The kids have been asking for months to stop at Moqui Cave (a little museum on the way to Kanab), so we finally decided to take them on Labor Day since Chris got the day off work. Oliver calls it Monkey Cave. Elora spent the whole drive there trying to correct his pronunciation. Outside the cave there is this slab of rock with dinosaur footprints in it. Elora was amazed at how big they were. She was comparing the size of the footprint with her hands. And Oliver proudly read the word “OFF” to us. I didn’t know he could read any words yet…
The museum is inside a HUGE cave. The man who owns the cave now inherited it from his parents who used to run a bar and a dance hall inside the cave. His parents also collected fossils and Native American artifacts, and interesting rocks and things. The bar is no longer used, but is still there for people to see, only now it has lots of fossils and artifacts displayed in it.
The kids liked looking around at everything in the museum, as well as sitting in all the chairs and on all the barstools. Elora has been to the cave before on a field trip with her Kindergarten class, so she was excited to show Oliver her favorite parts of the museum.
Here is Oliver hanging out at the bar.
Marion actually really liked looking at the fossils.
There was quite an impressive display of dinosaur footprints inside the museum. They had a very large collection, many of which were found locally.
The kids had brought their own money and got to pick out a souvenir. They both picked little bags that could be filled with pretty rocks, and when we went outside they promptly dumped them out so they could show each other which rocks they picked and count how many rocks they got to fit in their bags.
The cave is in a really pretty area with red rock cliffs around it, and the kids liked exploring the grounds.
Oliver enjoyed climbing all over everything…
Elora found a Juniper bush, which she was very excited about since her middle name is Juniper. She showed her brother and sister, and everyone picked some Juniper berries before we left. Moqui Cave was a pretty fun place to explore, and the man who owns it is a really nice guy. It was a fun trip to make with the kids.
