Temple quarry hike

Saturday we went on a hike as a family. The kids and I just got back from Idaho on Friday and it's been almost two weeks since we've seen Jeremy. It was a beautiful morning for a hike. The kids love being outside and hikes are a fun way to enjoy nature. This hike is the "Temple Quarry" hike that goes along the trail where the pioneers took wagons to get the basalt stone that they used for the foundation of the Temple. We didn't do the whole hike, and so we didn't see the actual site where they took the rock from, but the whole hillside is littered with these stone. It's interesting because the sun turns these rocks blacker and blacker over time, various rocks have varying degrees of blackness on them. Even though we were hiking by 9 am, it was still quite warm and that is one reason we didn't hike the whole trail. Becca was a great trooper and she walked most of the trail on the way up and then we put her in the backpack carrier for the way back. We spotted a few lizards and Tom almost stepped on a desert tortoise. Jeremy said this is the first time he has ever seen a desert tortoise. There is lots of protected BLM land in St. George for the tortoises, but Jeremy has never seen one before. 

Jeremy kept reminding us "hydrate or die"- That was what he learned on his river rafting trip, some of the other people on his trip kept saying that and it stuck with him.

Jeremy took our small digital camera on his trip with him and the LCD screen on the back got broken, so now when we take pictures we can't see them. The camera still works and all these pictures were taken with that camera, but it is odd to not be able to see what the pictures look like - kinda like the old days before digital cameras.