Rockin' Utah

The Utah state parks administration has a grant this summer to fight the obesity epidemic by teaching families with kids to recreate outdoors.
We gave it a try. The first event we signed up for was called, "Fish and Fly".

What a deal! The event cost $10 per family, including admission to the park. Since admission to Yuba Lake is usually $7 per car anyhow, we essentially invested $3 for the program. At the lake, the whole family received new fishing poles. Even my toddler became the proud owner of a colorful, miniature pole with a toy fish attached to the line. We were also given bait and a tackle box. During the "flying" portion, my kids each received a nice, large, colorful nylon kite. My husband and I received a stunt kite to share. We came home with quite a cache of merchandise for three bucks!

Not only was this a great deal, but it was a lot of fun. A ranger was taught us how to fish. My four-year-old actually sat with my husband and fished and she was thrilled to catch a couple (although they were not the kind you would eat so we threw them back). My toddler ran up and down the dock, spouting off two new words he learned at the activity: dock and boat. Every now and then, he would seat himself in the row with the fishermen and stick his toy pole over the water, grin, and immediately jump up and take off running again. I got great exercise following him.

A rep of Cloud 9 in Draper (where you see all of the paragliders jumping off the cliff as you go past on the freeway) taught us how to manage the stunt kite. We are still not very good at this, but that makes it fun. I get bored with traditional kites a few minutes after getting them up into the air, when there is no challenge left. The kids loved seeing so many kites in the air at once, like Mary Poppins.

The downside: The website has NO information, other than the dates and places of the activities. So you are pretty clueless about what you are signing up for. After signing up, we got a couple emails that said "More information to come," but never any actual information, so the day of we were still wondering if we needed to bring anything with us.