A Zion Weekend

It was about time to take our little family to Zion's National Park! Sam is 3 years old and Luke is about 4 months old, it couldn't get any easier than it is right now! 

The boys slept very well, dad a little bit, and mom not so much; because even when you are in the hot desert the nights get cold. You know how it is when you are holding the sleeping bag up against your chin to hide away from the cold, at the same time you worry about your baby kicking off the blankets in the middle of the night. 

We drove Friday night (memorial weekend) straight to Zion's National Park, hoping to find a campground. Luckily it worked out for us, we are quite surprised that it did. At dusk we stopped at the 1st campground just outside of the park, and there was one spot available. James spoke with the campground ranger and informed him that we have a new baby with us and we might keep everyone up in the night. James asked if there was anywhere we could stay on public land, (like the locals do) not in a camp ground but somewhere on the open range. The ranger was super helpful . . . he said keep driving toward the canyon, on the right hand side you will see a green and white gate that is closed. Open that gate and follow the dirt road (be sure to close the gate after you enter). You will pass a cabin/house on the left, keep driving the dirt road because that turns into public land and you can camp wherever. Well there wasn't anything pretty about it, but it was free and we were all alone. Almost all alone except that there were bones from dead animals everywhere, totally weird! It was fun to adventure around our campsite in the morning, Sam sure loves camping. 

We hiked up to the Lower Emerald Pools . . .

Middle Emerald Pools and to the Upper Emerald Pools. Sam really enjoyed walking under the misty water fall. (If you time it just right you can get really wet or not so wet). We chose to be not so wet.

On the shuttle back to town James over heard some passengers speaking a foreign language and recognized that it was Serbian. He was able to bust out his Serbian language skills for a few minutes, it was super fun for him because that doesn't happen very often.

After our hike we drove up to Kolob Canyon to look for a new campsite. Note to self: There is no car camping in Kolob Canyon only back country camping. We drove through the beautiful canyon and hiked Timber Creek Trail. 

Out of pure exhaustion we decided to drive to St. George for dinner and we checked into Red Cliffs motel. The thought of getting cleaned up, cozy, and going swimming in a nice pool was hard to erase from our minds until . . . We opened the door to our yucky, stinky, stuffy room that sat right above the outdoor pool that had not been cleaned for the year. I was amazed that while we were checking in the manager decided to pretend that the pool was in good shape, and he neglected to tell me what condition it was in when I specifically asked about it. That was a Bad Business Man! It's a good thing James worked it all out and got our $100 bucks back. I will never forget how good we felt about the idea of putting up our tent again and sleeping on the dirt, because it was honestly a million times better to be sleeping out in the dirt than in that hotel.

We called Ryan and Jessica to inquire about a new campsite near St.George. We headed to Leeds  a.k.a. the south side of the Pine Valley mountains (the high forested mountains in the middle of the desert). The campsites were totally awesome and beautiful. They were really spaced out so you couldn't see or hear anyone else and they were free. We loved this spot! It also helped that it was near Red Cliffs Hike, the next spot we wanted to hike – Sam's favorite hike of all time. 

In Leeds Sam spot a Mater truck that he wanted to look at all day long. He wanted to touch it, sit with it, and talk with it. I told him I would take a picture of it so that he could look at it forever. Luckily that was convincing enough because he was so excited about that Mater truck, he was about to set up camp right there in someones backyard.