Zion's Canyon, Day 1

(Warning:  Photo Overload ahead!)  While in St. George for the weekend, we drove to Zion's Canyon and spent Friday and part of Saturday there (heading back home Saturday afternoon.)   It was beautiful.  Alfredo and I went to Zion's a year after we were married, but this is the first time our children had been there.  So beautiful.  First, we did the areas we could drive through.

 We saw a herd of mountain goats...at least a dozen.  They were so close to us and didn't seem bothered by humans at all.  Still, they are wild animals and this is their home...so I told my children that we are not to get too close, not to feed them or touch them.  This is their habitat and we are the guests.  But so very cool.  We watched them for about 15 minutes...sunning themselves, eating, walking across the road and even running/jumping across the road.  Magnificent!

 After we had explored in our car for awhile and stopped to have lunch (and realized that we had actually gone far enough that we were no longer in Zion's Park), we headed back to the main section of Zions.  In the summer, you can't drive through most of Zion's in your vehicle.  They have free buses that take you up the canyon and you can get on and off at as many stops as you like.  So we parked our card and road the buses all the way to the top, listening to the narration about the canyons as we went.

In the town, just outside of Zion's Canyon, near where we parked our car.

  After we went to the top of the canyon, we rode to the next to last stop where there was a short walk to a river.  The girls and I all had fun playing in the river.

 The water wasn't super deep but deep enough that we got wet.

 Next to the river, there were deer. 

Michelle found a very cool walking stick that had beautiful carvings on it.

We saw many lizards as well as squirrels.

We hiked to Emerald Falls, the lower pool.  The girls were getting tired and hungry and didn't want to hike to the upper pools.  I hear they are more impressive.  But it was beautiful, even if the waterfall wasn't that amazing.

 There were more deer, just off the path.  So close to us.  A mother, father and a baby.

 After two (fairly short) hikes and lots of driving and walking, the girls were tired.  We left Zion's to head back to St. George.  In LaVerkin (I think, if I remember correctly), we stopped to get freshly made ice cream.  We got a small spoonful of prickly pear ice cream and it was good (but they were almost out so none of us ordered it...not enough left for a full scoop).   The place we stopped at had a mini Old-style western town that you could explore with a petting zoo.  We didn't explore it, but I thought it was fun so I snapped a photo.

We headed back to the hotel, where the girls and I went swimming.  Then we watched a movie, ate tacos and slept.