May 4th, we were driving down the road. Suddenly we appeared in a forest of Joshua Trees. Dad and I had been looking for one since Tuzigoot and suddenly we were surrounded by them. I just wanted to let you know, Joshua, that I took a picture with one for you.
Me and the Joshua Tree
On May 3rd we finished our Death Valley junior ranger packets. When we got to the Visitor Center, we went to a table and looked at an album that taught you about the park. We had to look for a nocturnal animal. Guess what? I got a Badger. Don’t you think they are not nocturnal?
We turned in our junior ranger packets. Ranger Mike did our packets and our pledge. He was so nice.
Us with Ranger Mike
We went to the Salt River to see pupfish. When we got there we were all so hot. My dad and Ana and Greta left and me and Mommy and Stella stayed and locked up the RV. Then we came and saw minnows which were actually pupfish. We walked up to Daddy and said look at the pupfish. I thought they were so cute. We saw males chasing each other around and around. I told Daddy that I wanted one as a pet because they were cute.
Watching pupfish at the Salt River
After that we left Death Valley. I had fun but I hated the hotness.
After leaving Vegas and going to Trader Joe’s, we headed into my least favorite national park so far: Death Valley. I tell you, it was HOT. Grossly hot, disgustingly hot. By the time I could see the valley I was sweating by butt off and I was DYING. Now I don’t question why they call it Death Valley. When we reached sea level it was even worse. We took a picture of the “Sea Level” sign:
Ana doesn't actually look THAT hot. She did a lot better than me, that's for sure! You'd think living in Atlanta would teach me about hot weather extremes!
We finally got to the visitor center in Furnace Creek, at the bottom of the valley, and got out of the RV. I sprinted into the building, which to my fabulous luck was well air-conditioned. I’m not sure if I had ever appreciated air-conditioning as much as I had right then. After meeting the rangers and finding out more about the park, we went to do a walk in the lowest point in North America- Badwater Basin. I also believe it is a place where people can die of being overheated. We were 282 feet below sea level when we reached the salt flats where we would be walking. It was kinda cool ’cause there was a sign on the side of the cliff 282 feet above us saying “Sea Level”:
You see it way up there?! Directly above the RV, halfway up the cliff.
The ground was full of salt, (you could lean down and taste it!) and water that flows into the basin carries it there. The walk was excruciatingly hot, and Dad and Jean made me wear a ridiculous hat ’cause of the sun. Go ahead and laugh; I know I look SOOOOOOOO stupid. Here we are in Badwater Basin:
On the salt flats. Do we look as hot as I say we are?
We unfortunately had to go on another hike that night into the golden canyon. Luckily it wasn’t very long. It was really pretty and the heat was actually worth it for this one, except at the end. The sand fleas came out and bit Stella and me to pieces, so I guess that wasn’t so great. Those bites hurt!!!
We stayed at a campground very close to the visitor center. We had a small meal of sandwiches and salad ’cause Jean didn’t want to turn on the oven because of the heat. We went to bed sweating. I hated it. 🙁
Death Valley was awful!!! Go there only if you like extreme heat and sweating basically all the water out of your body.
We went to a lunch buffet at Treasure Island. Our dad told us to get a lot of vegetables and healthy food before we went to the desert line. I got mashed potatoes, bbq ribs, a biscuit, and a huge caesar’s salad. I felt a little full, but I remembered it was time for desert. Me and Stella ran to get our deserts. We split some cinnamon donuts and powdered donuts, and we each grabbed a cookie. We also got ice cream; Stella got chocolate vanilla swirl and I got tropical fruit. Greta told us she had gotten malted milk balls. We all went back and got malted milk balls, three each. We stuffed them in our pockets to save them for later because they were so good.
Dad says this picture sums up Las Vegas better than anything else
After lunch we continued our walk along the Vegas Strip.
On May 2nd, we took a day in Vegas and it was AWESOME. I love the city so so so much. We woke up and got ready; I got my camera because I knew I would be taking tons of pictures. Our campground was at an old casino called Circus Circus, and we went through it to get into the city. I would tell you every single thing about it, but the day was too long and there was just too much to even remember every detail. I was glad I took my camera- throughout the course of the day I took almost 400 pictures! I’m not even kidding.
If only I could shop there
We saw lots of cool casinos- Treasure Island, with two life-size pirate ships, Mirage, a fancy one with lots of fountains, and Venetian, a casino with a sky on the ceiling inside! There were lots more but those are some of the big ones. Then we went to one called Caesar’s Palace and I took over 100 pictures of all the glamorous shops.
