Life is good

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Another spectacular day. We started out early in the morning about 7 a.m. with a hike up the Emerald Pools trail in Zion - and when I say up I mean up! There are three sets of pools that are formed from runoff from the porous limestone cliffs and you climb like a mountain goat to all three of them. Our reward was being about the only hikers on the trail and then a serene breakfast at the top pool which we had to ourselves. And yes, Lauren, both your father and mother made it up with no problems - how much harder could Katahdin be?!!!

A gorgeous drive from Zion to Bryce, climbing through the high plateaus of Utah and enjoying a thunderous late spring rainstorm. We even saw some buffalo on the drive. Bryce is so very different from Zion - at 9,000 feet high, it is much cooler and very different vegetation. There is an 18 mile drive along the high rim of the canyon with many places to stop and see over the edge down into the Bryce Amphitheater which is stunning. The stone formations, called hoodoos, dot the landscape and seem almost other worldly. We spent a somewhat grey and cloudly afternoon peering over the rim at various points - no hiking with the grey weather - when we got here it was 49 degrees!

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