Grand Canyon

We live 2.5 hours or less from 3 national parks. When we moved to St. George, we traded in our annual membership to the Natural History Museum for a year membership to Zion National Park. We love taking a day, or half a day to drive up, do some hiking and drive home. On Tuesday we met the Urquharts for some hiking and swimming in the river. There is a section of the river that flows over a smooth long rock that slopes down like a slide. Even though we didn't have swimsuits and the river was COLD, the kids jumped right in to slide.

We were feeling a little bad for ourselves that we didn't have anywhere fun to go over Memorial Day weekend, so at the last minute we decided to drive to the Grand Canyon (North Rim). We stayed at a "rustic" cabin:
This picture kind of says it all about Colin lately. He's obsessed with Batman (loves playing Lego Batman), wears a cape 24/7 (yes, even to bed) and has started carrying this orange bat everywhere with him (his "batwing"). He also gives the peace sign whenever he poses for pictures.

While there, the kids got their Junior Ranger badges. This involved attending a program (we chose one about geology) and filling out some pages in the junior ranger handbook. We went on a hike and observed the layers, the older kids wrote haikus about the Grand Canyon and they used their senses and described what they were experiencing. They were questioned about the whole experience and then sworn in (seriously) by a real park ranger. They pledged to protect the Grand Canyon and learn all they could about it.


Here are a few pictures from Bright Angel lookout.