Book Cliffs part 1 (by Matthew Morrill…not Abby…Abby didn’t write this, her husband did)

The trip started out with the usual preparation of spreading everything out and putting it all together:

Lynn and Jeremy crashed out a little bit after we got everything loaded up in the truck. I stayed up and spent some time with Abby before we left. She crashed out at about 11:30 and so I decided to head out to the meadow and load up our horses and let Lynn and the boy sleep a bit longer. I got back into town, loaded up the boy and got Lynn and we were on our way out of town at just after 1:00 a.m.
The drive was pretty good. The boy slept most of the way down.

He woke up around Green River so we needed to stop for a drink and a potty break

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We were back on the road and on our way to Thompson Springs and up Sego canyon. The road was terrible and almost washed out. It took us 1 hour and 45 minutes to drive up to the top. So we got to the parking lot at a bit after 6:00 a.m.
I know it's hard to read, trust me. We unloaded the horses and started saddling everything up. Jeremy insisted that his horse be saddled first.

So after Nebo was saddled up, we started on the others.

This was a familiar sight the entire trip:

Just about every time we stopped he was still riding her around checking out new stuff and crossing creeks every chance he got. After all were saddled and packed up we headed out on Went Ridge Road. Jeremy was jabbering on and on to Lynn about all the great stuff that he wanted to do and Lynn would talk about all the history and Indian territory that we were going through. I think both of them were equally excited. It was great for me to see Jeremy bobbing along the road in his little cowboy hat. We turned off to Bogart Canyon and made our way down the DWR cabins (Please excuse me Louis if my naming isn’t entirely accurate, I’m still learning ;D )

While we were there we got a couple of staple pictures for the trip that Abby had requested.

I thought that this trip to the Book Cliffs would bring me better fortune than my last one, but this moment wasn’t very encouraging. I hooked my thumb on a piece of chicken wire that they put on the posts for whatever reason. Ouch!!! And we didn’t bring a first aid kit. Further on down the canyon we rode until we came upon She Canyon. We turned up it and headed to our camping spot. We arrived at our spot and started setting up camp

Gotta have cold drinks you know…and we didn’t pack light on them either. Again, Jeremy insisted on staying on Nebo and exploring his new found territory.

After everything was set up and the horses tied up, Jeremy decided that he and I needed to take a little nap. I hadn’t gotten any sleep so I decided that I would go lay down with him for a minute until he dosed off. An hour later I woke up and Jeremy was crashed out. I could hear this snoring that wasn’t coming from the boy. I got out of the tent and saw that Lynn had crashed out in the supply tent that we brought.

I thought that I’d head down by the creek and have a little time to reflect to myself. I built a cozy little fire and leaned back against a fallen tree in the shade.
I spent a lot of time thinking about and missing my darling wife. She was the one who really made it possible for us to go on this trip. She was the one insisting that we go. She supports me in the things that are important and she wanted Lynn, Jeremy, and I to share this experience. Love you honey. I had to get proof for Abby that I did think of her:

We had a quick lunch of chips and pulled pork sandwiches after Jeremy and Lynn got up. We decided to hit a little ride before it was dinner time. We headed up She Canyon and made our way over into East Willow Canyon. I rode down the canyon while Lynn and Jeremy chased each other down it. We turned up the hidden trail up a steep path that lead to the top of the ridge. Once over the top we headed straight down the other side (Louis can attest to the nastiness of this trail). Things were going pretty good until about half way down the mountain (and in a particular nasty spot) the dirt and rock gave way underneath my horses feet and he went tumbling over (with me still on him by the way). Cursed Book Cliffs luck! I was able to get free of him before anything serious happened, but it still threw me on the ground pretty hard. Yellow (the horse I was riding at the time) rolled over a couple times and got stuck on his back with his feet straight up. I thought he was seriously hurt until he kicked his legs over and got up and looked around. After an inspection we found that the only thing that broke was a snap on the breast collar of the saddle. We were very lucky. I decided then that it was a good thing I didn’t bring the camera on that ride (hence that lack of photo’s) because it would have been smashed to tiny bits.We made it back to camp without further incident. We cooked up our tin foil dinners and spent the rest of the evening roasting marshmallow’s and talking about the upcoming ride.
Further more to come tomorrow…