Zion Part 1

June 11
Andrew and I started our Zion’s trip at 9:50 am – 10 minutes ahead of schedule!

We made a stop at Sams Club to get gas and a box of cheese-its (hiking food we didn’t end up eating). When we walked in the front door it was the end of business hours so the usual tray of sample food was empty. The lady that stood by the door asked if baby wanted any orange juice (I suppose at almost 24 weeks I am now appearing pregnant to the general public). I politely refused but then she got really excited and sneakily pulled out a small package of donuts “for the baby”. While the food item has remained uneaten, it was such a sweet gesture and a fun way to start off vacation!

We had an uneventful drive down with the exception of Andrew completely loosing his contact in his eye while driving. Fortunately, we were approaching an exit and able to quickly remedy that one-eyed driving situation!

We entered Zion National Park around 3 and headed straight through the tunnel so we could do a hike to an observation point. This trip had two goals: go on some good hikes and take a fabulous scenic picture that we can blow up and put on our wall in Indiana. The first hike was short but stunningly beautiful! Andrew took complete charge of the 7D and scenic picture taking. He is experimenting with panoramic pictures (he took a ton of pictures that he is going to try and stitch together in photoshop) and HDR (where you take three pictures of the exact same thing but one is over-exposed, one is under-exposed, and one put the subject in good light. You then overlay the three pictures and get the best lighting for all parts, such has the canyon wall and the sky). This meant I had plenty if opportunity to hang out and enjoy the view. It was pretty funny to see the other hikers come up to where Andrew was taking pictures and struggle to see what he could possibly be taking pictures of so long. They would then pull out there little cameras and take a few shots, figuring Andrew knew something they didn’t. Then they would speed by us.

I took these opportunities to snap a few pictures with the itouch:

We finished that hike and drove back through the tunnel to park our car and catch the shuttle. We decided to hike to the lower emerald pool as a quick last jaunt before heading out to grab dinner. Well it turned out to be a paved stroll that was pretty, but a bit lame. So we continued to the middle pools. This was more like hiking, but once we made it to the middle pools we figured we might as well go all the way to the upper pool. It was a really fun hike and very beautiful. At the end of the day the canyon was in the shade so it was very pleasant.

Instead of turning back and hiking the way we came, we switched to the grotto trail at the base of the trail for the middle pool. It was only .8 miles to the shuttle and we probably only went 3 or so miles the whole day, but holy cow my back and knees hurt! And my fingers were very swollen and white – something I hadn’t experienced before. Stretching and a good nights sleep cured these ailments, so it wasn’t a big deal.

We headed to St. George for the night where we stayed and Andrew’s grandpa’s condo. It was the perfect location for our Zion’s day trip. After a quick dinner of pizza and a shower, we called it a night as it was approaching 10 and we needed to get a really early start the next day.