NOT Zion National Park

May 25, 2013

Molly had made reservations to go camping over Memorial Day weekend months ago. She had made them for Snow Canyon this time mostly because we were so wimpy about the cold nights in Flaming Gorge last year. We were excited to go, and we bought Rob lots of camping gear for his birthday (an awesome tent, two sleeping bags especially for people with claustrophobic feet . . .). Then we figured out that Rob was going to be at a conference in North Carolina when we left on our trip.

Rob changed his reservations so that he could fly into Las Vegas instead of Salt Lake. There is a very reasonable shuttle from Vegas into St. George, which was only 15 or 20 minutes away from our campsite.

Then our van died.

I was driving my niece's backup car around while she was on study abroad. Things were not looking good. I would have just stayed home, but by that time Rob had changed his reservation.

So we went, and I'm glad we did. I'll think it was crazy in retrospect, and it was, but it was fun crazy.

We took off later than we wanted to, and we got into camp when the light was almost gone. I had packed everything I could into a Toyota Camry and had outsourced one child to Molly and Nate.

My kids were champs! They picked out tent sites and unpacked the car and had the two tents set up in less than five minutes. They blew up air mattresses and found the sleeping bags and food and clothes and the flashlights. I only had to get up and tell the boys it was time to turn out the lights because it was after 11:00pm. But we did well.

The next day we were going to Zion's, not least because our kids had never been. However it was Memorial Day weekend and horrifically busy. We couldn't find parking, and then we couldn't get onto a shuttle bus to take us into the park. A couple of the kids were not happy. I told them if we didn't get onto the next shuttle that we'd go. Sure enough, the next shuttle only took a few people.

So we left the others (Zach said I did the 'I'm-outta-here' clap) and went back to our car. The kids really only wanted two things: to eat their picnic lunch and to get wet. That's all they ever actually want, and I should just get a motel room with a pool for vacations.

Instead I drove about five minutes back the way we came, and found a small city park which was just perfect. Like a little South Fork, it had a grassy area where we ate our lunch. I bought the white cheddar popcorn because Rob hates it (almost as much as Cheetos) and was gratified that the kids love it.

After our picnic, we headed down to the river at the side of the park. There was excellent wading for all. And we found a couple of crawdads and some little fishies.