There's Poseidon, Stella's hero in huge form
By this time we were very hungry, so we stopped back in at Treasure Island and found a buffet. It was DELICIOUS, except for one thing: I accidentally ate a SUPER hot pepper that left me in pain for hours afterward. I had sushi, sandwiches, pasta, salad…..and of course dessert; LOTS of it! Everything (except the pepper!) tasted so good.
The moat in front of Treasure Island. Doesn't it look like it is about to eat Stella?
After lunch we got a bus pass and rode around in an awesome double-decker bus and looked around at all the casinos we hadn’t seen yet: Luxor, a casino shaped like a giant pyramid, Excalibur, one shaped like a castle, and New York New York, with a Statue of Liberty made entirely out of jelly beans! Jelly beans are my absolute favorite candy, so it was a completely awesome surprise to see it! Here I am with it:
I wanted to eat this Statue of Liberty so badly!
We saw a super cool fountain show at Bellagio, another casino, and then we headed back to Circus Circus to take a little break. Our feet hurt and some of us had headaches. However, that little break never did happen. We got last-minute tickets to The Blue Man Group, this show starring these three crazy men painted completely blue that do hilarious bizarre things. I’m telling you, they are HYSTERICAL. You have GOT to see them. We rushed back to the RV to get our sweatshirts, picked up sandwiches at a Subway, then caught a shuttle to Venetian where the show was playing. We ran to the theater and watched the show, laughing our heads off and enjoying the show thoroughly. I won’t tell you any more about it ’cause you’ve gotta go see it for yourself.
Doesn't he look awesome?
For the rest of the night we rode around on the shuttle looking at all the casinos lit up. They were so pretty. We watched a pirate show at Treasure Island but it was a big disappointment because we could hardly see anything and nothing really that exciting happened. After the show we seemed to wait FOREVER for the bus to come, and then we finally rode back to the RV and went to bed. It was an exhausting, fun, and exciting day!
On May 1st, we went to Las Vegas to get Momma from Denver. We were in a big rush to get Momma, because I wanted to see her. But then she texted Stella and guess what she said? Her flight was delayed for one hour. So we stopped at a Subway for dinner. We had a big surprise, it was closed. We kept driving and found a Subway that was open. I had a BLT. Then we drove all the way to Las Vegas.
Driving in, we saw the big needle building. It had a roller coaster on top. We drove past Circus Circus. We saw our campground in back of Circus Circus, but kept driving so we could see the casinos. They were cool. We Daddy said Caesar’s Palace was on the left, I thought he said Caesar’s Salad. We saw part of the pirate show on the way back to Circus Circus.
We did not gamble in the casinos.
We went to the campground and went to bed, because it was getting very late. We did not pick up Momma at the airport because she was getting to Las Vegas late. Even later than before her flight got delayed the first time. When Momma got to the campground I was the only kid awake. She hugged me. I was glad I was awake so Momma could hug me.
May 1st, we got ready for our last day at the awesome Zion National Park. It really was awesome, especially that last day. We went on two hikes, and we were planning to do four and a half miles of hiking. But of all the walking in the whole day, we walked about five or five and a half miles. It wasn’t hard, though, actually, it was quite easy, but doesn’t it sound like a lot of walking to you? Five miles? Sounds like quite a lot to me. ( Although we did six miles yesterday so easily that I thought we did only four.)
So anyway, the first hike we did was two miles, (and these were extremely easy miles that were all paved and flat) one mile in, one mile back. The hike went to the beginning of the Narrows, a hike where the only path is the Virgin River. It goes through narrow valleys and it’s one of the most advanced hikes in the country. Since it flows through thin and narrow valleys, it is called the Narrows.
We walked the first trail, down to the Narrows, and it was pretty fun. It was also pretty horrifying, though, because of all the squirrels. People in Atlanta, you might be thinking, squirrels? There are tons of squirrels here! And they aren’t scary at all! They’re just little furry animals with bushy tails that don’t even come anywhere near you! And hey! Don’t say squirrels are mean or scary because I like these squirrels and I’m very protective of them! Well, I feel the same way about the Atlanta squirrels, but the squirrels here in Zion give me nightmares. I might sound ridiculous but they were SO SCARY!! They kept on running across the hiking path, right in front of me. Sometimes they were so close that I almost stepped on them. They were really scary in that way. But also, they were really aggressive because humans feed them. When humans feed wild animals, the animals forget how to live on their own.
But anyway, the squirrels. The squirrels were really aggressive because they have been fed their whole lives.
