After eight years of driving four kids around in a Toyota Corolla (lovingly dubbed the 'barf mobile'), I finally got a new car. After months of shopping around I settled on the LTZ Suburban. I fell in love with the black leather, OnStar, XM Radio, heated and cooled seats, retractable running boards that make me feel like a princess when I step out of the car and rays of heavenly light that poured from what is the largest trunk on the market. Not to mention the hypnotizing effect on the children from the two TV's in the back (Carlos actually started calling the kids zombies because they are so immersed in watching TV they don't pay us any attention at all. Which we love.)
Encouraged by what is essentially a traveling fortress Carlos and I decided to drive to the yearly family 4th of July party in Maryland instead of flying. After about two months of preparation we left our precious widdle dog Magwai with a house sitter and we set off...
We left on the very last day of school and had 10 days to traverse the USA and make it Maryland in time for the 4th of July. The first stop was Utah. Carlos had done a ton of research on Utah and we decided to dedicate a large portion of our trip to it's national parks. We drove from Palmdale to St. George Utah on day 1 and made plans to see Zion National Park the next day. Driving the 15 freeway through Vegas we experienced one of the hottest climates on the trip:
We would find ourselves in rain, thunderstorms and even SNOW on this journey but only in Cali did we experience the searing temperatures seen above. And yes, we are driving a Suburban and getting 76 miles to the gallon. Jealous? Don't be. We were coasting down a hill.
Took a short stop over in Vegas and ran into Caesar's Palace to buy a decent camera. Realized when the parking garage was 111 degrees that bringing Magwai would have never worked out. Here's a shot of the inside of the Palace:
Took a short stop over in Vegas and ran into Caesar's Palace to buy a decent camera. Realized when the parking garage was 111 degrees that bringing Magwai would have never worked out. Here's a shot of the inside of the Palace:
We woke up in a different time zone, having gained an hour entering into Utah. St. George is a small city that boasts nothing noteworthy and we decided to get sandwiches to take into the park as we were told there are few places to eat when inside. This is where I had my first Jimmy John's sandwich which is actually a very popular sub shop that we encountered all across the US. It's known for the same thing that our cupcakes are known for (putting crack in the bread). I love the decor:
We headed out to Zion and we had the first of two things we would deal with frequently on the trip. The first one was that Nadia barfed. The second one was that Carlos started complaining that he missed Magwai. Actually, the later probably started about an hour into the trip but I guess day 2 was the day I thought missing Magwai already was reasonable.
Personally I found Zion to be one of the least interesting parks on the trip. The park is basically a road that runs between some very large reddish mountains. There are some rivers with frigid water that is so cold it hurts to put your feet in it despite how darn hot you are from the unrelenting sun and total lack of wind and shade. I was also fretting about my 12 pack of cupcakes from Nadia Cakes that I left in the car. They were ruined I will have you know, totally ruined.
The one thing that I really enjoyed in Zion however was the Weeping Rock. Rain and melting snow seep into the mountain on top, spend months working their way way through the rock and come out on the over hang that they call the Weeping Rock. The ceiling of this mountain actually seems to be raining and it is nice and cool in there as well which made us linger longer than necessary. The water is filtered by the silt inside the mountain which led Carlos to erroneously declare that the water was safe to drink so all the kids spent the next hour catching this dripping rock water in their water bottles and drinking it. On the way out we saw the posted signs warning people not to drink the water because of giardia. Oops.
After the Weeping Wall we reboarded our bus and saw the rest of the park. There were signs everywhere warning people to not feed the squirrels with a disgusting picture of a gruesome squirrel bite on someones hand. This photo later prompted panic and screaming when a curious squirrel came sniffing around our lunch. Wish I had gotten a picture of the sign!
There was some talk of us taking a long hike but with the kids and my bad knee we opted against it. It should be noted that pretty much from the start of the first outing on our trip Nadia had begun to whine "I want to go back to the hotel!" on the quarter of the hour, every hour. Carlos DID make her pee in a bush though in a part of the park where there was no bathroom (which all parents can agree is the ONLY place kids EVER have to use the bathroom.). Admittedly though I was happy to be back in the car and on the way to the hotel after Zion. It was way too hot for my liking!
