Zion Adventure: Day 7

Kidney update: IT'S. OVER. This (Monday) morning, David woke up and was feeling pretty good, so he went in to work. Mid-morning, he passed the mother of all kidney stones. That's what was causing all the pain the past two days. That stone was a fighter. It was hanging on. But, it gave up in the end. And David caught it in the strainer that he took to work with him. And he showed it to me. And I took a picture of it for Mom and Dad. And it's ginormous. And disgusting. It's the size of a small child. I'm not kidding. But, I won't go into a lot of details because it's super gross and inappropriate and David would kill me.......oh.

But, it's over. Thank you for your prayers! I think we're finally back to normal. Woo hoo!!

So, finishing Zion, only after a month of being back.

The last day, we wanted (needed) to do some hikes that were fairly easy. My knee and foot couldn't take it anymore. After seeing the Watchman every day during our entire trip, we decided to actually do the Watchman trail. The peak is one of the park's most iconic landmarks. And it's at the very south end of the canyon. This was a fairly easy trail, but it was labeled as moderately strenuous. It wasn't too bad. I LOVED the hike. It was very nice and led to a great viewpoint.

There was a couple in front of us starting off on the trail, too, and the wife insisted on stopping and reading the entire information board to her husband. I like to read them, too, but David can read.

These flowers were everywhere and I finally found the name of them on an info board somewhere, but now, for the life of me, I can't remember what they're called.

At the end of the hike, my knee was telling me, "One more hike, but it better be easy peasy," so we did the Pa'rus Trail, the easiest trail in the park. It's a paved path that meanders along the valley floor, criss-crossing the Virgin River. It was really beautiful. It was easy to imagine how the first settlers of the canyon viewed their surroundings. So grand, but peaceful. There were a lot of bicyclists on this trail, too, and they needed to slow. it. down. 'For somebody 'bout to get a branch in their spokes.

Ridiculous, I know. But you have no idea how long it took us to get the Watchman Peak coming out the top of my head.

We stopped for a lunch break along the river. See David sitting on the rocks?

At the end of the trail was one of the shuttle stops, so we hopped aboard and went to the lookout for The Patriarchs. From left to right, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And Jacob is not that reddish peak (Mt. Moroni) on the far right, it's actually the white mountain behind it. Silly, right? I kept thinking that the whole time, because that third peak clearly fits better as the third Patriarch, so whoever named it was lame. Well, at the Visitor Center, there's a topographical map and you can see the canyon from a bird's point of view. And sho nuff, Mt. Moroni is closer to you than you think and Jacob fits better with the Patriarchs. But, you can't tell that from the lookout or road.

A lady offered to take our picture, which was very sweet, and I was telling her how to use the camera on the phone and she scoffed and said, "Oh, haha, I have an iPhone. I think everybody knows how to use one." Here's the picture she took for us.