On the way back from the entrance to the Narrows, there was this one woman who was trying to get her picture taken with the pretty, colorful rocks in the backround, and she sat on a colorful stone or rock or whatever you want to call it with a second one right next to it, almost touching, and a squirrel came up to her, thinking she was sitting there, waiting for the squirrel to come up to her (which it did) and get some delicious, yummy food. When it came up, at first it only came up to the bottom of the rock right next to the one she was sitting on, but pretty soon it decided that wasn’t enough. He jumped up on the rock and sat up there watching her. Then he stuck his paw out and scratched at her sleeve… If I were that lady I would have given up my picture, screamed, peed, and ran! I really was scared of those squirrels…
On the way to the second hike, we got off the shuttle at the Zion Lodge. When we stopped to pick up litter, Ana spotted a gray fox. It was awesome! It was so awesome, I almost forgot to add it in the post!
Ana spotted this gray fox near the Zion Lodge
The second hike was to the Emerald Pools. The Emerald Pools are these seep springs coming from the top of the mountains and making pools when they had to go onto flat land. There was a lower pool, a few middle pools,(which were closed) and an upper pool. We were planning to hike all the way up to the upper pool, which we did, but you have to pass by the lower pool to get to the upper pool.
There were three mule deer along the Emerald Pools trail
Once we made it up to the upper pool, we got to have our peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches that we had packed. Right when we were getting finished with our food, a squirrel came close, so close that I… Can you guess what I did? You’re probably thinking, Screamed, peed, and ran! And you’re very close… I screamed, leapt and ran! And man, I leapt far! I shreiked and took off for the trail!
We headed back down the trail to the bottom and we made it back safe and dry.
That day was pretty fun… I’ll have more tomorrow!
April 30th was our third day in Zion National Park. Me, Ellie, Stella, Greta, and Daddy went to Taylor Creek, which is in a different part of the park, in Kolob Canyons. We went on a long hike up into a canyon, where you cross Taylor Creek about 40 times to get to the end of the trail, then you hike back. Actually, not a long hike, because around the 13th creek crossing, one of my feet went in the icy cold water when me and Greta were crossing.
This Taylor Creek crossing was long and difficult, but we made it across this one.
Daddy took his clean shirt and put my wet sock in it and rolled it up to squeeze the water out. Then he stuffed his shirt inside my wet shoe. Greta felt very bad for me, so I decided to give her something that she wanted, which was to go swimming. Daddy asked me if I wanted to go back or keep on hiking, so I said go back. On the way back, we were crossing the creek at another difficult place, and a lady helped us get across. She tried to pick me up and lift me across the rocks, instead of just holding my hand, and both my feet went in the water. This time we just kept on walking because it took a long time before to dry out my shoe and this time both were wet and we were close to our RV anyway. It wasn’t so bad walking with wet shoes.
We drove to a lookout over six different canyons. My dad says they were the Kolob Canyons. They looked like fins, all lined up in a row. We could see Zion Canyon from the lookout, far away. My dad pointed it out.
Looking out at the Kolob Canyons in Zion National Park
After Kolob Canyons, we drove down to the campground and went swimming. The pool was heated and it was inside. It was nice and fun. We played who-can-jump-the-farthest and who-can-have-the-littlest-spash and who-can-have-the-biggest-spash and who-can-have-the-loudest-spash and dolphins. Then we took showers and walked to Subway for dinner. I had a footlong BLT with pickles on it. It was good.
April 29th, we got up early to go catch a shuttle with Ranger Sonja to get a tour of Zion Canyon. Ranger Sonja checked off all our names and we saw she had a caterpillar crawling up her arm. On the tour, Ranger Sonja told us all about the canyon. We learned a rockfall happened one year and people were trapped at the Zion Lodge. We learned that three mountain peaks in a row were called the three patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they were named by the Mormons who settled there. We learned how to tell the difference between a California Condor and a Turkey Vulture: Turkey Vultures usually fly in groups, Condors by themselves; Turkey Vultures have white feather tips on their wings, but Condors have white on the leading edge of their wings; Condors are the biggest bird in North America with a wingspan of more than nine feet. We also learned that at one time the Condor was almost extinct. There were only 22 left. Now there are about 400.
We saw a seep spring along the tour. A seep spring is where water comes out of the sandstone. Water at the top of the canyon get soaked into the sandstone and flows down through the canyon walls until it hits the harder rock layers below. Then it has to go sideways and seeps out of the sandstone walls. It can take a thousand years for the water to go from the top of the canyon to where it seeps out. Ranger Sonja told us all the water in the park comes from the seep springs. Someone spotted a duck swimming in a pond up on the canyon wall below the seep spring.
