June 10th – June 13th

We woke up bright and early (more like dark and early), around 4:30am and made our way to Zion's National Park. We arrived at the shuttle line at 5:15am to catch the second shuttle bus into the Park at 6:10am. There was a line of almost 500 people when we left the station. We took the shuttle to the Grotto trail which was the trailhead for Angels Landing. It took about 35 minutes for us to make it to the beginning of the chains to scale up the terrifying mountain to which Alan and I decided to not go any further. Alyssa, however, took the chains to the top while we watched from afar. It wasn't the height that was terrifying but the amount of people going up that made it unnerving with only one chain to share between the ascenders and descenders. Alyssa made it to the top and back back to where we waiting in about 45 minutes which was pretty quick. Alan and I surely heard more curse words that ever as people came around the corner to glance at the shear path that led to the top. A few decided to stop where we stopped and admired in disbelief of everyone else continuing to the top.

When Alyssa arrived back we made the journey back to the shuttle and saw many panting while walking up the trail. It got quite warm and we were happy to be finishing the hike rather than starting it. It warmed up quickly. We eventually made it back to the car and head home to be with Tammy and the kids, Taylor and Clark. After showering and getting ready for the day we went back to Zion's National Park and walked with the kids up to the Narrows and enjoyed the beautiful scenery of enormous rock walls and water coming out of them. We then went out of the park and enjoyed some delicious ice cream and smoothies. We headed back to the Airbnb and got ready for the next days adventure.

The day started with driving up through Zion's National Park through the Tunnel and coming out the side of the Park where there were more places and features to explore but we continued to drive out to Bryce Canyon. We must have driven 2 hours to get there on back country roads. When we arrived in Bryce Canyon we were starving so we ate at the main lodge and had some delicious burgers. We then grabbed the stroller and walked to the rim of the canyon. We were greeted by awesome Hoodoos, large columns of red rock. It was a large valley with several trails weaving through the floor of the Hoodoos meandering around and through them. We found a trail loop that was about a mile and a half that took us to the bottom and back. The trail was easy, dusty, and in some places steep with slippery sand on hard rock. There were quite a few people on the trail and kinda reminded me the Grand Canyon how going down was optional but going up was mandatory. It was definitely not a large park and if you had a whole day you could explore all the trails.

After staying in Bryce for a few hours we made our way to Capital Reef which was a couple more hours away. We stayed at a lodge just outside the park and it had a pool and spa which we used for a little and then went to dinner. We got a recommendation to eat at a place in Torrey where we were staying that was celebrating their 10 year anniversary with a concert so we decided to check it out. It was the Rim Rock Patio Restaurant. When we arrived the concert was just barely getting started and all the seating on the patio was taken so we ended up sitting inside where it was way too hot to sit and quickly ordered our food hoping it would be ready soon after. We waited almost 2 hours for our food to be ready, I was just about ready to go somewhere else when our food finally arrived. The food was fortunately very delicious so I wasn't super angry but I was on edge.

We spent the first half of the day at Capital Reef National Park. We drove up their scenic route and ended up going off road in our minivan and it made it feel as though the whole car was going to break apart. It wasn't that rough of a trail but it definitely had us a little nervous. We ended up at a little parking lot where we hiked up a canyon to see some markings of where some people inscribed their names on the canyon walls and some dated back to the late 1800's. Some others were done with bullet holes as well. It was a good small hike with cool shade in most places. We then went to the park's historic buildings where we got some pies and ice cream to eat on the grass outside. These pies were cool and delicious because they were made with the fruit that were grown in the Park. There were some Petroglyphs on a few walls down the road which we kept joking were created by some teenage Indians doing graffiti.

We had enough of Capital Reef and left the park to go grab some food. We had lunch at a little cafe called The Wild Rabbit in Torrey and learned that if you want to eat in Torrey you are going to wait some time to get your food. We probably waiting an hour to get our food and once again the food was delicious. After lunch we made the 3 hour drive to Provo Utah and met up with Trevor, Alyssa's brother, and played at a park with the kids and then went to Grandma and Grandpa Andrew where we stayed for two nights. Before we arrived our AC blower motor gave up the ghost so we had to look for a new one and we had Chad over to hang out before it was time to go to bed.