An unpublished story of sisterly camaraderie.
The rain had started five minutes before we stepped off the bus. It was a light but constant sprinkle that chilled the air. My three daughters and I pulled up our hoods and surveyed the options.
“I don’t really want to do this” one of my nine-year olds said.
“Do we have to?” asked her twin.
My teenager silently protested.
The southern section of Zion National Park is car free and we had ridden the shuttle bus for 20 minutes to the end of the line. The river walk, a mile-long hike slick with red mud and towering rust colored cliffs, stretched out before us. I hesitated. Maybe risking pneumonia wasn’t the best way to celebrate spring break but I couldn’t help wondering what magical sights lay just around the next bend. I took a long breath and put on my best authoritative dad front. “I’m hiking the trail” I declared. “You guys can grab the next bus back to the visitor’s center or you can come with.”
It was a gamble for this divorced dad on a limited budget to push his kids only two days into their week-long trip but I also wanted them to see as much of this area as possible during our time here. It felt like The Good, The Bad & The Ugly as we stared each other down. No question who the bad was in this situation.
Five minutes later, with heads down and hands thrust in pockets, we, some of us reluctantly, pushed forward as a group along the sloppy, slippery trail. The first twenty minutes of the hike were spent in deafening silence. As we followed the rushing waters of the Virgin River, I imagined that each one of my innocent yet miserable looking children was plotting how to rid themselves of their meteorologically naive father and get back to the hotel hot tub before hypothermia claimed us all.
By the time we reached the end of the trail, closed due to flash flood warning, tempers began to thaw. Mutinous glares were replaced with affirmations of the adventure. We talked about the roof like overhangs, the majestic canyon walls and the contrast the rocks had in shape, size and color to those in Minnesota. This was the point in the trip I was waiting for; two days in and adversity had made us gel as a family. A fellow soggy pilgrim snapped our photo before we made the return trip, holding hands in the continuous downpour.
There are several ways to get to Utah’s Zion National Park. Las Vegas, despite being a giant sauna covered in blinking lights, was the cheapest and most direct option for us. From there it was a two-and-a-half-hour drive by rental car to the park. We stayed in the town of Hurricane. It is thirty minutes from the park but has a good mix of restaurants, grocery stores and lodging at a family friendly price point. As you get closer to Zion, accommodations become pricier and more competitive to book.
Hurricane earned its namesake as the wind nearly knocked us over on our trip from the car to the flapping doors of the Days Inn. I had always thought tumbleweeds were a Hollywood construct created for John Ford westerns, but they are real and abundant along the streets of Hurricane. We settled in, the kids found the pool and we celebrated our arrival in Utah until hunger outweighed the desire for Marco Polo.
Eating on a budget doesn’t necessarily equate eating poorly on vacation and it can often lead to fun discoveries normally overlooked by travelers. If you stop in at the deli of Linn’s grocery store, my brood recommends trying the “Frog Eye Salad”. The kind folks there will give you a free sample to confirm it’s a creamy delicious treat that conjures comparison to Midwestern desserts at their finest. Add in some of their BBQ, a bag of chips, a bag of mini carrots, the drink of your choice (yes you can buy beer in grocery stores there!) and you have a feast ready to be enjoyed with in front of the free hotel cable TV.
The following day we drove to the northern section of Zion. It is accessed from a separate entrance about 30 miles away and sees a fraction of the traffic that goes to the southern entrance. It was here, where we felt we had the whole place to ourselves, that we had the most wondrous of hikes. We followed the Taylor Creek Trail as it intertwined with its namesake body of water. Every minute or two the trail would require us to cross over the small but gin clear stream. At each crossing rocks and logs presented a puzzle for how to bridge to other side while maintaining dry footwear. A spirit of cooperation and excitement prevailed at each such crossing while giant peaks of stone towered above oblivious to our folly.
If you asked my daughters what the highlight of our trip was, my guess is that our horseback ride through Bryce Canyon would be the unanimous answer. I believe it’s the only time they have ever suggested to me that we do something 500 more times.
Bryce Canyon National Park is Zion’s smaller, surreal sibling to the east. It has an aptly named Fairyland that is about as magical as any building in Hogwarts. The canyon is sprinkled with rows of hoodoos which are multi colored pillars of rock that, due to erosion over thousands of years, have a ghostly quality of forgotten ruins.
There is plenty of great hiking in Bryce but the best way to see the canyon is from a saddle. Nothing beats experiencing the uncanny landscape for the first time the same way so many pioneers who came before did. We signed up for a two-hour ride with Bryce Canyon Lodge right in the park. I was feeling unsure about things the day before – it had been years since I had been on a horse and only one of my three daughters had ever ridden before. All my concerns evaporated as we lined up with our fellow prospective cowboys and cowgirls and were quickly paired with our horses. Before I knew it, my daughters were all on top of their steeds awaiting further instruction. We were divided into small groups with a guide assigned to each and soon ambled comfortably out of the gate, excited for the journey ahead.
Our group’s guide was a woman who had been leading horseback trips for twenty years. She split her time seasonally between Bryce and the Grand Canyon. She stopped frequently to keep everyone caught up and to tell stories about the geography and characters that populated the area. When she had to go to the back of the line to help someone, she put my daughter Laura as the lead horse. For weeks a very proud Laura told anyone who would listen about how she led a group of riders down the canyon on her horse Blueberry.
After a completely satisfying and near dreamlike two hours, we dismounted from our horses, said goodbye to the fine people at the ranch and walked bow legged back into the 21st century and our Nissan Sonata.
The final two days of our trip were spent looping back to Las Vegas for the flight home to Minneapolis. A well-loved stop was the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab Utah. It is a massive compound, the largest of its kind in the United States, which houses orphaned animals great and small. There are buildings dedicated to the ever-popular dogs and cats but there are also rodents, reptiles and all manner of livestock. We discovered that reservations for the tour are all but mandatory due to its popularity but lucked out filling a cancellation. I recommend showing up early to take advantage of the $5.00 vegetarian lunch buffet. It is a generous, healthy and delicious spread of all you can eat food for the price of a Big Mac. The sanctuary relies heavily on volunteers to keep operational and this is how it feeds them. We dined with two dedicated women who told us about the on-site accommodations that they come back to year after year for their volunteer vacation.
For our last night in Las Vegas, I thought taking the kids to see Magician Xavier Mortimer at the Hard Rock Hotel would be a fun way to close out our trip. The magic show was enjoyed but after being in the vast canyons and wide-open deserts for a week, the crowds and traffic in Vegas were a difficult adjustment. I could see my kids physically recoil from all the stimulation in the giant underground mall that the hotel sits upon and I thought back to our wet day in Zion.
After we had finished the River Walk four days earlier, the kids decided they could delay the hot tub in favor of more sightseeing despite the rain. We rode the shuttle bus to the Court of the Patriarchs stop. The site features a towering trio of mountains named for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. As I stood before those mighty peaks named after biblical fathers, I imagined the ages these behemoths had stood and felt immense gratitude for my own fleeting moment of fatherly success.
John Lundquist - Writer & Content Strategist 