Zion - Matt

Zion
After seeing Arches and Canyonlands, I felt ready for a disappointment with Zion. So popular and crowded that you can only go in on the NPS shuttles, I thought it would be too crowded and not nearly as impressive as the last two. Well, it was still utterly amazing, but again in a totally unique way. Zion park is basically one relatively small canyon, but instead of standing on the edge and looking out (like at Canyonlands) here you are down in the canyon with sheer rock walls rising straight up on all sides at all times. So it's a vastly smaller scale than anything in Canyonlands, but much more immediate in a way.
Only did one major hike, to the "Emerald Pools". Some major ascents on this one, but the views were well worth it.


Zion


Matt and Dad behind Emerald Pools waterfall


Matt and Steph on Emerald Pools trail


Virgin River



too tired to do bryce tonight - more tomorrow.

Canyonlands - Matt

Canyonlands
I have to say that Canyonlands was my favorite park so far - a completely different experience than Arches, at least for people like us who aren't capable of serious backcountry excursions. Arches was more about getting up close with a weird and otherworldly landscape, but Canyonlands is about jaw-dropping desolate vistas on an unimaginable scale. At Green River Overlook, I was completely overwhelmed by the layers upon layers of rock levels cascading off into the distance. Canyons so far away and so large that it becomes completely impossible to measure distance and scale.
We were limited to just the "Island in the Sky" section of the park, but that was enough. Steph and I made a half-mile jaunt to "Mesa Arch" which is an arch on the edge of a cliff - look through it and you see the canyonlands beyond. Again, very cool to be able to go right up to the edge. After a nicer picnic lunch (outside this time under a little shade) I took the short but very tiring walk up to the Upheaval Dome overlook - long story - it's a big hole in the ground with fantastically jagged rock and scientists can't seem to agree on how it got there.
Pictures can't do any of it justice. It was all just too big for the mind to process, let alone a little digital camera.





Faithy wondering why we can't go back to the RV and watch TV



Green River overlook



Steph at Mesa Arch



Shafer Canyon/Shafer Trail Overlook - look closely, in the center of the picture is mom!

Arches - Matt

We're here in Williams and the internet works...at least for now. I can't believe that I haven't been able to do a real post since before Arches...it seems like a lifetime ago. It's hard at this point to even go back and remember my thoughts...we've seen and done so much. I plan to stay up a little later tonight and work on posting some pictures. If you didn't know, in addition to the wildly unreliable wifi access at the various RV parks, my computer's wireless card went dead in Moab and so now, in order to post pics, I have to transfer them from my computer to Steph's via thumb drive. So, it's been really annoying. Anyway, here's MY short take on the recent events:
Arches - Arches is great because it gives you a chance to really immerse yourself in the landscape, even if you're not all that outdoorsy. There are plenty of easy to moderate walks that let you get up close and into the formations and arches. I always had this idea that the arches you saw were far away and off limits, but no, you can go right under them if you are willing to make the hike.
We started off at "Park Avenue" - about a mile or so hike into a canyon with steep walls and fascinating formations on both sides. A great way to really lose yourself in the fantastic surroundings right off the bat. AND, if you get there early enough, the sun isn't high enough yet to beat down into the canyon, so most of the walk was not hot at all.
Then a quick walk around Balanced Rock...one of those "this can't be natural" formations with a seemingly larger rock perched precariously atop a smaller one - looks like it could crumble at any moment.
Then Steph and I got the gumption to walk up to North and South Windows arches - the ones that were visible from our campground! Only a half-mile, but all uphill and steps. We were both pretty winded by the time we got up, but how cool it was to rest right under the arches! Well worth the effort.
Then, a rather frantic picnic lunch in the van, and driving to some more sights - we just don't have the energy to do much more than 2 big walks in a day, and the girls get pretty antsy by then too. Arches is a small park, but you can see how it would be possible to spend several days there, even for wimpy hikers like us!

Dorks




Matt and Steph in Park Avenue


Matt in Park Avenue


Matt relaxing under one of the Windows arches, with Turret Arch in the background.

Steph's Catch Up

Wow. It's been a whole week since I've done a blog post! The Internet was just so bad (as has already been described) that it just wasn't worth my time, no offense, to sit and wait for the connection to happen only to have it lose my post!

The first day in Utah, we had a relax day. Matt and I took the girls out to the pool so Karen could get some cleaning done. Faith loved the pool (no big surprise) but Mari was a bit apprehensive about it. She did get used to it eventually and managed to even have a little fun. We only stayed out for about 45 mins, though. It was a TINY pool and 4 ft all around (perfect for me!).

Anyway, I absolutely LOVED the national parks in Utah! Really, when I try to put them in order of which one I like the best, I just can't do it. I just can't compare!

Arches Nationl Park is so so unusual and weird and wonderful! These arches are enormous and built in to these rocks. The rocks without the arches would be pretty cool but then some of them have arches! Cool! I did a few of the hikes with Matt -- we went up to see the North and South Windows as well as the Turret Arch. A hard walk (LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of steps) but WELL worth the effort! Probably one of my very favorite hikes in any of the parks has been at Arches -- the Park Avenue hike. Matt, Bob and I did it first thing and really, it was indescribable. It was still pretty cool and the walk was pretty much totally down in one of the canyons. The sun had not come over the canyon completely yet and it was just so quiet and peaceful and the lighting was wonderful and I totally and completely loved it. I took pics but seriously, I get so frustrated because the pics don't end up doing any of it justice. But I try.

