Glendale, Utah ~ Zion National Park ~ Bryce Canyon National Park

After Las Vegas we headed to Glendale, Utah. Why Glendale, Utah? Has anyone ever heard of Glendale? I sure hadn't but Glendale is half way between Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park and there was a KOA campground there.

We stopped in St. George, Utah for lunch at Cracker Barrel. Lunch was yummy and Abi loved sitting in the rocking chairs out front.

After lunch we headed to the first Mormon Temple that was completed in Utah. Big and beautiful, of course.

Then off to Glendale. We decided that we were going to rough it by camping but we still wanted a few comforts of home, like, clean (enough) showers that you don't have to make work by adding quarters to a timer, electricity and last but certainly not least, wireless internet. Despite being in the middle of now where the campground was nice, pretty empty and quiet.

I had checked weather.com before leaving and while in Las Vegas to see what the overnight low temperatures were and the reports said 50 degrees or so with the highs 70-80 degrees. I thought that sounded great, until we got there. I asked the lady at the campground what the temperatures were at night and she told me the overnight low was 29 degrees the night before!!! So needless to say we were a bit cold, luckily we had bundled Abi up and layered tons of blankets on top of her.

Other than the cold the campground was great.  The trees were starting to change color and when the wind blew through the trees it sounded like rain, which I loved.

Our site was right next to a horse pasture with beautiful and friendly horses. When we were setting up camp Abi was in her "pop-a-tot" (see picture) and loved watching the horses or to her they were "das" (dogs). One in particular always came up to the fence to talk to Abi. Abi even got to pet the horse a few times.

The first full day in Utah we headed to Zion National Park. The drive is gorgeous and so nice to see that Fall had reached Utah since Fresno still doesn't totally look like Fall. Zion National Park has a scenic drive that is open to all traffic, well it has to be because it is the only road from St. George to Glendale and that part of Utah, if you go around it takes much longer.

We came across a herd of long horn mountain sheep on the side of the road.  Pretty cool.  We pulled over and while Josh took a ton of pictures I fed Abi breakfast sitting in the trunk.  Breakfast with a view, not bad!

On the way to Zion Canyon where the visitor center and Lodge is there is a long tunnel, a 1.1 mile long tunnel, and the tunnel isn't straight it curves. If you are an over-sized vehicle then you have to have an escort, and that means delays for the rest of traffic. Oh well, we had to wait a few times and when an RV would go through we would follow and get to drive in the center of the tunnel. The tunnel is so long and dark that they have side tunnels cut through the mountain to give light (and maybe a good view) to the drivers.

Zion Canyon is closed to traffic so you have to park at the visitor center and take shuttle buses into the canyon. This is where traveling with a one year old gets tricky. You have to bring all that you'll need for 3 people in a backpack. We brought our umbrella stroller which doesn't have a ton of storage and the stuff would have to be pulled out each time we got on the bus anyway so I carried the backpack with lunch, snacks, abi's things and whatever else we thought we would need for a day of exploring.

The First stop we made in the Canyon was Weeping Rock. It is considered one of the shortest hikes, only .25 mile, but it climbs over 100 feet in that distance. The map also said it was a "paved" trail. . . . well it was paved but very rough and not very easy to push the stroller. The view was pretty and very wet. The ranger said snow falls on top of the mountain above and when the snow melts it seeps into the sandstone cliffs and eventually drips out creating Weeping Rock. It also supposedly takes this water 1500 years to make it from the top of the cliff to where we were, so the water dripping on our heads was 1500 years old.

When were heading back to the shuttle bus stop we walked past a guy with his camera staring at the dirt. . . .we asked what he was looking at and he said a tarantula. I have seen plenty of huge hairy spiders but they were always in the zoo or my science classes, but never a "wild" tarantula (picture above on the right hand side). So needless to say, kinda creepy but luckily we were not camping there.

Next on the shuttle tour we headed to the River Walk Trail, another "paved" trail that followed the Virgin River back into the canyon. The canyon was too narrow for buses/cars that if you want to see more you have to walk along the river. The trail was very nice but certainly not paved like the map said, it was packed dirt in some places and sand in others. If we would have know this before we would have left the stroller in the car and used the baby backpack, oh well. Abi got a quick nap while we walked and got to the end of the trail. You can walk farther back into the canyon but you have to walk through the river. You would need water shoes and i didn't want to take Abi that far back, some day we might.

After the River Walk, we were pretty tired and HOT!  We took the shuttle to the Zion Lodge, we wanted to relax on the lawn outside the lodge and get something to drink.  While Josh was in line getting a soda Abi made friends with a little boy named Jackson, he was 8 months old, and a very BIG boy.  The two of them crawled all over together and had a great time.  It was nice for Abi to connect with other kids while we were gone since she spent 2 weeks with just Josh and I.

When we were getting stuff ready to head to Bryce Canyon one morning Abi decided to attempt climbing into the car. She really likes to "drive", Josh supervised her attempt and as you can see she made it onto the seat, without any help.

The drive to Bryce Canyon was just a pretty as the drive to Zion.  Before ever entering the park there are beautiful red rock formations and tunnels cut through the rock.

Bryce Canyon is very beautiful, we choose not to take any hikes that went down into the canyon, too hard with an extra 20lb baby to carry somehow.  We stuck to the rim trails, a few parking lots with trails headed toward the canyon and then along it for a while.
After hiking around for a while we decided to drive along the canyon, it was an 18 mile road that stops at the end of the canyon.  We stopped for some lunch at one of the lookouts and stopped at a few more before getting to the end.  One of the lookouts had a view of a natural arch, pretty cool.  On the way to the last lookout at Rainbow Point Abi finally fell asleep, but I still wanted to get out and look around.  So I took a very sleepy Abi out of the car and walked around with her sleeping on my shoulder.  Rainbow Point is at 9100 feet, so from fresno which is at 300+ feet above sea level we have traveled pretty high up in the sky!

The 18 mile drive was nice, the trees were changing colors and there were great views of the canyon. Then drove to a place that Josh heard about while two guys were talking in the bathroom, I know, i thought that only women overheard things in the bathroom but I guess guys do too!
The place Josh heard of was the Mossy Cave and waterfall hike, it was outside the park but pretty close and the hike got you inside parts of the canyon and you get a different perspective of the rock formations.  For this hike we put Abi in the baby backpack and Josh got to carry her.  The hike was beautiful, and not a huge elevation change.  Bryce Canyon is a pretty dry area in the summer, it does get some snow in the winter but during the summer there is one creek that is full of water from a spring.  There is a waterfall that is maybe 15 feet tall but sooooo pretty.  After the view of the waterfall you can hike up the hill a bit to get to the mossy cave.  Needless to say that Josh was very happy he overheard a conversation in the bathroom that lead us to this beautiful little place.

This is it for this part of the trip, stay tuned for the next exciting adventure to. . . .the North Rim, Grand Ganyon.