Sand Hollow State Park

Yeterday, Alex, Izzy and I rented an ATV and zoomed all over Sand Hollow State Park. We happened to see an ad in a local paper for ATV rentals. We knew nothing about the company, but after speaking with the owner, we decided to give it a shot. The family who runs the company lives just a few minutes from where we are staying. Really nice people who run this rental company on the side of their real lives. They dropped us at the back entrance to Sand Hollow State Park, just a few minutes from our place, and off we went. The entire park was empty, except for a few horses and some cows. For as far as we could see, lavender mountains and red cliff mesas surroundedus, and ATV trails branched off from the main dirt road and got lost from sight. At first, we stayed on the main road. I was a tiny bit nervous about being in the middle of nowhere with the kids an an ATV, which I had never driven before. But after an hour or so, we settled in and took some offshoots of the main path. Our final destination point was a spot where Dilophosaurus tracks have been preserved in rock, and are open for people to visit and touch. This adventure was a highlight of our trip. Being able to take the kids deep into the mountains and then having the added excitement of placing our hands in the very nicely preserved Dino tracks was pretty incredible. We watched the sunrise come up and hit the red rocks, then had lunch and headed back. Izzy fell asleep. The bumpier, the better for this little one. I went back to the same road junction for my afternoon run. I immediately left the dirt road and took the trails up to the top of the towering rocks, then back down into the valley, then back up. I was covered in red dust by the end and had drained my entire camelpak in just 90 minutes. Again, I wished for a running partner for this one. Tomorrow, our teammate Bob will arrive in preparation for Saturday's Ironman and another friend will be in town briefly to hike, so we'll have a few good days of team training.