Ladd Photos

Gavin was off at a Padres game with a buddy of his, so Connor and I had a day together at Legoland. He had a blast getting to choose everything we did and getting all the attention 😉

We were in Utah for a cousin’s wedding, but we decided to make it a mini-trip and see lots of the National Parks in the area. Our first full day in Utah was spent in Zion National Park.

We started our visit with a hike up to Weeping Rock, an alcove carved out of the sandstone cliff where water soaks in from above the cliff and slowly drips out. All the alcove walls are covered in hanging gardens of small plants. It was lightly raining, so the water dripping from overhead didn’t make much difference to us at the time.

Next we rode the shuttle to a different part of the park and hiked along the Virgin river to the Lower Emerald Pools, which are formed by a couple small waterfalls. On the way back from the pools we saw a mommy and baby deer, which the boys enjoyed seeing.

We finished our day riding the shuttle to the back of Zion Canyon, and hiking along the river as the canyon narrows. We didn’t make it all the way back to “The Narrows“, which is where the canyon is only 10’s of feet across and you have to walk in the river to go deeper into the gorge, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

Our second day of touring National Parks was spent at beautiful Bryce Canyon. We started off at the visitor center, learning about how the iconic hoodoos form. Then we walked along the rim of the canyon by Sunrise Point and hiked down into the canyon a bit on the Fairyland Trail.

Once we turned around and hiked back up to the rim, we started walking towards Sunset Point, but it started raining heavy enough to make us retreat to the car. We drove down to the back of the park, to a place called Rainbow Point, experiencing tons of thunder and lightening along the way. It was raining so hard that we couldn’t see much from Rainbow Point.

We drove back and took refuge in the visitors center, so the boys could finish up their Junior Ranger workbooks. They earned their badge and were sworn in as Bryce Canyon Junior Rangers.

The rain let up and we finished off our day at Sunset Point, taking in the amazing views. I think we all agreed that Bryce Canyon was much more beautiful than Zion, and highly recommended.

We spent our third day in Utah driving down to Arizona to see the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We have visited the South Rim but never had the chance to make it to the North Rim, which is easiest to reach from Utah.

We spent some time enjoying the amazing views from the patio of Grand Canyon Lodge. Then we went for a short hike along the rim and out to Bright Angel Point.

The Grand Canyon is awe inspiring, in both beauty and size, from either side. But, Aliciana and I both agreed that the South Rim had better views, along with much more to do. However, now we can say we’ve been to both sides, so it was worth the trip.

We started off our last full day in Utah at Kolob Canyons in the north part of Zion National Park. We had a nice picnic and then hiked the Timber Creek Overlook trail. The read cliffs of Kolob Canyon were beautiful.

Later in the afternoon we went back to the south part of Zion to watch a ranger talk. This let the boys earn their Junior Ranger badges for Zion, to go along with their ones from Bryce Canyon.

We finished off the day with our cousin’s evening wedding at a resort a little bit outside of Zion. Congratulations Vanessa and Kadier!

On the way back to California, we stopped by Madame Tussauds in Las Vegas, which we got into free because of our Legoland annual passes. Free was about what it was worth.

Aliciana and I both noticed, before mentioning it to each other, that the women wax figures were particularly unrealistic. The boys had fun but thought the figures were a little weird.

I don’t recommend paying to see Madame Tussauds. At least it gave us a break in the middle of our day of driving.

The face close-ups are courtesy of Connor.

Eddie, Sally, Kristel, Junior, Lydia, and Hector joined us at Connor’s soccer game to cheer him on.

We went to the Discovery Cube to check out the new exhibit about our favorite pizza eating giant turtles.