Zion!

Thursday morning Amanda had it all arranged for us to go to Zion National Park for a few days.  I didn't have Zander to tend so it was the perfect time.  Their website says camp sites fill up by early afternoon so we left early enough to arrive at noon. The boys had cute activity book and they drew the cutest castles!  Flags and all...so creative!  We also played the license plate game and found a TON of different states!  It was fun.  We were excited to camp with the boys (SOME of us were excited about camping... ha ha).  Well, the campsites were all full and the lady said they fill up by 7:30 a.m.!  False advertising on their website!  So we spent the next little while looking for a hotel - which they are crazy expensive right outside the park, but what choice did we have?  Clear back to Hurricane is too far when we only have a couple of days to spend in the park.  So much for our "inexpensive" weekend.  We found a Quality Inn for 150 bucks.  One night.  We made a lunch in the parking lot while we waited for the maid to finish with the room.  Then we unloaded a bit and went back to the park for a leisurely hike. We took the shuttle to a little trail head.  It was a nice paved trail along the river.  It was very pretty!  It looked like it could rain at anytime, and we did get sprinkled on a little bit, but not bad.  The boys put their feet in the river, and Jacob did get some cacti in him (he even knew to call it Cacti!) but all was well.  We spent a nice afternoon in the park.  Back at our hotel for the evening we cooked our tin foil dinners in their BBQ grills.  They had a little grassy area with some tables and grills.  It was very scenic!  We even saw some deer close by!  I was kind of glad to not be sleeping in a tent, and to have a nice toilet and shower!  But I was sad that the boys didn't get to have their tent time.  Here are some pictures from our first day in the park and our dinner time behind the hotel...