More Zion Moments (Zion National Park, UT)

Travel Day!  We are heading to Hill AFB near Ogden, UT.  I'm not sure about traveling north so fast.  We went from 94 degrees to 54 degrees in less than two days and this morning........34 degreeeeeess!  Darn, now I need to pull out my sweatshirts again.

A view from Springdale.  Outside Zion NP's gate.

So, before we move on, I wanted to share some more photos of our stay at the Zion National Park.  I posted some different photos in our 2TooManyCats blog if you want to see more photos.  And of course, one of these days, I will upload all the photos to Flickr along with all the others that are overdue...

Day 2, we decided to do something easy and more level.  We took the Riverside Walk to the beginning of the Narrows.  We spent some time watching a few people coming back and heading out into the Narrows.  Quite a few were wearing dry suits.  The water was deeper than I remember from our last visit and it felt very cold.  The visitor's center said the temp was 46 degrees.  Brrr!  I don't want to walk for two hours in that cold water!

Everywhere I look..I see tourists with food!
They are coming in by the busload!

During our walk, we saw lots of squirrels, lizards, flowers, and stunning views.  I had a very sore neck from looking up all the time.  Actually, I had a sore neck from most of our hikes.

It's a good thing there were flowers to view once in awhile or I might have had a permanent kink in my neck.  Such a delicate flower with hardy roots living in the side of a rock.

Day 3, we drove to the east side of the tunnel.  From the parking lot, we hiked the Canyon Overlook Trail.  I know the photo below is not the best, but I was trying to get all of this tree's root into the photo.  The root starts in the lower right hand corner and goes a good ten feet across the path (pass Beverly) to tree.

With that kind of root system, I can see why the trees are able to live and hang onto the cliff's sides now.  That is one hardy tree!

Day 4, we hiked the Watchman's Trail.  I was a little more worn out by this one with the higher elevation on a warmer day, but the views were worth every minute of the hike.

We came across some different flowers as we climbed higher...

...and coming back down the trail, we found this gorgeous cactus flower had opened to the sun.

My favorite was this lizard.  Jay and Beverly are standing right next to this rock.  We were not sure if this guy was wanting to pose for them or if he was guarding his rock.

Day 5, last but not least, we did the Pa'rus Trail and Zion Human History Museum.  I think we were all feeling a little tired by then and ready for an easy walk...allll downhill.

Well, our time came to an end too quickly.  Where did the time go??  We had to say good-bye to Jay and Beverly.  We had a great time visiting and getting to know Beverly.  I hope we can get together again soon.

On The Cutting Board
I plan to pick up my needle and start quilting while we travel north.  In the meantime, I want to Thank Kat from Kat and Cat Quilts for nominating my blog for the Liebster Award.  I do appreciate the recognition and I hope you will stop by her blog to say hello or visit her Etsy shop:  Kat & Cat Quilts .  She has some beautiful quilts in both!  I like this pattern that she offers in her shop.

Fly South, charm pack quilt or throw
pattern by Kat & Cat Quilts

Happy Quilting!

Walking Through Zion (Zion National Park, UT)

Doesn't Dusty look peaceful?  He was until I took his photo, but it didn't take him long to get back to his cat nap.  As my Fabric Inspector, he deserves a break.  I haven't lifted a needle since we got here.

We have been hiking and visiting every day since my brother Jay arrived with his fiancé Beverly.  Lots of catching up to do with Jay and getting to know my new SIL-to-be!

Beverly, Jay, Dan

I'm getting ready for another hike for today so this will be short.  I am posting some photos from our first hike to the Lower, Middle, Upper Emerald Pools.  I was surprised that I wasn't more sore the next day.  What a shock it was to realize that I was more than ready for more hiking the next day and the day after and today.

Middle Emerald Pool falling into the Lower Emerald Pool

I do feel a little exhausted after our hikes, but in a good way.

Lower Emerald Pool

 Funny, I haven't felt a need to get more sleep.  If anything, I am sleeping less.

I guess between the views, the company, and all the fresh air, I am feeling extra spry.  Now, if I can just bottle up the extra energy for later...

