Joseph Smith's Wonderland and His Magical, Golden Tablets

After our sad departure from heaven, we continued via Truckster to Mormon Country. Utah has so many amazing National and State Parks to choose from but we were limited on time as our friends' wedding in San Diego was rapidly approaching- AND we still had to visit Grandma Kitty in Yuma. So with rapid speed we headed to Kanab, UT for breakfast before hitting the parks. We had some illegal coffee and some breakfast burritos in the home of Don Knotts - or at least I think that's what the plaque had said. While we gassed up the Truckster, I spotted a thrift store I wanted to check out. Contrary to what you might be thinking, I've been uber restrained on this trip, limiting my purchases to needs for the van like groceries, and one shirt I bought for myself back in Deadwood, SD. I know it sounds weird, but Kai doesn't really love going to garage sales in strange cities or thrift stores especially now that we're homeless. Odd, I know, but this is what I'm dealing with here. Hoping to find something cute and new to wear to the wedding, we proceeded to the thrift store in Kanab. It took just about 43 seconds to know that this was a bad choice. I cannot stress enough to everyone out there who may be thinking of thrifting in Utah, THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA. Of course it was filled with 30 year old polyester pant suits and full length skirts and horrible long sleeve, long dresses- we were in Utah! When I sent a photo of some of the dresses to friends back home I received more than one sister-wife joke. This was not good... we just had to make it to the door without being converted. We ran to the van and sped on to Bryce Canyon National Park.

And for my third wife...

Our friends Paul and Nancy had recommended doing a quick drive through the hoodoo packed Bryce before spending some time in Zion National Park. So that we did and we found it to be a easy, Griswold friendly tour, stopping at each view point with the oldies and snapping a shot or two, knowing full well that we would spend some quality time in Zion to make up for this.

We shared the canyon with some real yahoos... more of the same really but were pretty impressed with these ambitious folks who travel with their stationery bike on the back of their vehicle. Hiking the canyons just isn't enough for this family from Ohio, they need to do a few miles on the Precor as well. 

After our super tour of Bryce we headed southwest to Zion National Park. Upon arriving at the east entrance, we were informed that all of the parks campgrounds were fully booked. It then dawned on us that it was the weekend. For the first time since beginning OFT, we hit a National Park on a busy weekend. We toured through the south end of the park before exiting the west end to look for a campground outside of the park. We were turned away at a RV park due to air conditioning limitations. The woman at the front desk asked if we had a pet, yes we do, then asked if our Truckster has AC, yes it does but just in the cab. Then she said, "Well, I'm so sorry but I cant let you stay here... you must have AC in the rear as well." I'm pretty confused at this point as it's 69 degrees out this evening and I'm no where close to needing air conditioning. I told her we wouldn't be leaving our pet in the hot van the next day either, that the dog goes with us nearly everywhere. She still wouldn't budge. She told me that further up the road she often sees people squatting near the river for free and that we should try to camp there. Also weird... did she get one look at the Truckster and think that we were some sort of boondocking, squatting hippies? Possibly. 

Hoo Dat?

So we headed down the road further and further away from the park entrance. We found squat town and pulled in. There was a VW van at one end and a Ram pickup stuck in the sand at the other. We pulled into one of the middle "campsites"... I say "campsites" like they're numbered but it was obvious that people camp here for free often as certain areas are completely bare of vegetation. I opened the door to assess our home location for the night and couldn't even bring myself to step out of the vehicle. When I looked down there was about 900 angry, large red ants freaking the french out because I think the Truckster had just ran over their house. I looked at Kai and simply said, "I can't stay here tonight." He glanced over my seat to see the pissed off mob down below, "Eeew." We moved the van to another spot closer to the VW and hopped out. Quickly we realized that we hadn't run over any ant hills, but we were in fact surrounded by them. Mostly the hills were the homes to smaller black ants but right where I would've liked to set up my dinner table, there was a war going on between the large red ones and the little black ones. After being bit on the toe back in Savannah by a small red ant, I didn't even want to know what the large ones could do. Kai said, "Well this isn't good..." We loaded in the van and left the ant wars behind without knowing the outcome.

