Spring Break: Day 3 - Zion

We spent the morning at the campsite. We had breakfast at the restaurant and Matt and Morgan hiked around a bit.

I forgot to mention that the camp gives out ear plugs for the guests because you can basically hear everything that's going on in the tents around you. So, when it's not storming and windy, these would come in handy to block out your neighbors partying! :)

Here is a shot of the campground from up above. Matt and Morgan hiked up the mountain and took some pictures.

They took a picture of Avery on our front porch.

And Avery took a picture of them up on the mountain.

Here's Morgan at the top. She loved that there was one little tree planted up there!

We went to the main tent for breakfast. The girls got hot chocolate and yummy chocolate muffins!

Matt and the girls played tether ball. It was chilly, but at least it wasn't raining!

Here is a picture outside of the main reception/restaurant.

The views were beautiful! We all enjoyed this night's stay even with all the issues with our first tent and having to switch tents at 10PM. Avery said if it was a bit warmer, she would want to stay here all week!

I love this picture! Morgan took her hair out of the braids and it was so wavy!

We went back to our old tent, which was still completely open and airing out. The girls showed us how to escape a smoky tent by getting down on the ground and crawling out. Ha!

A view from our tent

We checked out and got on the road to do another hike in Zion in the morning. By the way, we ended up getting a credit for our stay and free meals because of all the hassle of the non-working stove and having to change tents.

There were all kinds of signs warning of cows roaming and crossing the roads. Here was our first of many encounters with cows in the roads! Morgan liked to roll down the window and Moo at them. I'm pretty sure they did NOT understand her!

We got to Zion early enough to park in the actual park. But, it was so crowded. The line for the shuttle was over twice as long as the day before. We waited to board a shuttle for about 45 minutes! We were going to do the hike to the Emerald Pools. The bridge to the pools was closed at the normal stop, so they were having people start at The Grotto stop instead. The hike to the Lower Emerald Pool was 1.5 miles roundtrip, with an increase in elevation of 150 feet.

Again, the scenery was beautiful. Pictures really don't do it justice.

Morgan saw this hole in the rocks and of course had to climb through it!

If there's a rock up high, Morgan will climb it! It always scared me because I couldn't tell if the other side was a big drop off or "safe".

Water falling from the Upper Emerald Pool to the Lower Emerald Pool. It was beautiful!

Morgan saw this rock and pretended to push it - Ha!

The weather was warm and we were all hot and hungry after that hike! We stopped off at the Zion Brewery at the main entrance for lunch. Avery asked for a lemonade and they brought her this huge glass! She could barely lift it! :)

We tried the local beers, which really hit the spot after the hike!

After lunch, we set out for Bryce Canyon. It took about 2 hours to get there from Zion. We went through the Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel, which is a 1.1 mile tunnel through the mountain. We also drove through a snow storm. But, we made it!

Bryce Canyon City is at the top of the mountain, so we were up about 7,600 feet at our hotel. We got checked in to our hotel and rested a bit before dinner. It was really cold (like 16 degrees) and snowing off and on. We drove to a nearby town called Tropic for dinner to a place called The Pizza Place. There really isn't a lot in this area, but this place had good reviews. The pizza was great! And the best part was the girls got ice cream with their kids' meals. Morgan asked for a waffle cone, which was gigantic... like adult size cone with a couple large scoops of ice cream! She was super excited!

We crashed at the hotel and hoped for nice weather in the morning for our venture to Bryce Canyon.

Spring Break: Day 2 - Zion

We had breakfast with Richard and Marcia (and Jeri and Kelley) in Pleasant Grove. The girls got in a little more train time with Grandpa Richard. He has quite the set up in his basement!

We got on the road around 10AM. We stopped off for lunch at The Creamery in Beaver, Utah based on the recommendation from Matt's step-sister Jeri. She said they have great food and ice cream. The place did not disappoint! Avery claimed it the best grilled cheese she's ever had! We all liked our food!

Of course, they had to try the ice cream!

