Crazy Dayz: Hole in the Rock, Hole in the Rock

we went to the Hole in the Rock. We left by 9:00 and drove the druck down to 20 mile wash, then got on the 4-wheelers for the next 50 miles. It was a good ride for us, although very bumpy at times. We all hiked all the way to the bottom. The kids do so great hiking, it's incredible to me. we had to go over, under, around and through rocks, but the older 3 were in front of Brooke and I constantly. I'm not quite sure how they got up some of the places with their little legs. When you get down to the bottom it opens up and the sun was hitting it. The boys were down below us and Shianne was right in front of Brooke, Solayna and I. We were just walking along, with a pause in the conversation and all of sudden I hear Shianne say, "SNAKE" She didn't act to nervous at first so I just looked up and Brooke said, "yup, he was rattling at you to let you know he was there." I said, "are you serious" Shianne now completely frieked out said, "Yes, he rattled at me right when i walked past. He's right there." Brooke said he was only about 6 inches away from Shianne when he rattled and he was coiled up. Talk about rattling a mother's nerves. Shianne was pretty nervous from then on, but she still kept on hiking down. That's the first time I've seen a rattle snake, and hopefully there won't be many more in the future. The boys were in front of us and started yelling that they had found a HUGE lizard, a chuckawalla. We all went down to see it, but by the time we got there it was under a rock. We sat there for a few minutes waiting for it to come out, and the boys found another smaller lizard so they went to try and catch it. Brooke and Solayna went down to Lake Powell to see if there were any fish in it. Brooke forgot our fishing poles, but he and Spencer sat there and watched for fish so they could see if they could hit it with a rock. They did see a couple of nice bass, but they didn't hit any of them. Shianne and I stayed up to see the lizard and it finally came out. It was disgusting and intriguing all at once. Gross. I took a few pictures of it so you'll see it. It was so hot down there that the kids wanted to get in the water, so they took off their shoes and rolled up their pants. Sam got up on a rock that was wet and I told him he needed to be careful because it was going to be slick. He got down and went and played some more where he could reach, and then went back over on the rock. This time he slipped down and got soaked. We had him take off his pants and shirt so they could be drying while we sat there. He had on his boxer briefs so we told him just to swim in them. He loved it. He was having a great time swimming around. Spencer never did wade, he just wanted to look for fish, the funny little guy. We decided we better start heading back up since it was 2:00 and we still hadn't eaten lunch. The hike up was hot and hard. Once we got into the shade of the canyon it felt so nice. THis time was really cool because we could see Uncle Ben's dugway, where they stacked up rocks to build the road on along side the cliff. It's amazing that they had enough faith and determination to go through there. Once again the kids were in front of us, and I'm still not sure how they got up some of those 5 foot rocks. Sam would climb up then turn around and with his hand outstreched would say "ok Shi, Shi, put your foot right there and then I'll help you up." It was so cute and sweet. Once we got to the top we all guzzled our 'alligatorades" as Solayna likes to call gatorades.