The Land of Pokey Things

As you can see, one of the great things (or not so great things, depending on your perspective) about living in Wendover is that a 5 minute drive in any direction will place you beyond the limits of civilization and in a rugged wilderness.

Take, for example, this view from the street next to our apartment. Austin had been begging me for days to take him "into the hills" (his new favorite pasttime). So, I did, yesterday, along with the rest of the family. We drove up around the back side of this peak and went for a walk.

This is what we found. We walked up the road at the bottom of this picture and up over the area in the foreground.

Throughout, the boys diligently put into practice my instructions that they whack boulders and bushes ahead of them in their path with a stick. This precaution is to give rattlesnakes (who like to hang out just under the lips of boulders and wrap around the stems of bushes) the opportunity to announce their presence before the boys walk by.

Speaking of boulders - we found a lovely one that we all climbed and perched upon.

It was upon sitting down on said boulder that we discovered that we live in . . .

. . . The Land of Pokey Things! Ouch! (Behold the surface of the boulder that we were all sitting on)

It turns out that every rock surface out here is painful to the touch, thanks to the erosive action of the lichen that are slowly turning these mountains into dirt.

It did have a nice view of the salt flats, though.

But who cares about some dumb view when there are rocks to be thrown, right?

In fact, why don't we take this rock-throwing business seriously and get down to where all the good projectiles are?

Ouch! Pokey things!

The ground is no safer a place to be, though, as it is armed with its own pokey things (in this case, "spines," as the boys call them).

And finally, the most pokiest thing of them all!

Matthew had the misfortune to squat down in search of throwing rocks right on top of this pokey thing!

Ouch!!!

No matter - rock throwing goes on regardless

And every crevice in the rocks must be explored

Meanwhile, the girlie got left behind with the Mommies

But she didn't seem to mind too much

After about an hour of being poked in every possible place by every possible surface (sitting, walking, even just standing, it didn't matter - poking happened), most members of the party were ready to go home.

What a glorious sight . . . our ride home!