The Longest Day

What a full day yesterday. Yes, yesterday. We didn't get a chance to update the same day since we didn't get back to the cabin until after midnight.

After breakfast and a quick serving of indecision the kids decided to start the day wall climbing and doing a zip line. All four girls attempted 2 or more climbs. Emma and Kasey were the only ones who managed to beep the horn at the top of the second climb. Everyone had great effort and tried really hard. It was tougher than it looked and fingers, wrists, and arms quickly grew tired.

Then on to the zip line. Theresa and Vince decided to join the kids on this activity. All you had to do was walk off a roof of a three story building and you were off on probably a 50 yard line (probably longer). It went over the parking lot and mini ATV track all the way to the ladder at the end. We each got to do it twice. There are videos of everyone going down at least once including one were Vince tried to record the experience from the point of view of being on the line.



We then ate lunch at the cabin and packed up for the last hike at Bryce. We did the most popular of the trails in the park - Queens Loop. It was a 3 mile hike. From where we started you went down into the canyon about 500 ft. We walked amoungst the Hoodoos, then walked up 900+ feet back to the observation point. Though the scenery was, again, incredible I think everyone will recall the walk back up.

From there we took a quick drive through the rest of the park. At Rainbow Point, the southern most point of the drive, we got out one last time to take in the view and have a quick snowball fight. There were still drifts of snow around the parking lot. The kids made a tiny snowman which, after the photo with it, tossed him over the edge. They didn't even give him a chance to melt.

We were all hungry and decided to try the logde for dinner. Since the Laurent's didn't recently win the lottery we passed and went pack to Ruby's diner. It was OK food - everyone was very hungry. It was nice to sit and eat after a long hike. We then bought a few groceries for the next day, packed them, and went to a Ranger led talk.

The talk was very interesting to most. It was about losing the dark. They had awesome examples of why people should try to preserve the dark at night instead of flooding everything with light. From losing the ability to see the heavens to affecting animals and plants. The Ranger was very entertaining without being preachy and everyone seemed to get something out of it. We left there and went back to the visitor center. Oh, did I mention it is about 10PM right now? The park is DARK. Behind the visitor center they had telescopes set up. We check out Mars and Saturn. Saturn was being shown in 2 12+ inch scopes. You could see the rings, the shadow of the rings on the planet, and even one of its moons.

Theresa then drove us back to the cabin. Everyone just called it a night and hit the sack. Funny that when everyone is exhausted how quick everyone goes to sleep.