Jay, Beverly, Dan, and Me

The squirrels are very aggressive in the more heavily visited areas by tourists.  At the Upper Emerald Pool, a couple of these little guys were looking for fallen crumbs, blatantly begging for food....

or stealing the food when people were not looking.  One squirrel sat between Jay and Beverly while they were having a snack.  One even poked at Beverly's back and managed to steal some of her trail mix!

We think the squirrel should be fined for stealing her food.  See, I even got a picture of him breaking into another person's bag.  Yep, caught red-pawed!
Happy Trails!

Zen In Zion (Zion National Park, UT)

We made it to Zion National Park around 4pm.  What a view!  It has a Zen feel to the area and I need that right now.

I wasn't feeling to Zen when we were on the road yesterday.  The night before our travel day, I woke around midnight to high winds shaking our motorhome.  Yep, 65 mph can rock this big rig.  Plus our small awnings were out, so Dan went out to roll them up.  Of course, the winds kept me awake wondering if we would be able to travel the next day.  Big Yawn!!

The next morning, the local news said the wind was on schedule and would slow down to 15-20 mph by noon.  So nice to know the wind stays on schedule....riiiiight, I don't think the winds did such a good job because it was still blowing pretty good when we left around 11 am.  Dan wrestled gusts of winds all the way to Zion.  I think we were both worn out and ready to be off the road.  

Our site is on the Virgin River.  It is a little muddy, but the sound of moving water while sitting outside is wonderful.  We rarely have this kind of opportunity.  We had to pay extra for the river site and it is worth it.  We are not far from a pedestrian bridge that takes us out of the park and into the town of Springdale.  The town looks very interesting.  I would not mind spending some time exploring it too.

This looks like a good place to relax and get our energy back. And yet, there is so much to do..so little time. Wait!  Why am I sitting here typing?????

On The Cutting Board

This has been an ongoing project for the last couple of years.  I started this post a month ago.  Here's my progress so far....

My scraps are out of control!  They are busting out of the seams of the 2 gallon baggies and now the 13 gallon bag is showing a lot of stress as well.  I swear I keep trying to use them up.  For every small scrap I use, there are more scraps, not to mention, bigger scraps waiting to go into the bag.  Darn it!

I have been using this crooked log cabin block for many of the scraps, but it is only a 8-inch block.  The bad thing is that  it doesn't use up the scraps very fast.  The good thing is that I will need a lot of these blocks to make a quilt.

Decision time!  Keep going with the same routine and slowly bury us in scraps or find a way to use larger scrap pieces and start trimming that scrap bag down to a more manageable size.  I chose to trim down the bag.  The Crazy 8 quilt pattern will be a great scrappy quilt.  It needs 5 1/2 inch squares.  Yes, I did have some scrap pieces that are big enough to cover the squares.

I also wanted to do the quilt on the cover of the "Quilts From the Heart".  Then I realize the small scraps are only 2-inch squares.  I really want to make this quilt, so I'll start collecting the 2 inch squares.  Once I have a small baggie (as in sandwich size), I will cut up the 3 1/2 inch squares and start assembling the blocks for this quilt.

Better to have blocks sitting around than a bag full of scraps, right?  Okay, I'm out of here....the birds are calling....the cats are begging.....the sun is shining........
Happy Trails!

Zion ~ Day 2 (in transit to Idaho)

Travel Day....and again tomorrow.  We are spending one night at Mountain Home, ID.  Tomorrow, we will be heading into Oregon.  In the meantime, I'm trying to get caught up with everything we have done so far.  I want to share more of our experiences and photos of Zion National Park.

Day 2 ~ Zion National Park

This is actually our second visit to this park, but it was several years ago and all I remember is winding roads with awesome sights of peaks, cliffs, and hanging rocks.   

We are planning to come back again next year with my brother Jay.  He would like to see Bryce National Park as well as Zion's Narrows.  We haven't seen either one, so we will see something new with him.

 

On our second day of visiting Zion, we took the shuttle to the end of the road.  We walked the mile to the mouth of the Narrows and watched a couple of ladies cross the river wearing flip-flops.  There were a few people crossing with tennis shoes and some were barefooted...must have tough feet.   Watching them crossed, Dan and I decided we would have to come prepared to walk to Narrows ~ water-proof bags for camera, walking sticks (most definitely!), and good walking shoes.

