Day 1 started with an early breakfast at the Wagon Wheel Diner before driving the extra 30 minutes to Zion. On the way there Zach thought it would be funny to play the song Wagon Wheel by Darius Rucker. It stopped being funny by the end of the trip when that became Connor's new favorite song and he asked for it every five minutes!
The views driving up to the park were gorgeous. When Zach and I had gone the previous year it was rainy and overcast the whole time. This year it was beautifully blue and sunny! All three boys were captivated by the scenery and kept imagining what it would be like to live there all the time and just walk out the door and stare at the mountains.
Our first hike was up the Kayenta Trail to the Emerald Pools. It's one of my favorites because there are gorgeous views of the canyon and river without it being a super dangerous, mama heart stressing out, trail.
At the end of the hike at the Upper Emerald Pool you are treated with a waterfall from the mountain and fun places to wade and jump across. Logan might have ended up getting really wet. I probably should have anticipated that.
After playing, snacking, and listening to a extremely loud woman talk to all of her kids as if she was the only one within miles, we headed back down the trail the same was we came but stopped to let the boys scamper up a few of the large boulders to the side.
After lunch at the Lodge we took an easy hike following the river and stopped a lot for the boys to throw rocks, skip rocks, pocket rocks, and climb trees.
We knew we weren't going to get a ton of hikes in during the trip because we wanted to take our time and let them explore and also not want to risk cranky overtiredness to set in.
We headed back to the hotel in midafternoon and chilled in the heated pool and hot tub and celebrated a great first day of fun and no falling off mountains!
Then we all crashed...HARD!
