St. George and Zion National Park

This past weekend Bryce and I went to visit his sister, Erin, her husband, Chris, and their 2 month old boy, Max. We had a great time.

We took Friday off and drove down to St. George so that we could have all of Saturday to spend with them. After dinner on Friday night we decided to be daring and see if we were skinny enough to make it through a slot canyon. Well, with some determination, we made it up this very narrow bit of rock, but not without a few holes in the clothes. Oops.

Erin stayed back with Max and found a way up the hillside to come take pictures at the top.












On Saturday we got up super early (we left St. George at 6am) to go to Zion National Park. After passing through the foreign territory of La Verkin (a crazy little town in southern Utah that has a sign that states, Voted out of: the UN 2001, the USA 2006), we then made our way through Springdale (a city that only survives because of the park) and parked the van to go by shuttle into the park. The weather was beautiful, mid 70s and still shady. First, we went to see Weeping Rock, a large rock that drips 10,000 year old water. In this picture we are facing the rock so you can only see the park behind us. It was gorgeous, though Max preferred to sleep for almost the entire day.



We hiked another trail, then went back to the car to eat peanut butter and honey sandwiches before returning to the park to hike up to the Emerald Pools. Sorry, we didn't take any pictures. Wait, correction, we didn't take any pictures of the pools, but here's a lovely one of a large squirrel (Bryce was in charge of the camera). Pretty brave squirrel though. Somehow I think that spiel they made about not feeding the wildlife was lost on this little fellow.

By the end of the hike it was superhot so we hopped back on the shuttle, got the car, and headed for home. By 3:30 we had showered and were napping. It was awesome. After some In-N-Out for dinner, Wii Mario Kart, and a movie, we had sufficiently worn ourselves out again and went to sleep. Max decided to give a gift to his parents and even slept in until 7:30am. They were ecstatic.

We spent more time just hanging out on Sunday and were sad to leave that evening, but were glad to get to see Erin, Chris, and Max one more time before we move. We hope everything continues to go well for them down in St. George and will hopefully see them out in North Carolina for Labor Day. Thanks guys for letting us come down and play for a few days.