He almost went in face first

The Rock Squirrels are little beggars. They will walk right up to you and start begging.  I did not see anyone feeding them and there is a $100 fine if caught feeding them, but somebody has been feeding them.  We also saw one squirrel checking out an empty stroller for food while another was trying to get into someone's backpack.  Shameless little guys!

No food?  Fine.  I'll beg from those people.

Nom! Nom!  Delicious bark.

Yea, I see you eyeing my bark.  Go get your own.

After our first walk, we took the shuttle to the Lodge and had a delicious taco/salad bar lunch.  Yum!  We walked off our lunch by crossing the street and taking the Lower Emerald Pool trail.  We got a little wet on that trail from the upper pools dripping over the overhang into the lower pool below us.

Lower Emerald Pool

The two trails we took are easy for children since they were all paved.  I read there are a couple of more that are paved and wheelchair accessible.  

 

I better get into better shape this winter if I hope to see the Weeping Wall as well as the Narrows and Bryce National Park next spring.  The Narrows is 9 miles long.  I'll be lucky if I can do 6 miles round trip, but I bet the photo ops will be fantastic!

 On our way home, we had an unexpected opportunity to watch the Utah Firefighters in action fighting a wildfire on a hillside near the road.  The helicopter was filling up nearby and flying right over our heads on their way to the fire.

Water being dropped in front of the Firefighters

 Later, we heard on the news that the fire was out after it burned 500 acres.  Two Firefighters were hurt and no homes lost.  Kudos to all Firefighters!  They have a very tough job.

Happy Trails!

Zion National Park (Ogden, UT)

We are staying at Hill AFB FamCamp for four nights.  On one side, we have a wonderful view of the Great Salt Lake with snow-capped mountains on the other side.  But today and on my next post, I want to share our experiences at Zion National Park.

We spent two wonderful days walking the trails of Zion National Park.  The weather was in the 80s and a little breezy.  Perfect!  We could not have asked for better weather.

We started with a visit to the northern section of Zion National Park.  Because this area is separate from the rest of the park, it was a lot quieter especially on a Sunday with the Free Access Week to National Parks.  Access to Kolob Canyon is on I-15 and there is only one 5-mile road... a very red paved road and that just added to the whole Zion feel.

We walked two trails.  One trail took us to an outlook over the south valley.  

Looking towards the South Valley

The second trail (Taylor Creek) was a 5-mile round trip.  Since we already did one mile, we decided to hike to the first cabin or hike one hour in before turning around.  

Taylor Creek

The trail doesn't go along side the Taylor Creek.  Oh no, it crosses over the creek several times.  It wasn't hard to crossover since the creek was narrow and there were always a line of flat rocks to make the crossing easier.  I think I enjoyed crossing the creek the most.  A little distraction from the usual walking on a dusty trail.

Kids were certainly enjoying the creek crossing.  We came upon a Mom trying to get her two kids to cross the creek and stop playing in the water.  I could not blame them for enjoying the crystal clear water and the fact that for once Mom could not get mad about their feet getting wet!  It took them twice as long as it did us.  She said that they had to play in the water at every crossing.  Yep, water - the perfect kid-magnet!

The views were grand.  Red sandstone and red cliffs everywhere.  I wonder what it is about the red sandstone that I find most interesting.  Maybe it is the red sandstone against the brilliant blue sky and the evergreens.  I wonder if I can find some fabric in this sandstone red shade.  Wouldn't that make a lovely southwest quilt.

The one-room cabin was a surprise.  It was built in 1930.  I was expecting a cabin built in the 1800s.  Whoever built it really wanted to get away from neighbors or anyone stumbling upon their little hideaway.  We were trying to imagine how they managed to get a mattress up into the canyon.  By mule, maybe?  That must have been an interesting sight!

On The Cutting Board

I'm working on a new Bear Hugs quilt.  Here's a link to my first Bear Hugs quilt.  I made the top last year so this in another one of my UFO's.  This one is being made for charity.

 I'm almost done with the bear's face.  This appliqué is going a lot faster than most of my  appliqué work.  I swear some material fights me the whole time I work with it.  Not this time.  So, I am keeping my fingers crossed....well, not while I'm sewing......and the sewing thread stays untangled.

Happy Quilting!