Utah Road Trip, Part V

After we all had breakfast and packed up from the motel, we headed back into Bryce Canyon. We made our first stop the Visitor's Center.

I'm a sucker for museums and visitor's centers, and this one was excellent.
 

We enjoyed the interactive exhibits, where my 15-year-old could pretend to be a groundhog. As you do!

A highlight of the trip was the reaction of the four kids when they first saw the amazing hoodoos, the pillar rock formations.

Lots of ooohs and ahhhhs. 

We hiked down among the formations and got an up-close look at them.

The colors are amazing:  red, pink, orange, yellow.

The face you make when you're practicing coin-flipping, for your upcoming play, and flip your coin right off the cliff.

Utah Road Trip, Part IV

When I was researching about Bryce Canyon, I read that sunrise is magical and worth getting up for. The children were not excited abut this idea, so we adults decided to let them sleep, get up and out, and then return to the motel for breakfast and packing up after our sunrise magic.

Bryce Canyon is quite high elevation, and it was very cold in the early morning - like well below freezing, with an even colder wind. Some of us weren't quite prepared for this level of cold, though we layered up as best we could. 

But was it worth the numb fingers?

Oh.

Yes. 

It.

Was.

Watching a new day dawn at one of God's most interesting places is an experience I'll never forget!

And, we were back at the motel breakfast - an excellent breakfast indeed in plenty of time, as our motel was only 15 minutes from the beauties of the canyon! THAT is a nice change from most of our experiences at national parks. 
 

Utah Road Trip, Part III

We pulled into Bryce on Tuesday afternoon after a peaceful Utah drive. We four adults checked out the town while the kids relaxed in the motel rooms. Then, when we returned for dinner, we gave the kids money to get food at Subway, while we ate at the Cowboy Ranch House across the parking lot. 

It was a perfect solution! Kids got to relax, we got a nice adult meal.

The Ranch House had good food, drinks, AND a mounted jackalope!

Stace was intrigued by the tiny Bryce Canyon airport across the way. 

He also found this interesting scene near our motel.

Utah Road Trip, Part II

On our second day at Zion, we spent more time at the Visitor's Center and gift shop, and then did a little hike to the Emerald Pools, where you can walk behind a waterfall.

 

We saw so many deer in Utah!

Also, wild turkeys!

On our drive out of Zion on Tuesday, we finally saw the herd of Bighorn Sheep we'd heard about from the shuttle drivers.  

This Mazda has been a great car for us, for four years now. We're thankful!

On Tuesday afternoon, we drove out of Zion and up to our next motel, near Bryce Canyon National Park.

Utah Road Trip, Part I

Thankfully, we were all fully recovered from our brief illness when Spring Break came, because we had plans for a road trip to two of Utah's national parks.

But first - a quick stop to top up the car with oil. This car has been fabulous for us, and we might be taking it for granted! 

We then set off Sunday for St. George, Utah, driving four to Las Vegas and then about two hours further on the I-15.

We checked into our hotel and got recommendations for dinner. We walked around the downtown area a bit, where Stace found an English telephone booth. Then we had dinner at an Olive Garden.
 

On Monday, we checked out and drove to Zion National Park, where we met up with Colleen, Rigo and the kids, who were joining us on the adventure.

We took a shuttle from the town of Springdale to the Zion Visitors Center, and then boarded a National Park shuttle. The shuttle system is very well organized, and we enjoyed it. We hiked the Riverside Trail, which parallels the Virgin River and takes you back to where you can access the famous Narrows. 

When we reached the end of the trail, these three bravely hiked through the river to get closer to the Narrows. 

This involved hiking IN the 42-degree snowmelt river, in their hiking shoes and clothes. You can rent proper equipment, but we hadn't planned to do that.

They enjoyed their further walk, but all said they were chilled through and through.

While we waited for the intrepid explorers, Violet drew and Cora and I worked on her lines for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Beautiful Zion!

Sick

 In late March came the time for Stace, Violet and me to get the illness that's disrupted the world for two years. Stace got it first, and then me, and finally Violet. Since Cora just had it in January, she was fine. It wasn't a big deal for any of us - we've all had worse colds and flus before. But we had a week or so of lying low. Stace fared the best - just a sore throat and some aches we had attributed initially to him playing two games of footie in one night. He worked from home for a week.

Garden Update

The homestead is coming along nicely. Stace removed the large bush here, to replace it with three more fruit trees. 

We now have a plum, pluot and aprium tree; the latter two are crosses between plum and apricot trees. This is in addition to the new nectarine trees in the front, and the already fruitful orange and tangerine trees in the back corner. God willing, we'll be enjoying lots of fruit in the seasons to come!

Oh, and I can't leave out the pomegranate tree! We planted this a year ago, and it's recently burst out with beautiful red flowers. Hopefully we'll have plenty of pomegranates come winter.

Stace also planted these blueberry bushes - this is four small plants, all different varieties. This was actually a project - finding the barrel and the many soils and additives recommended in the gardening class he and Violet took. 

Stace and Violet also planted out the veggie garden, after we took last year off to try to kill off some awful weeds. We now have lettuce, cauliflower, sprouts, zucchini and tomatoes.

The lavender is doing great right now, too! And our citrus had been all abloom, making the yard smell like a perfumery.

I also picked out some pansies to add to the Gerbera daisies over on the other side of the yard. Hope they make it! 

Weekend Fun

St. Patrick's Day  was this week, so we had the traditional American Irish meal of corned beef and cabbage. Easiest crock pot meal there is!

On Friday, Violet and I took our little nature walk back at Quigley Canyon to check on the poppies, since it was a sunny, warm day and they were sure to be open.

Our state flower!

On Friday afternoon, I babysat Ellie, and again, we walked to the park. She loves the swings!

Everyone wanted to swing with her - Elmo, Bunny and Garfield.

While I was out with Ellie, the girls were busy baking chocolate chip cookies! Nice one!

Stace has built this metal and concrete contraption for Melanie to use, to create different heights of  flowery things at weddings.

Cora and I brought it to her and helped her at a wedding Saturday. This couple wanted an asymmetric look.

After we were finished helping, we went into a sweet downtown near the wedding, and happened up on a nerd store dedicated to the game War Hammer. Because Cora had an interest in the game, we stayed and got drinks at the cafe there, and then learned about the game. It was a fun way to pass an hour before we came home.