ZION NATIONAL PARK (and Vegas)

This past weekend Ted and I flew to Vegas for a night and then spent a long weekend in Zion National Park in southern Utah. Allegiant flys cheap into Vegas but the flight gets in late, so we figured we may as well stay there for the night. We stayed at the MGM Grand in the "West Wing" which was very modern and hip and all that. It was nice. We stayed up and gambled (losing about $30 I think) until early in the morning.

I purchased and consumed most of a half-yard of weird orange sweet booze drink. Probably 2000 calories in the drink. I brought it into the sushi restaurant with me and sneakily worked on it there. It was a little embarassing but it was also really late and I expected they have probably seen worse than people coming in with their half yards of orange drink.

For the most part I find gambling boring but we found this incredibly cool racehorse game. Everyone sits around the table and bets on the horses. Slowly they run around and you cheer and maybe win your quarter back or more. The horsie game was completely addicting. Ted took a video but I'm not sure you will all be as enthralled as we were. The game took awhile and, if you wanted to, you could easily stretch $20 to last all night. We hung out playing the horsies until 4 a.m. Pacific, which was an absolute feat for me.

Early Saturday morning, despite being up so very late, we drove to Zion which is only a couple hours from Vegas. Ted and I intended to hike the Zion Narrows, which is evidently a spectacular hike down the river through narrow slot canyon type terrain. Unfortunately, for the first day all year, it was closed due to flash flood risk. We were able to hike about a mile up towards the mouth of the canyon, but could not even see the beginning. Oh well.

Saturday night we hiked to Scoggins Wash on the Coalpits Wash trail and camped. It was really cool to be out alone in the desert. The stars at night were incredible, and the perfectly clear morning was breathtaking.

There are many spectacular views in Zion and my pictures hardly do them justice.

Ted and I did one hike that began with this sign. A little ominous. I have a bit of a fear of heights and can be a real wuss when it comes to things like precarious cliffs and exposure. Nonetheless, I went forward boldly. The hike was to Hidden Canyon, which was hidden up high. To get there you had to hug some cliff edges.

Hmmmm. . . I wasn't too sure about going forward on the edge of the cliff. I'm a wimp when it comes to these things. Fear of heights and all.

Although it was totally out of character for me, I went forward on the hike, gripping the chain that is provided for extra safety. Really, it wasn't that bad.

At the end of the traversible part of the Hidden Canyon is this arch. Very cool.

Ted making his way down the cliff ledge, gripping the chain for dear life. Maybe that's an exaggeration.

A little bouldering thrown in for good measure.

It was a great long weekend. I highly recommend it. Thanks Ted for planning it! And I didn't run the whole weekend!