Vanilla Wafers

6/8/2026

If you have a few extra minutes, please enjoy the story of how I ended up spending a day SPITE hiking through Arches National park. 😅

It started innocently enough. We walked into the visitor center looking hydrated, optimistic, and — according to one ranger’s facial expression — deeply unqualified.😅 We inquired about obtaining a permit to do a particularly strenuous hike and after a loooong pause, the ranger suggested that spend our day in the park visiting some of the scenic overlook hikes instead.🙃 She used the unseasonably warm weather as her reasoning behind her recommendation but we both knew that it was because we didn't look like the type of hikers that could handle a strenuous hike.🤣 She even went so far as to pull out a laminated card with photographs of people climbing up rocks as a means of discouraging us from the particular hike that we had chosen.

Reasonable adults would hear this and perhaps consider spending the day driving to the scenic overlooks throughout the park but instead, we took it as a personal challenge.🤪 We marched ourselves right our of that visitor center toward the trailhead fueled entirely by french toast, poor judgment, and the overwhelming need to prove ourselves to a ranger in her twenties.

Honestly, I get where the ranger was coming from.  She's likely witnessed this exact cycle thousands of times: tourists want to do strenuous hike - tourists receive warning - tourists ignore recommendation - tourists suffer dramatically.😂 At one point during our hike, we encountered a steep slickrock incline that required using both hands and what little dignity I had left and I distinctly remember muttering, “That ranger will never know the satisfaction of being right.”🤣

Hours later — sunburned, dusty and held together by pure stubbornness — we finally reached the end of our desired hike and it was spectacular. Massive stone arches framed the desert landscape like something from another planet. The silence stretched endlessly across the canyons while the late afternoon sun turned the rocks into deep shades of orange and gold.

FYI: There is no food available in Arches national park so if you plan to go... pack snacks. LOTS of snacks - even if you choose to drive to the scenic overlooks instead of tackling the strenuous trails. 😅

I think my husband has been a fan of vanilla wafers since he was a kid so why would I not try and make a homemade version of this classic snack? These tiny cookies were surprisingly easy to make and they were super tasty. I won't go so far as to say that they taste like the Nabisco version of the cookie - but they are still very good - different - but equally good.