The good Lord rewarded us for pushing through 114° temperatures a few days ago with a 74° cloudy day today. It was gloriously mild this morning!

We did something new today, and tried our hand at horseback riding. We now have 2 cowboys on our hands who think we need to have horses running around with the pigs. The boys also may or may not have developed a crush on one of our trail guides, Cowgirl Savannah ❤️😊

We met our guides, Savannah and Lance, at the corral. It was so impressive how they matched each of us with our horses. For instance, my horse was stubborn, hard-headed, and didn’t appreciate being told what to do. So yea, totally nailed that one🤪. Once you got your horse, then your name on the trail was the name of your horse. So Leo was Black Magic, Michael was Fancy, I was Concho, and Mike was Roper.

We started off with an easy steady climb up, crossing the Virgin River, and then began an assent up 600 feet to some of the most spectacular views of Zion Canyon.

Look of these handsome cowboys

The boys were awesome! They listened so well to the guides, and followed all their instructions.

We went up, up and up, but the climb didn’t seem too steep – just more a steady assent… but then Savannah pointed out the road below OH. MY. WORD! Thankfully we didn’t look down until this point, and began our descent shortly thereafter- Whew! About half-way down, we stopped for a water and bathroom break, and talked to some of the folks riding with us. There was a really nice family from New York who were on a trip similar to ours, just backwards… we started in Vegas and end in Colorado, they started in Colorado and end in Vegas.

The boys were a little smitten by Cowgirl Savannah ❤️ She is a student at Southern Utah and works here during the summer and on weekends during school. She was a great guide, and was cute too, which I’m sure helped keep my little cowboys’ attention 😊 As we descended, the sights of the canyon were breathtakingAnd the boys enjoyed trading jokes with Cowboy Lance. Here’s one we learned: Did you hear that Willie Nelson was killed? No? He was playing on the road again. 🤣 Or: what do you call a fish with no eyes? Fsh 🤣🤣

Meanwhile by accident, I switched my photos to black and white but they turned out pretty cool…Look at that sexy lawyer-farmer-sawmill operator-cowboy ❤️

Canyon Trails Horseback Riding was definitely one of the coolest tours we’ve done!

After the ride, and after we learned to walk again… on my word, we may all be walking funny tomorrow…

We headed to the car to change into shorts, and then to the Zion Lodge to wash our hands! We made a picnic lunch from our cooler of goodies. However, our picnic ended up as a car-picnic as the rain started to come down. They need rain here like we do at home, so we really couldn’t complain. And after lunch, it was time for ice cream! And then it was on to swimming!

Yesterday we were not prepared for boys to swim in the Narrows or the Virgin River (which we learned was named after Louis Virgin who first traveled along its banks), but today we rectified that!

Yes, it was lower 70’s. Yes, it was raining. And yes, the water was about 60°. But when can you say you swam in a river in Zion National Park?  These 2 had the best time creating this lounging pool from their dam (cue the dam puns)

and skipping rocks… we’re up to 3 skips now!

Mike and I died laughing as they tried to tell us it wasn’t cold (pay no attention to my shivering 🥶)

After we got them into dry/warm clothes, we headed back into the canyon to see all the things we skipped yesterday (Human Museum, Zion Park movie and Nature Center). Due to fear of rain today, we tried to get through anything yesterday that may be off limits due to rain.

The movie was interesting but as we all started to get warm in a dark theater, we started getting sleepy. So off we went for another hike. This time we took the Pa’prus Trail that connects the Museum, Nature Center and Visitors Center. It was beautiful and paved which was particularly nice with the mud. The rain eventually cleared and it ended being gorgeous today.The boys liked the Nature Center and although it was really for a younger age group, they made the best of itWe did manage to find a cool lizard, despite his best attempts at camouflage.

And look, the Virgin River again! This time it was near the South Campground, who’s big selling point is the swimming area created by damming up part of the river. Look behind Michael and Leo in the first 2 pictures below. The water gets about 4 feet deep in the middle of that. Apparently one of the best boy-things ever, is throwing big rocks in water and making a splash because they did it for 30 minutes and laughed their heads off!One more picture and one more rock climb and I think we can officially mark Zion done… until next time 😉Michael wanted to try dinner at Springdale Noodle Pizza, so we headed there for dinner after a quick dip in the hot tub. It was fantastic homemade pizza and was across the street from the Candy Factory who sold ice cream and homemade chocolate 🥰and Mike looked like a hobo walking down the road with the loaf of bread we needed for tomorrow’s picnic 😂🤣

Tomorrow we head to Bryce Canyon before ending up in Escalante tomorrow night.

It was a great day 🥰 I can tell because the snoring has begun!