Rewinding to Utah

Utah, Utah, Utah.
I have to be honest and say that had you asked me a year ago if I wanted to visit Utah I would have said no. Obviously this is because I knew essentially nothing about the place besides that is was associated with Mormons. Well, now I love Utah. Talk about a beautiful state! Driving from one state park to another was beautiful, but the state parks themselves were even more incredible.

Our first park was Bryce Canyon. We had already been on the road for so long that Zach and Connor were kind of antsy to get to LA so they couldn't figure out why we were going out of our way when we had already seen one canyon, and that one was Grand. Well, Bryce was well worth the visit and they ended up agreeing. It was like visiting another planet. Everything was shades of white, pink, orange and yellow. The canyon is filled with these things called hoodoos that seem like they're in a cave on Mars. We got there kind of later in the day (partially because we had to find a place to stay and everywhere was booked, and the rain made it so we couldn't camp like we planned) so we just kind of walked the rim our first night there. Since it isn't nearly as big as the Grand Canyon it was easy to walk a lot of the rim at one time. This was the only path the dog was allowed on, so that's another reason we stayed there for the time being.

The next morning we woke up to crazy thunderstorms and 50 degree weather. We went out to breakfast at the restaurant attached to our hotel and had by far the worst waitress I've ever come across. She was the manager of the hotel and was so beyond rude I couldn't believe it. It actually made the experience that much more memorable because we were laughing at her and another lady came over to tell us how rude she thought the servers were too. There were like 5 hummingbirds at their hummingbird feeder so my mom asked what their recipe was because she was jealous. The lady refused to tell her and said its a secret recipe blah blah blah. Fine, that was a little weird, but whatever. Then my mom asks me to open the blinds so she could see the birds better and I do. They easily slid open, yet the lady comes over and screams at me for opening the blinds because that isn't how they open. I told her, as did other people, how easily they slid open so obviously that way either works or the blinds were broken, to which she continued to yell about how I don't get it and that the blinds are 20 years old. My thought? Get new blinds psycho, because these are ugly. I said how rude she was fairly loudly and later she sent over another waitress with a second glass of hot chocolate for me, but I was angry the rest of the meal. She was clearly embarrassed because she probably heard the other lady come over and say how terrible the service was there or heard me telling my dad (who was tipping her..) the story once he got off the phone. Being a waitress I usually have sympathy for other servers, but I also know when something is incredibly out of line, and this was. As annoyed as I was, it made the meal something we will all remember.

After breakfast we all piled in the car with pants and jackets on figuring we would just drive around and see the views instead of hiking. We went to an area that had a waterfall because I figured it would be cool to see the water higher than usual and we ended up hiking it anyways. The rain let up just in time and it was awesome. There was also a cave along the short hike so it really had a lot packed into a 5 minute walk. We were so muddy afterward, but it was worth it and made us willing to keep hiking since we were already messy. We went over to the main part of the park to do the hike I had really wanted to do, but didn't know how we would be able to all do it together since it didn't allow dogs. Turns out it being 50 degrees worked in our favor because we were able to leave the dog in the car with the windows cracked. The walk was ridiculous in every way. It was hilarious how muddy it was because the first leg of the walk is literally just a walk down a very steep part of the canyon, so the path just zig zags down it quickly. The mud made it pretty slippery but the place was packed anyways (again with almost entirely Europeans, which we prefer in the long run) so it was really fun getting down. At the bottom you're in between these huge rocks that create really tall walls - it's called Wall Street. Despite the very deep crevice there are still trees growing in between the walls that are incredibly tall and tower over everything. It was just so awesome. That part of the walk was so great and the weather was so iffy that I thought we planned on just going down it and back up, but we ended up doing the entire walk which was very worth it. There were two natural bridges along the way and a ton of views that we could only see from the bottom of the canyon. We had a really great time on that hike and I think we all agreed that Bryce was the coolest place we went. Sedona was probably the best vacation spot and best location all together, but that's partially because it has so many shops and restaurants and is more built up while still being very natural. Bryce had hardly any options when it came to food or lodging. We did have one great meal there though at a place that had homemade pies. Connor and I both got this Western Burger thing, which was a burger with two cheeses, lots of ham and bacon. So beyond good and huge. Then we all had the pies which were delicious. It was a good way to end that leg of the trip, especially because we think my dad had his shoes stolen from the hotel (yes, the same hotel managed by the terrible waitress.. disaster).



We left the restaurant to head a hotel right outside of Zion, which was a great stop. We had a river right behind our hotel so the boys and dog had a lot of fun there. The dog pulled Zach down in the water so they both got so filthy and Zach had to give Kaos a shower in the hotel bathroom. The entire place got soaked but it was really funny. The next morning we had a great buffet breakfast in a restaurant that (surprisingly enough!) was also filled with Europeans. The parks were so foreign to us already because there is really nothing else like them, that having people from other countries all around us really made us feel like we were overseas or something. We packed up and headed into Zion and (another surprise!) it started to pour again. I was really disappointed at that point because I knew we weren't staying in Zion as long as I had originally planned (we had a campsite and that just wasn't going to work out) so I thought we wouldn't get to see Zion in the sun at all or get out and hike. When we hiked in the rain in Bryce the rain had let up by the time we got out of the car, but this time it was really heavy rain and had just started when we got to the park. It turned out to be really nice because the rain was rushing down the massive rocks and waterfalls were created from all of the water. You could easily see why flash floods are such a threat there. By the time we got through all of the tunnels and around all of the crazy turns the rain completely cleared and we got to do a hike. I don't think we got to see Zion the best way possible, but since we had gotten to hike so many other places that were incredible we weren't really that disappointed. Plus, now that we live much closer to Utah we'll have the chance to go back more often.



Long story short, Utah is amazing and worth the visit.. I definitely plan on going back and visiting the same parks again, plus a few others.