Into Zion

We've dropped about 4,000 feet from our campsite at the top of Bryce Canyon to our current site at the bottom of Zion Canyon. It's still the desert, though a particularly lush spot in the desert. Today we were riding a shuttle during a thunderstorm (a pretty good place to be). We saw two waterfalls that appeared out of nowhere hundreds of feet above the canyon. We also hiked to a couple of permanent falls that I think I saw when I came here as a twelve-year old. I heard there was some minor flash flooding today, but our tents held up well. Still, we decided to take the opportunity for dinner in town after visiting the one, yes one, public shower available here.

The kids have been running to climb each rock along trails and have to be forced to actually look at the scenery. Every day Ian finds a new collection of sticks and stones. At Bryce we camped next to a bunch of kids and our kids were thrilled. There were many games of baseball, frisbee, and pickle, and Devin got her first pen pal (though Nic pointed out that you have to actually write a letter to a person before she's your pen pal).

I'm happy to say we've done a pretty good job packing. We didn't bring anything that hasn't been used, though we've found a few things it would have been nice to have remembered to bring along and we've already lost half of our soap dishes. I'll send pictures when I get to a computer I can use to upload them. For the most part I'm relying on thumb typing on my IPod and taking advantage of Wi-Fi when I can find it.

We're here for one more day at Zion and then make our way to the California coast.