We drove down Thursday night after work, stopping in Nephi for dinner at Wendy's, and making it down to St. George fairly late. Turns out there was also an Ironman Triathlon going on that weekend, so lots of folks were in town for that.
We got up relatively early Friday morning, ate some complimentary breakfast, and headed up to Zion. Getting there reasonably early meant we were on the trail before it got too hot. Natalie had never done Angel's Landing so I agreed to do that with her. Mom and Dad surprisingly said they'd like to tag along, and, despite Dad's semi-bad knee, they valiantly made it up to the saddle and even through the first short chain section before deciding they'd gone far enough.
Getting started
Hiking buddies. Not messing around.
Looking up at the finish line
View from the top
This is pretty much as narrow as it ever gets
Natalie and I continued up to the top (it always looks scarier/narrower from the saddle than it does once you're actually climbing).
Heading back down
After returning back down, we got lunch at the lodge, and then we split up as Natalie and I went up the emerald pools trail while Mom and Dad took the shuttle around the park and saw a few other sites (Weeping Rock and I'm not sure what else).
This waterfall appeared to constitute the first emerald pool
The third (and final) emerald pool
Had to stand in the weeds for literally 10 minutes to get a shot of this whole bridge without people walking on it.
We finished up in time to get back to the hotel, clean up, get dinner at Cracker Barrel (my first time!) and off to Tuacahn for the show. I'm used to going to Tuacahn in the peak of July heat, so it was a bit odd to not have sweat dripping down the back of my knees the whole time, but otherwise it was a fun show. :) Brian had quite a bit of new material and had a bit of improvisational fun when a grasshopper wouldn't stop landing on him, and some people in the crowd wouldn't stop letting him know about it.
The face that brings Utah to its knees with laughter
Saturday morning I was a little bit lazier while Dad and Natalie went out to wander through the desert a bit. Snow Canyon was closed for the triathlon, so we hit up "Dinosaur Tracks at Johnson Farm", a museum of sorts where you can see the fossilized record of dinosaur tracks that were discovered when Farmer Johnson was digging something. Maybe a smidge overpriced for what you get, but still kinda cool. If you're into dinosaurs and/or dinosaur tracks.
One of the bigger tracks
A big wall of smaller tracks
Apparently someone who knows a lot about how dinosaurs stand put this guy here, so please don't move him.
