Zion National Park

Here’s where this becomes more of a vacation brag-blog than a blog about having a baby. Sorry, but you’ll find little nuggets of info about vacationing with a pregnant woman here too.

She was ravenous when we woke, so we stopped for breakfast at the Virgin River Casino – another ugly sprawl of gaudy flashing lights and tacky decorations. Inside was a typical casino – lots of noisy machines populated by largely older people sucking on cigarettes while staring at the blinky lights on the screens.

As with most casinos this one had a buffet. She had a huge breakfast – I was amazed that she ate everything. Her morning sickness is subsiding – she’s not nearly as sensitive to odours and not complaining as much about nausea when she gets hungry.

We drove on to Springdale UT where we parked and took the shuttle bus into Zion National Park. We went to the far end of the road and did the River Walk trail, admiring the amazing canyon and its forest. We saw an elk across the river browsing on shrubs, as well as many very fat squirrels along the path. We stopped when the trail got to the river – we didn’t have the energy nor the boots to walk up the river to see the slot canyons. We seemed to be surrounded by lots of European tourists – I heard German, Dutch and French.

We went back on the bus to the Big Bend where we got a lot of photos. This is where the river was diverted around a harder bit of rock and erosion created a huge 270 degree bend with sheer rock walls. Standing in the middle of it, you’re completely surrounded by these reddish canyon walls with the wind blowing around.

By this point we were both quite tired and she needed something to eat. We made our way back to the Zion Lodge for a snack and drink. After resting for a while we visited the gift shop before deciding it was time to head back to the car. Originally we had thought of hiking up to the Emerald Pools but quickly realized that her energy levels weren’t up to it (neither were mine, but we won’t tell her that!).

We got back to our car and drove through Zion to the East Entrance – through the Zion-Mount Carmel highway and tunnel. That tunnel is really small and dark – and the other side of the mountain is quite different from the Zion canyons. Lots of striated sandstone rock, with red and white striping carved with strange grooves that looked like someone pulled a giant comb randomly across the surface. There was also a bunch of greyish rock that had lots of folds and wrinkles that looked like elephant skin.A very beautiful and unusual drive.

The next hour or so was spent getting increasingly frustrated as we drove from Hatch on to Panguitch trying to find accomodations for the night. Finally we found a really crappy little family-run motel with cramped rooms and old 60s-style decoration around 9 pm. A quick drive later we found the only café left open and finally had some dinner. Whew!