When we woke up in our lovely little hotel rooms in Springdale, we saw the view we had missed the night before - reddish mountains right behind the hotel.
I went and started the laundry in a little room next to the breakfast room, and Tom and Harry came with me for moral support! The machines each took 8 Quarters, and we did a whites wash and darks wash in the two washing machines. We then went and had breakfast, and Lucy, Jack and Scott joined us a bit later.
I had gorgeous 'biscuits' (fluffy scone things) and eggs, and the lady working there said that all the breads were homemade.
Scott then watched the boys swim in the outdoor pool while I put the clothes in a dryer, showered and packed up.
We drove a little way down the road, and just parked by the road side, because everywhere was packed. We walked down to where you get the bus to Zion National Park, but realised we really needed an extra rucksack, because we were taking our lunch stuff with us in a plastic bag, as we only had one rucksack left between us! (The others got stolen!) I felt a bit stressed, because I hadn't really known what we were doing, or that we needed to take lunch with us, but we bought another rucksack from the shops near the bus stop, then queued for the bus.
We had bought an annual ticket for the National Parks at Sequoia, so it didn't cost us any more to get the bus. Although there were loads of people waiting (you can only go into Zion National Park by bus at this time of year), there were loads of buses, so we didn't wait too long.
We decided to get the bus to the furthest stop, and then work our way back through the park.
On the bus, the lady behind me got talking to me, and she was a Mormon too!
The scenery was fantastic! Beautiful towering red rocks, with trees and streams everywhere. The weather was gorgeous again too!
Taken out the bus window.
When we got off the bus, we did a hike up to the start of the Narrows.
Lucy at the Narrows entrance.
On the walk back from the Narrows, we stopped off at a little beach bit by the river, and had some lunch. The kids paddled, and I had a go, but the water was FREEZING!
Scott got accosted by a squirrel, that came and tried to eat his bagel! There's $100 fine for feeding the squirrels here though.
I enjoyed lying in the sun for a bit!
We carried on walking back to the bus stop, and caught a bus to Weeping Rock.
It was just a short walk to the Weeping Rock itself - a big overhanging rock that had water sprinkling down from it (something to do with how water moves through the different layers that the rock's composed of).
We the got the bus again, to the Zion Lodge stop, and did the hike to the Emerald Pools. There are three pools and we ended up doing the hike past the first two, and all the way to the highest one - about a six mile round trip.
It was quite a narrow sandy trail, sometimes steep, and also very busy, so we had to start and stop a lot. I was pretty tired out, but got into my stride after a while. The kids and Scott were perfectly happy with it.
Overlooking the lowest pool.
The second pool.
Sharing out the last of our English chocolate by the second pool - Tesco's Chocolate Raisins!
This rock wall was MASSIVE!! Look how small the fir trees look!
At the highest pool. It was surrounded by really steep rock faces, and while we were sitting on some rocks nearby, we heard a big rumbling and crashing, which scared me - I was keen to get out of there!
For some reason it was a lot quieter on the walk back down, and Scott and I didn't see very much of the kids!
We then got a bus back to the start (I sat next to another Mormon Mum and we had a good chat about what our Wards/callings were like etc), then we went back to the shops and toilets, and Harry bought a soft toy raccoon.
After that we walked back to our car, and drove an hour or so to Cedar City, passing these funny looking little houses on the way!
We couldn't see our Motel on the main road, so we stopped off for dinner first. We saw a diner which was apparently awarded Best Diner in the State, so we stopped there and each had a burger. I chose a Silverado burger, because that's my favourite truck! The food was yum, and the place was very Mormony, with quotes on the walls and stuff! We found our Motel 6 after that on one of the side roads, and had adjoining rooms.
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