July 29 - Day 47

Jul 29

Abnormal weather can be a blessing or a curse. Sometimes both. When I was planning the Zion National Park portion of our trip, I heavily considered booking hotel rooms due to the average daytime high hanging around 100 degrees this time of year with some days hotter than that. However, we scored a campsite in the Watchman Campground, just inside the national park. It has electrical hookups, which means we can run our air conditioner all night. This seemed fine as we would be able to deal with the potential heat.

We’ve been blessed while hear to have daytime temps in the mid 80’s. Why this much cooler? We experienced thunderstorms and heavy rain. This has been the curse. Besides the heavy rain and having to have the 8 of us (Snyder’s + my mom + Cassidy) hangout in the RV, some of the hikes and portions of the national park were closed due to probable flash floods. We still made the best of it.

A few highlights/memorable moments from the day:

After a slow start to the day (and me accidently grabbing my mom’s sunscreen that has zinc oxide in it), we took the park shuttle up Zion Canyon to the far end to do the Riverside Walk and potentially part of the Narrows. However, due to probable flash floods, most of these trails were closed. Nonetheless, it was still a beautiful place to be.
Since we couldn’t complete the hike we intended to do, we rode the shuttle back down the canyon to Zion Lodge where we had a picnic lunch on their lawn. Becca and I then went on the short Lower Emerald Pools hike (1.5 miles) while my mom and all the kids continued to hang out at the lodge.
Obadiah once again became a Junior Ranger (#11 of the trip). Generally, Ilena has happily participated with Obadiah, but she decided not to today.
We eventually made our way back to camp just as the thunderstorms rolled in. The kids watched a movie in the RV, Becca caught up on a few things she needed to do on the computer, and I worked for a while. Not the same as continuing to explore, but the break and quiet time was probably needed.

A few pictures from the day: