Heading to Zion

We left Vegas this morning, stopping at a little dinner just off the strip called Mr. Mamas.  Katie and I split pancakes and hash browns seasoned with oregano.  I’ve never had them that way but they were quite tasty.  We were only in Nevada briefly before we popped into Arizona for a bit (we cut the corner).  We got stuck in traffic in the middle of nowhere making our easy short day about 40 minutes longer.   

We made it to Utah!

We arrived to Zion in the afternoon- later than I thought we would.  Apparently they change time in Utah. Our campsite is just inside the park.  We are surrounded by huge mountains and epic views, but lacking any shade in the heat of the day we knew we needed to get out of our camping area.  We did sneak into the campsite behind us since they had daytime shade and weren’t around yet.  

Katie wanted to live in the squirrel locker

 We chose to hop on the Zion Shuttle and venture over to the Lower Emerald Pools hike.  The shuttle felt great with the wind blowing through the windows and luckily when we started the hike the mountains were high enough to offer a nice amount of shade for us.  The hike was pretty short- like .6 miles, but Katie wanted to explore every rock and tree root so it took us quite a while to make it to the destination.  We had great views the whole way.  

 After the hike Katie fell asleep on the shuttle and we checked out the bookstore and decided it was time to make dinner and blow up the air mattress.  Sliced cantaloupe, grilled corn, pork and beans, and hamburgers filled us all up for the night.   

Katie and Dan went out to ride her bike around and hopefully find the area of river near our campsite that we can go swimming in tomorrow when the heat comes back.  

Amazing Animal Sightings: Turkeys, Vultures, Ostrich, and lots of Deer.  Katie’s favorite are the lizards.