Zion trip: Day 1

I am going to break our road trip up from this past weekend into several posts to make the task of writing about it less daunting.

Let me also preface by saying that preparing for this crazy camping backpacking trip took some work!  We ended up heading out Wednesday after dinner to get a few hours in before finding a spot to pitch a tent on the side of the road.  No, there was not a campsite, but trust me... this is Nevada.  It was the middle of nowhere.  Unfortunately, Chloe has my ability to not sleep in exciting new situations.  She had fallen asleep in the car, but when we stopped to set up camp around 10:30pm, she was awake as ever and bounced around in the tent sitting on Joe and I till around 1:30am.  We would try to hold her down as she screamed (Nate...dead asleep through all of this), but she is sneaky and would fake being asleep till our hold released enough for her to escape.  One of us would try to get her to sleep until we were frustrated and then the other parent would try and this would go back and forth... for 3 hours.

Anyway, the drive the next day was beautiful and not too long...and Chloe napped in the morning.  Nate kept asking, "Are we at Zion yet?" I guess that is somewhat better than "are we there yet?" The kids were troopers though and bounced back and forth between playing with matchbox cars, eating snacks, watching videos, making artwork with stickers and crayons and reading books.

We were in awe when we pulled into the park.  It is so incredibly beautiful.  If you have not been here, put it on the bucket list!

We found a little campsite (yes, actually at a campground) at the East entrance to the park and set up shop for the night.