The next day, Matt, Karen, the girls and I did Canyonlands National Park and again, really, really amazingly beautiful! The scope of these canyons are just really pretty mindboggling. You look out over a view point and you read the little thing that they put with it and it tells you you're looking like 5 miles out. I just think, "Oh, wow. 5 miles out I can see here and it's all amazing, beautiful canyon!" And then you see the little trails up and down the canyons for the ATV's and think on one side, you couldn't pay me enough to ride on those trails but on the other side, the views would be pretty awesome. If I HAD to HAD to HAD to choose, I'd say Canyonlands was my favorite. It's pretty big and pretty weird (good weird) and pretty awesome.

Oh, little shout out to my colleague TR. There are TONS of ravens out here and they are hilarious and loud and cool and smart. It makes me think of you and your love of Poe!

Then we traveled to Springdale, UT and stayed in an RV park right next to Zion National Park. Again, very cool. Zion is a bit smaller and Matt says it's more intimate. The unique aspect about Zion is that you are actually down in the canyon, unlike in Canyonlands. Bob wrote already about the hike we took that took us through some narrows, a cool experience, and near some pools and (VERY) small waterfalls. The tour guide on the shuttle told us that when it rains out there, the sandstone of the canyon walls soaks up the water. It takes a while (like hundreds of years) for the water to actually soak all the way through the sandstone until it gets down to the stone (shoot -- I forget the name of it) that isn't porous. So, the water that is coming out of the canyon walls is like hundreds of years old! Pretty darn cool if you ask me! There is a nice river (the Virgin River) that runs through Zion that is pretty much 100% responsible for the erosion that has created the canyons there. Matt and I took an easy and peaceful walk along the river that was cool.

Next day (yesterday -- Thursday 6/21) we drove a ways to get to Bryce Canyon National Park. I was feeling pretty exhausted by this day (I think the big hike to the pools the day before at Zion zapped me). I truly enjoyed Bryce but I was too tired to do many of the hikes and opted to stay in the van with the girls several times. The thing that sticks out in my head most about Bryce is the "hoodoos". No, really, that's what they're called. Don't you LOVE that name? It's when enough erosion happens to a canyon wall that these skiny towers of canyon are left, like mini, mini mesas. You know when you have wet sand at the beach and you can dribble it down and it makes those cool "gloppy" towers? Well, picture that it hundreds of feet tall of sandstone. The best way to describe it, really. I'll try to get Matt to post pics of the hoodoos. LOTS of cool hoodoos at Bryce. Matt and Karen had fun trying to figure out who was right in their interpretation of the what hoodoos looked like (kind've like when people try to describe what pictures the clouds make).

So, today we traveled to Williams, Arizona. The drive was pretty uneventful. The girls slept a lot this morning which is always nice. We were here really by 2pm ish. Arizona is on Mountain Time but doesn't observe Daylight Savings time so really, we're on Pacific Time now. This morning in Utah, the girls slept until almost 6:30. Their latest yet. Of course, now that we moved west one more time zone, for all intents and purposes. Ugh. Oh well. No one ever promised we'd be catching up on sleep on this trip!

We got to the rv park and it's pretty "slick" as Matt says. It's newer and you can tell they're really trying to keep it nice. Matt and I took the girls in to town (definitely more of a town than Moab or Springdale -- Route 66 runs through and there's a little "historic" district w/ some pretty neat looking shops and restaurants -- kind've old timey Route 66) to get something we needed to make the leveling jacks work on the rv and to get groceries. Nice to have a regular size grocery store with everything in it we needed. Came back, picked up Bob at the laundrymat at the rv park and took him and the laundry back, and picked up Karen and went to dinner.

We went to dinner at "Max and Thelma's" which is in the campus of the rv park. The rv park is only a part of this campus. There's also a nice sized hotel (w/ an indoor pool) and playground and a few other things. The main attraction is that they have a real train that they operate to take people in to Grand Canyon. More on that later, I'm sure.

Anyway, last night we went to dinner in "downtown" Springdale (which is a lot more like Gatlinburg on a MUCH smaller scale than Moab) at a local restaurant called the "Bumbleberry Cafe". Well, the food was very mediocre and Mari had a tantrum. She was made because we wanted her to eat some of her pb&j before her fries. I know, terrible parents. Matt ended up having to take her out to the car because she was screaming so loud.

I truly wasn't looking forward to dinner out that much tonight especially because it was 6pm and we were feeling 7pm and the girls were HUNGRY. This was a buffet type restaurant. Matt and I immediately divided up -- he got food for Faith and I got food for Mari. I had high hopes when I saw a huge vat of cooked green beans and carrots (fresh, then cooked). Mari ADORES, no, is OBSESSED with veggies, green beans especially. We haven't had a lot of veggies for her to eat lately. I added some corn and bread and mac and cheese and sat down. I just put the plate in front of her and let her go to it. Meanwhile, Faith was trying every single thing Matt had put on her plate. Amazing, really, especially during this WONDERFUL 3-yr-old stage she is going through. :-) After they were stable we got our food and we were mildly surprised that it turned out to be a pretty good meal. You never know with these buffets! And, besides the fact that Faith tried everything on her plate, Mari didn't even come close to screaming even ONCE! We were SO happy and pleased and impressed. Our cause was helped by the fact that the restaurant was train-themed and along the top of the walls near the ceiling, there was a model train, pretty big, running along the tracks. Mari was fascinated by it and every time it would come she'd say, pointing up, "Here comes the train!" It made her pretty happy which made her eat a lot which made her parents happy which made her not cry which made the whole restaurant happy! Kudos to "Max and Thelma's"!

Ok, it's late, like 10:15. Hopefully this blog will not be lost. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Take care, you all, and hopefully we can keep this up to date! Love, Steph