Day 2 of 17 (Utah)

From: Washington, UT
To: Orem, UT
Miles Driven: 303 Today / 697 Total
Miles Hiked: 3.8 Today / 3.8 Total

If you know me well, you know I NEED a plan. Justin is much more relaxed when going with the flow. To balance that out I've had to let some things go. One way I control my over-control and stressing about leaving "on time" we spend the extra $10 per hotel to make sure we go to one with Breakfast included.  Since Jordan is the 2nd most efficient and organized of the family, she head down as soon as she was ready and I joined her shortly after. So, I'm stopping there. That's boring information nobody cares about. We ate. We drove. We arrived in Zion.

Wow.

It was incredible. A stop at the visitor center to collect our National Park collectibles (coins, magnets, and stamps) then onto the Shuttle to begin our hiking adventures.

Pictures never do these places justice. They are just seriously stunning views.  We started with the longest hike along the river. The river was really high so we couldn't get to the narrows (which sounded amazing), but we still enjoyed the hike (which was heavily shaded).  

Our next hike was much shorter to the Weeping Rocks which was a nice refreshing place to cool off and pretty fantastic to just see.

I told the kids early on that we won't hike more than like 2 miles (3 tops) in a day, but there was 1 more hike that sounded pretty awesome so we gave it shot. It was actually pretty disappointing, but still an amazing site.

I'm running out of adjectives.

We finally got back to the visitor center and as we were walking back to our car it began to rain. Not like a trickle, but heavy drops. Pretty much a repeat of Bryce Canyon (also in Utah) last year, so we decided Utah just likes to surprise us with rain. It's our thing.

We got to our hotel with 30 minutes left of our audio book taunting us to finish.  A swim in the pool (which means staying up way to late) and now I can't wait to go to bed.

My favorite part though? Taylor leaning over to me as we drove through the canyon and saying, "I can't believe God created all of this. And we get to see it."