We made it to Zion in about 4 hours with the stop for lunch. We decided to go straight to the park and do a quick hike before checking into where we were staying for the night.

Here's Morgan with our rental car. The Zion parking lot was full, so we had to park outside the park and walk in.

Here we are at the entrance to the park!

We took the shuttle to the last stop (Temple of Sinawava) to do the Riverside Walk.  Zion is nice that no cars allowed and they run shuttles to all the main trailheads. The Riverside Walk was a relatively easy and flat hike for a our first day. It's a 2.2 mile roundtrip hike that follows the Virgin River. At the end of this trail is where the Narrows start. But, the Narrows trail is all under water, so you need special gear for that. The scenery was so beautiful... pictures just don't do it justice! (I may say that 1000 times during our trip!)\

We made it to the end of the trail, where the Narrows start. Behind Avery is the start to the Narrows, right through the water.

Of course, Morgan had to take her shoes off to feel how cold the water was. It was absolutely freezing! I think she regretted her decision here! :)

If there's a rock, she'll climb it!

We saw some turkeys!

After the Riverside Walk, we headed to where we were staying for the night. The place is called Under Canvas and is a "glamping" sort of experience. The tents all have beds and a bathroom, but no electricity. The bathroom didn't have running water. You had to pull a level to get the water to come out in the shower and sink. There is a wood burning stove to keep you warm at night. They also provide battery operated lanterns for light in the tent. And they have battery packs to charge your phones. We did have cell phone service in the tent, but no WIFI. Under Canvas was located about 6 miles off the main road in the middle of nowhere, so the views were amazing! Here's a panoramic that Matt took from the main tent.

Here is our first tent - #67. We had a large tent and a "kid" tent to the side. The large tent had a king size bed and the kid tent had two twin size beds. Because we didn't think the girls would do well on their own in the kid tent, we renamed it the Dad tent and Matt was going to sleep there. He was actually really excited about it!

Here we are at the main reception tent. There was a small restaurant and grab-n-go shop in the tent. Outside, they had firepits set up to make s'mores. There was also a bags game and tether ball. They had bags for the kids to grab with graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate along with fire sticks to make their own s'mores.

They also had activities scheduled for the kids. This night they were painting rocks with glow in the dark paint. They had to do this a bit early because it was going to rain.

After they painted rocks, we had dinner... and it started pouring! We could hear it hitting the tent. Then, it got windy and the tent was shaking! After dinner, we got settled in our tent. The girls were a little anxious about the rain and the wind being in a tent.

Matt got the wood burning stove set up so we would have some heat. It was really chilly! Here he is putting his years of Boy Scouts to good use!

So, the fire lasted only a little bit before it started getting really smoky in our tent. To the point we had to evacuate! We called up to the main tent and they sent someone out. The person they sent said Matt had set the fire up correctly and he wasn't sure what happened. It was storming and super windy, so they thought maybe that was the reason the fire went out. He got the fire started again and left.

Of course, a few minutes after we all got settled into bed and Matt settled in his Dad tent, the fire went out again! We yelled for Matt to come back from his Dad tent and evacuated the girls again. We called the staff out again. This time a different person came and he worked on the fire a bit and got it going again. While we were waiting and chatting, the fire just completely went out and started filling the tent with smoke AGAIN!!! The staff guy said he had never seen that happen before and determined that something was wrong with the chimney or there was a blockage or something. They had another tent available a few tents down from ours that they moved us to. It was a bigger tent that had a king size bed and pull out couch, so we could all sleep together. Matt's dreams of the "Dad" tent were crushed! :) Unfortunately, all of our clothes smelled like a smoky campfire. I think it was almost 11PM by the time we got everything moved over to the new tent and everyone calmed down to go to sleep.

We spent the rest of the night in the new tent without any issues. It did rain and was really windy, which shook the tent quite a bit. The fire went out after a few hours and it was chilly in the tent. Matt woke up early and started another fire for us so we would be warm when it was time to get out of bed!