Further down the highway we pulled into the Zion River Resort, the plushest RV park around. In the lobby, we checked in and found that they had a spa, a pool, a movie playing in the game room, showers, free wifi, and a high end gift shop. I bought myself an early birthday present, some perfume from the gift store and we headed out to our campsite. We were the smallest vehicle there surrounded by those condominiums on wheels pulling BMW's. It was nearly $50.00 to camp that night but we swam in the pool and didn't see an ant for the next 16 hours.

Zion River Resort Views

The next morning we headed back to Zion excited to drive through the main part of the canyon. When we got to the gate we discovered that you couldn't drive your own vehicle through that section of the park yet. It was October 1 but the shuttle busses didn't stop running until October 31. So, maybe this is why that lady was so concerned about the pet in the non-air conditioned vehicle....? We headed back to town in search of a kennel that we could board KK up while we shuttled through the park.

 We pulled into the Doggy Dude Ranch around 1:00 pm. We met one of the employees and got the full tour. They had trailers in the yard that were air conditioned they had converted into dog friendly housing, but she said, "Most of the dogs just like to run around the yard and play with all the toys and each other and run through the misters when they get hot." This sounded great for any other dog but our own. Upon meeting Kaylee, Shayna the employee said, "You know, why don't we just put Kaylee inside by her self where it's dark and cool." Perfect! They threw a traumatizing lasso style leash over her head like a dog catcher and told us to walk away... sure enough when I looked back she was going with the nice ladies into the cool home. 

Sheriff Dangle

We laughed a little guiltily as we headed back to the park. We parked on the street and hopped on the free shuttle. Equipped with our flip flops, camera, jerky, gummy worms, and a bottle of water, we set out into Zion. We toured via bus all the way to the end and hopped off at the Narrows. The Narrows is a beautiful red rock tight canyon you can hike to through the Virgin River. We did the River Walk, passing people as we power walked in our flip flops, rushing as we only had until 6:00 pm to pick up our dog. At the end of the paved path, it was clear you had to get down into the river to complete the hike to the Narrows. In shorts and flippy floppies, we trudge across the knee deep icy water. For a brief time you get to walk along the banks before having to cross the glacial water again. Each time we crossed the water got deeper and deeper. After some time of toe clenching flip flop hiking, we stopped to ask some guys how much further we had to go. These two were wet up to their chests as they walked back toward the main trail. They informed us it was just a few more hours up ahead and to be prepared to get water up to your chest, or maybe even my neck. How is it that we were so freaking ill-prepared.. every park we visit we read up on everything there is to do. In Zion we were those people who don't educate themselves at all and get lost in a canyon suffering from hypothermia. I told Kai there was no way we were continuing on in flip flops and one bottle of water and gummy worms as our sustenance. We made our way back down the icy river to the paved 1 mile path back to the shuttle just as the sun was getting hidden by clouds. While on the bus we referred to the literature provided at the gate, turns out the complete Narrows hike is just a short 16 FREAKING MILES DOWN RIVER!!! What the french were we thinking? Death narrowly escaped, we took the long shuttle ride back to the entrance of the park. We hopped in the van and headed to the Doggy Dude Ranch to pick up our little Cowdog. She howled as she realized we had come back for her and Kai and I both noticed a new large bandaid on the thigh of one of the employees. Both employees said Kaylee was a very good dog, just slept all day and didn't make a peep. Still we couldn't help but be leery as that bandaid was right at KK height on this chick's leg.... Maybe they had a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy here... We loaded up and praised the dog for being such a good girl! We stopped at a grocery store on the way out of Utah for munchies and a free copy of the Book of Mormon as a wedding gift for Matt and Renata, fingers crossed they know how to read Danish. We left as the sun was setting, ready to get our sinnin' on, headed toward Las Vegas.

Our attempt at the Narrows