we decided to go and many of them were negative, saying that it was boring, uncomfortable, and not worth the money. After reading them we almost decided against going, but I'm glad we did go because we really enjoyed it. It was peaceful, beautiful, and fun to have an old-time train experience. However, I would not want to go in the summer because there is no AC. It was a pleasant fall day for our ride. Also, we chose a shorter excursion--maybe the longer ones get tiresome--and we had a coupon, so our price wasn't so high. One thing that I think could be improved is the tour script. They told us about some of the things we passed, but I would have liked to have heard more about the history of that railroad and interesting facts about the trains. So there's my two cents, in case anyone is interested.

The fact that we took the boys out of school early probably added to their enjoyment.

Here is a poem by Emily Dickinson with which I conclude this post:

The Railway Train

I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step

Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties, by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare

To fit its sides, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill

And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a star,
Stop--docile and omnipotent--
At its own stable door.