A Couple of Memorable (and Exhausting!) Days

I am finally updating the blog on Wednesday, as we awoke yesterday at 5:00 AM to "hike the narrows" of Zion and turned in late last night after dinner and a show in Vegas, with, of course, the three hour drive (and a near ran out of gas frightening few miles - thought of you the whole time, Mom!) sandwiched in there for good measure.

After a bit of consternation (code for a very unpleasant fight ;) regarding when and how we should hike the narrows - THE thing to do in Zion National Park - we finally decided to devote Monday to exploring Zion in a tamer fashion - horseback riding, returning to the unofficial hiking spot Daniel had been eager to return to (code for nonstop - albeit rather adorable - pestering) since he and Maddie first climbed the bottom of it a couple of days ago. lunch at the lodge (yup, three lunches in three lodges in three National Parks in three days - Bryce, Grand Canyon and Zion - that's quite a trifecta!), seeing the incredibly cheesy movie about Zion in a much hyped huge movie theater and taking a lovely afternoon dip in the pool, and eating yet another wonderful dinner in yet another charming and delicious restaurant in charming Springdale, Utah (where we started looking at lots for sale on our way out of town :) ).  This would enable us to rent the gear (the appropriate neoprene socks and water boots with requisite ankle support) in advance and give us all an extra day to get a little bit healthier before taking on the "strenuous" hike that is the narrows (especially for those who actually hike the whole darn thing - which takes approximately 11 hours!)  

So... once we figured everything out, Monday was lovely.   For some unknown reason, my camera flaked out during the horseback ride, leaving all of those many photographs "overexposed" (how that happens on a digital camera, I just haven't figured out), but the ride was pleasant enough, with Trigger, Alice, Tiny, and Ringo valiantly taking us on a trek through a particularly dusty part of Zion.   My favorite part of the day was our quest to find THE rock Daniel just had to climb again, and then the hour or so we spent climbing the rock and taking photos (thank goodness, my camera kicked back in at some point while we were on the rock!) during sunset.   Dana and Daniel got quite far, while Maddie and I opted to go about half as far and enjoy the scenery and our conversation instead.

Dana and Daniel about to reenact the opening scene from The Lion King

I would love to share some more of those photos with you right now.  However, a) the Internet in this hotel is awful, and it's not letting me upload any photos at the moment :( and b) it's time for us to head out to the Mirage for tonight's dinner followed by a magic Cirque show (Criss Angel's Believe), so... I will post this now and add more photos tomorrow.

Since most of you have seen the photos on Facebook, you know that we successfully hiked the first (and most popular) portion of the narrows, named for the very narrow space between the canyon walls that occurs at various parts of the hike at the opening of the Virgin River (which took the sacrifice of my brand new sunglasses :( - not to worry, we replaced them in a charming store run by a charming couple who moved to Springdale from Florida after spending a day hiking the narrows in 1999...)

So... until tomorrow!