savor the state: national park tour fall 2010 day 4

Zion National Park. Because why not add a fourth national park in 4 days? And we had to get back to I-15 somehow. Both times we've visited this park, we've missed out on taking the bus into Zion Canyon. But as a plus, last time we saw Kolob Canyons, and this time we went hiking.

on the way to the view point, we ran into a monster tarantula, who of course crawled above our heads for the trip back down (I probably almost died)

Emory slept, again

and we drove the long stretch of I-15 back home

savor the state: national park tour fall 2010 day 3, part 1

On our third trip to Bryce Canyon NP in the past year, we finally got to hike amongst the hoodoos. (Last year we had a tiny baby and I was too recently postpartum to want to take a strenuous hike and our trip at the end of February was accompanied by feet of snow in southern Utah). Anyway, the hoodoos are so much larger than they seem from above. And the stone is much harder and colder than I would have imagined.

we started out on the Navajo Trail, but when we found it partly closed, we trekked through the park onto the Queens Garden Trail


I know I'm such a geek; I just couldn't get over how different the hoodoos are from what I imagined them to be

Emory thought holding hands on the trail was great and then he fell asleep
(thankfully he slept in his backpack since he boycotted naps in the car seat)


see how tall?


what goes down must go back up

After about 3-4 miles and an hour or two, we decided to head to the Grand Canyon. Jon really wanted to feel satisfied with the trip, and what can I say? He talked me into it.