It was not a cruise...

But it was a grand adventure anyway.

My son and his family were going to St. George for a long weekend, so they invited us to go with them. We said yes. They made most of the arrangements. All we had to do was our transportation and help with the planning. My family, long ago, came from that area so it would be very interesting to me to see it.

Never knowing what the traffic is going to be like on I-5, we headed down early. It worked well because we had time to stop for a nice breakfast at I-Hop before going to the park and ride.

At the airport I found a spot that I could watch the planes take off and land. I contemplated why I enjoyed that so much. I remembered the ten year old me going with my mom and brothers to pick dad up from work. He worked at the airport. Sometimes we would get there too early, or he wasn’t ready to come home yet, so we would stand there watching the planes take off and land. It was around this same time that I first flew in a plane. It was an airshow and dad arranged for one of the small planes to take a couple of us up. It was only a four seater. I sat there watching the world go by below us. Maybe that’s why I’ve always loved the window seats so I can watch the world go by like my ten year old self did. On a sad note, that same airshow, one of the stunt pilots crashed and died. On his way down he clipped the corner of a speed limit sign. Every time we would come down the hill from the airport, I would look at that sign and remember the accident.

Deb and I both had aisle seats. She like the aisle so she was fine, but I like the window, but booked to late as they were all taken. We took Alaska Air which is a lot better than some we’ve flown on. I had a little leg room.

Normally the rental car agency is right there at the airport. Not so in Las Vegas. There we waited twenty minutes in line to catch a bus. The bus ride was another twenty minutes to get to the car rental place. There were long lines there also and another twenty or so minute wait until we had the car. All the time grandma was chomping at the bit to see the grandkids.

 Grandma in her glory

 The trail ends so you just keep on going through the river

 Taking a break

Waterfalls, but not so much mid summer

When we finally got the car, we headed into freeway traffic. They must have been having the World Worst Driver’s convention that weekend. Cars were zooming in and out of traffic like they were anxious to get to the casinos to lose all their money.

I hadn’t had any sleep for the last twenty hours, so as soon as we were out of town, I let Deb drive. She woke me up when we came to the Virgin River Canyon. It was amazing.

When we called my son and family were already at the condo, so we drove straight there. It had three bedrooms upstairs and one down. They put us downstairs and took the upstairs to be near the kids. It worked out great.

 The hot and dusty trail with no shade

As the women went shopping for the long weekend’s food, my son and I played a computer game. Rather, he showed me how to play his favorite game and then told me what I did wrong.

After dinner, when the kids were in bed, we sat around and played games.

My son and I are great breakfast makers. Being true artisans, we were allowed to do all the breakfasts, then the families split the dinners and lunches. After a wonderful breakfast, we headed up to Zion Park. It was gorgeous. We drove through the mile long tunnel and then back tracked and drove through it again, snapping pictures the whole way. It was hard to believe the Virgin River caused all that erosion, because it was only a trickle when we drove though. 

Pictures from Zion's Park

We then caught the bus up the canyon. Going all the way to the top, we took the riverside walk. It’s a two mile round trip trail. It dead ends at the Narrows, or what I call the in river walk. There is no longer a place for the trail as the Virgin River takes up the whole canyon, which is now 20 to 30 feet wide and up to 2000 feet to the top. My daughter in law and I brought up the four year old while my son had the one year old in a pack on his back. He and Deb made it a couple of miles more up the stream, but I didn’t. The four year old was tired and I had a hurt foot, so the three of us headed back. We kept stopping to let the grandson rest. By the time we came to the end of the trial, the others had caught up to us.

Going back down the canyon, we went to the stopped at the lodge, then took the Lower Emerald Pool Trail. It’s a mile round trip. I kept thinking Are we there yet? I even asked a random couple if it was worth it. The lady answered in a thick British accent, it was. I guess if they came half way around the world to see it, I could go a little longer to see it. In fact most of the hikers weren’t speaking English as they passed us. Turns out it was just around the next two corners. The waterfalls were barely there, judging from the picture I’ve seen of it after the fact, but it was still beautiful and well worth it.

We headed back to the condo after that. Tired, but having taken a lot of good pictures. My son and daughter in law went to a play and we watched the kids. Deb said as soon as their tired heads hit their pillows they were out like a light. 

After yet another wonderful breakfast, we went for a swim. There were two pools and two hot tubs at the complex. We chose the upper pool because it had a waterfall and because the lower pool was closed until the chlorine level came down. It was too shallow to dive into, but, at 7 feet, I could jump in without hitting the bottom too hard. We swam for a couple of hours.

There’s an outlet mall near St. George, so the women headed over that direction. Us guys, the four of us, played around the house, then we drove over to the Red Cliffs in Pioneer Park. 

 Pictures from Pioneer Park

 Little rock climber

 No waterfall here

We climbed them. Well, it was my son and his family that climbed them, and then came back to help us up. My son is very sure footed and was zinging around those cliffs like he was on flat ground. Getting down was a problem too. I would start to go down one way and he would tell me, “No come this way, it’s cake.” Every time he would say that the way down would be progressively worse. Finally I didn’t care anymore and went over the five foot jump. Didn’t break my neck because he was there to catch me at the bottom. Should have gone down the first way I found though.

I’ve never used a natural gas grill before. Deb cooked the inside stuff while I grilled the steaks. I did pretty well. The pork I grilled two days later was another story. After I grilled it, it was still too rare so I cut it up and grilled it again. It turned out good still.

Went to the local church on Sunday. They have a lot of retirees living there. One announcement was for the weekly golf game. I looked there are nine golf courses in the town and nearby area. It seemed like a lot. After church we went and walked around the temple. It’s a beautiful structure. Found out it was made out of the local red rocks and then plaster and painted white. A lot of the temples are made out of white marble. Then we went out to the petroglyphs nearby. 

 I can see some mother dragging her son off by the ear. If I've told you once, I've told you a million times, stop writing on the cliffs

It was hot by the time we got there. I didn’t check the weather, but some said it was around 105. With the sun beating down on us, it was a hard hike with no shade to be had anywhere. Deb was getting overheated so she went back to the van with daughter in law and the boys. My son and I continued on the cliffs where we took some wonderful pictures.

Getting back to the condo, we cooled Deb off and she was feeling better. It was a blast playing games every night, after the kids were in bed. It was cute, they were so exhausted by all the hiking that they went to bed easily.

The final day arrived, we went swimming again for an hour. After checking out of the condo late, we then hiked up to see a waterfall that wasn’t there because the river had dried up. It was still a pretty area so we hiked all around it.

My son stopped at a burger place for us to get some food. They had a special. Burger, fries and a mini milkshake. Only the mini was 8 inches tall. I wondered how big a non-mini was. It had a cup inside a cup which was strange. Really good though. After lunch, the kids started driving back to Salt Lake and we drove back to Las Vegas.

I decided that I don’t really like Vegas. If you’re not big into gambling or shows it’s just a boring, expensive city, with a whole lot of walking. We had a wonderful view of the strip from our hotel upgraded room though and a bathtub you could wash two baby elephant in at the same time.

The flight home wasn’t bad. I booked an aisle seat for Deb and a window seat for me. Nobody wanted the seat between us so we had room to spread out.

Traffic out of Seattle was murder. It was stop and go the entire 80 miles home.

When we arrived, we were tired, but had had a good time.