On our way to GRAND CANYON....

On our way to Grand Canyon we could see a little oasis in the desert and decided to take a break and check it out.  It was Lone Rock State Park on the Utah/Arizona border.  It was around 110 degrees so we literally walked down to the water to get our feet wet and walked back (with 'dirt breaded feet') to continue on our way.

As we got closer to Grand Canyon the temperature dropped to a cool 72 degrees and we could see what looked like the beginning of the canyon. 

Hark...there's water, H2O, agua....let's stop here. 

Lone Rock State Park

The lone rock (we called it the lone palm)

The long hot walk back with breaded feet

Arizona! We're are FINALLY in Arizona!

Can you see the face in the middle of the big rock?



We were accompanied by rock walls for part of the drive.



The temperature dropped and the clouds rolled in.  It looks like the beginning of the canyon.



ZION: 110 degrees, a rock slide and a mission

After leaving Bryce we made our way to a funky little RV park just past Zion Mountain Ranch (which we were told was a part of the ranch) but it ended up being the ugly step child a few miles down the road.  After checking in at the gift shop/pizza parlor (consisting of one guy and a pizza oven) we decided to eat out which was of course, you guessed it, pizza.  It was really great pizza though :)

The next morning we made our way into Zion National Park with the temperature rising.  The park has very limited access by car so we choose to use their shuttle.  It would have been a better experience had there not been mobs of people and 110 degree weather. 

After reading through the Jr. Ranger booklet our 'hike' consisted of a mile walk on a paved trail from the visitor center to the Jr. Ranger building to see a ranger program.  This wasn't what we had in mind for a hike since we were told there were water falls and rivers in parts of the park but due to the heat we changed our mission to:

"Let's get the kids their $%#@! ranger badges and get the heck out of here!"

 The ranger was great with the kids (he's a history teacher during the year) and his enthusiasm helped our moods considerably.  After the program we dragged ourselves back to the visitor center to catch the shuttle.  We noticed that we had to take a shuttle to ALL of the stops in order for Jack to get his Jr. Ranger Badge (Harper's was easier) so we were trying to get the answers any way we could in order to shorten our stops. 

After completing the booklet (with a little help from the parents) we noticed a road block on our exit route which ended up being a rock slide. 
The good news: We made it to the park before it was shut down for a couple of days due to the slide.
The bad news: We had to drive 3 HOURS around in order to get back to our trailer.  Jack also wanted me to mention he lost his favorite Yellowstone National Park hat on the shuttle which was a major bummer.

In a nutshell, we didn't get to experience the full beauty of  Zion and it's diverse terrain, but once we FINALLY made it back to camp we had a very happy homecoming with Rosie girl!

Next up: The GRAND Canyon

The carved mile long tunnel into Zion

The terrain was definitely different from Bryce but beautiful just the same.

A 'peak a boo' window within the tunnel

Our 'hike'.  Harper asked mom to pour water on her head and down her back as you can see here.

Jr. Ranger Program: Grinding corn like the early Puebloean's  

 

A nice 'Ranger in Training' from Ohio State.

Mission Complete!