Down South

Once again, we had another great weekend in Southern Utah. We stayed at the Value Inn in Cedar City, which was a great hotel. (especially when compared to the Motel 6 in Green River!)
On our way down, I called Mom and asked her if Bryce Canyon was worth visiting. She said that if we weren't going to Bryce Canyon, we may as well turn around! I have to agree! If you have the chance to go to Bryce Canyon, DO IT! It is amazing! Before we went to Bryce, we saw Cedar Breaks, which was also amazing and just a warm up of Bryce. Here are some photos of it:



We dropped our car off at the visitor's center, then took a shuttle to what is called "Bryce Point." We took a long hike through some trail loops to "Sunset Point", and it seemed like every time we turned the corner, the view was incredible. At Sunset Point, we got back on the shuttle and picked up our car. This was a very handy way of seeing the park. Of course, these pictures don't really actually capture it, but here they are:






This is me being really excited to be almost done with the hike!

After a day of hiking that completely wore us out, we thought it would be good to go see Henry V at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. We got some discount student $10 tickets, and enjoyed the play a lot. It kind of made us laugh to go, because we were still in our nasty hiking clothes, and other people had dressed up for it.

On Saturday, we went to the St. George temple. After a session there, we went to Zion's National Park, where we drove through to see the gorgeous scenery, and bought some souvenirs.

Once we got done seeing Zion's, I looked at the map as the self-appointed navigator, and said that we could either go out of our way to take the highway, or we could take a "short cut" back to Cedar City. We opted for the "short cut," which ended up being a long cut. After a little while, it turned into a dirt road. We had to do a little four-wheeling in the Honda Civic. We had to ford two streams (ok, very small streams, but still . . .) On the way through our crazy journey, we ran into some cows and took a picture of them:
After we got done on our adventure, the car looked like this:
I told Chris that I would want to kill him if he had led me on such an escapade, but he was a really good sport and thought that it was a lot of fun and kind of an adventure.
So, we learned many things from our vacation:
1. If you have the option of taking a highway that is a little out of the way, or a short cut, take the highway.
2. Wherever you are, there you are. So be there. A very deep thought from Chris.
3. National Parks are a great reminder of the many beauties that we have been given.