We could look up and see Angels’ Landing, where we hiked the day before. We couldn’t see Walter’s Wiggles, but we could see the top of them where we stopped. And, we could see the narrow ridge that you had to hold on to chains to get to the end of the trail at the tip of Angels’ Landing. Looking at it from below, it was easy to see why we decided not to hike that part of the trail.
From the floor of Zion Canyon we could see the Angels' Landing hike. The part of the hike with the chains goes along the top of the dark ridge from the right side all the way up to the tip.
We drove to St. George to drop off my mom. She had to fly to Denver for work. I felt sad having to take Mom to her second flight away from us.
After we dropped my mom off, we made enchiladas for dinner. We mixed the chicken and beans and cheese and stuff inside the tortillas and covered them with salsa and put them in the oven. We were really hunger while we were waiting for them to cook. The timer finally went off, but then we remembered we had to sprinkle cheese on them and let them cook for five more minutes. We were really unhappy because we had to wait such a long time while we were smelling them, but they tasted so good. We all had seconds.
On April 28th, we entered Zion National Park- through a tunnel!
Zion is just gorgeous; there is every kind of beauty in the park. Mountains, canyons, wildlife, all the beautiful things you would find in a national park. Dad said it would be one of the most spectacular views on the entire trip, and he was so right. To enter the park, we had to drive through a super long tunnel that was carved through a mountain. It was awesome. With that I knew the actual park would be amazing.
We parked at the visitor center, and Ellie and I had our most terrifying experience there. There were caterpillars. Lots and lots of them. THOUSANDS of caterpillars. I absolutely HATE crawly things. Roaches, caterpillars, spiders… Ellie is scared of that kind of thing too. They were everywhere; I know I stepped on at least twenty, and I tried SO hard not to get their nasty guts all over my shoes. I took a picture of a pole covered in them to show you how many there were. Here it is: (EEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWW!!!)
Oh my gosh this has got to be one of the grossest things I have ever seen!
We took a shuttle around Zion Canyon to see all the great views, and then we rode to meet our ranger for a talk about how the canyon was formed. The ranger’s name was Adrienne and her talk was very interesting. She talked about the colors in the canyon walls, the Virgin River, (the river that carved the canyon) and the age of the rocks and the different layers in the canyon walls. Ana really liked the talk, or maybe she just really liked Adrienne. She followed her around during the entire walk. Jean joked that maybe Ana thought that the ranger was her mama and that she had lost her mama like a little duck in a story we know. Here she is, like a baby duck behind her mama duck:
Like a mama duck with her ducklings
After the ranger talk, we took the shuttle to The Grotto, a bus stop where our trailhead was. We were hiking the Angels’ Landing trail, but we weren’t going all the way to the top ’cause it was going to start getting dark and the last bit of the trail was steep and terrifying. The path was paved, but it was steep and tiring to walk up. When we reached the top we realized there was still quite a bit to go, but at least we were under the shade of the canyon walls. There was a cool little cave on the side of the trail, and we took our picture in it:
Isn't that a great little cave? Very cozy!
When we reached Walter’s Wiggles, I knew that we were almost to our destination, Scout’s Lookout. Walter’s Wiggles is an incredibly steep part of the trail with 21 switchbacks (I counted!) that is the last part before Scout’s Lookout. It’s also the toughest part before Scout’s Landing.
Stella is looking down at the wiggles (in her new hat!). You might be able to spot me near the very bottom.
We were all tired and hungry but we made it up anyway, huffing and puffing. We scarfed down our sandwiches at the top, grateful that we had packed dinner. After that Dad, Stella, and I decided to try a little bit of the rest of the trail leading to Angels’ Landing. We barely made it up at all because of the insane steepness of the “path” (there wasn’t really a path; there were just chains to grab on to) and we were basically hanging off the edge of the canyon. Dad was terrified that one of us would slip and fall so we turned around.
There we are on the trail to Angel's Landing!
The hike back was a breeze because the air was much cooler and the whole thing was downhill. We chatted, ate cookies, and had a good time. Ellie and Ana did a great dance show for us near the bottom.
Sunset on the cliffs in Zion Canyon
When we finished it wasn’t even dark. We hopped on the shuttle and rode back to the visitor center, where we were parked. Most of the caterpillars were up in the trees by then so it wasn’t as bad, but I swear at least one fell in my hair. It was horrifying.
I loved the first day in Zion; now read on to find out about our other days at the park! 😀