Zions National Park

For Labor Day weekend we decided to head to Zions.  I told Rodrigo that we should probably make sure we had a reservation but he said that there were so many camping spots that we didn't need to worry.  We headed out on Saturday morning at 6:00 with 3 other families and cars following behind us. This was the first time they had been camping for most of them.  We arrived at the park around 11:30 and when we pulled up the signs posted said all camp grounds full.  The kind park ranger gave us a piece of paper that gave us phone numbers and addresses to near by campgrounds that we could check out.  I was hoping that we would not have to turn around and drive all the way back home.  We called about 7 places on the paper and the 2nd to last one we called had spots available but it was another hour drive to get there.  We talked to a guy that saw us trying to figure something out and told us  that there was a place down the rode that was free that we could camp at but there were no toilets or water.  The entire group decided that would be o.k.  I didn't agree with 3 little ones and 2 of them being girls.  We went and checked it out there were a lot of people pitching there tents but while we were trying to find a spot a man stopped us and said that someone was going through the camp and robbing people.  So we decided that was not the best choice and started driving one more hour to our destination.  We finally arrived and it was not so bad after all we got to camp right next to a lake it was pretty fun.  The kids got to play in the water.  We decided to just hang out at camp the first day and then the next day we would go to Zions. The next morning when we got to Zions we didn't realize that you had to shuttle into the park so we drove on a road with construction for the first couple of hours when we realized that we were on the wrong road.  We drove back down the canyon parked the car and got on the shuttle.  We decided we would hike the emerald pools.  It was a pretty hard hike.  The kids were troopers.  I think they helped me more than I helped them.  We had a really great time.  It is beautiful there.  When we got back to camp that night the wind had picked up and broke our E-Z up canopy and had collapsed one of the families tents.  So in the dark we were trying to put everything back together when we finally did it was 9:30 and we still had to fix dinner.  We got dinner fixed and everyone put in bed and after everyone had finally fell asleep the wind picked up and it broke all 3 of the family tents we were lucky that we had my mom and dads pop up.  So all of our friends had to sleep in there cars.  Lets just say we packed up early that morning and headed home. When we got to the exit of the campground we had to wait for 1 hour because there was about 3 feet of red sand that had blown on the road and they were trying to push it to the side because cars were getting stuck in it.  We were all just laughing at this point because so many things went wrong on this trip.  It will be a trip that we will never forget.  We also had frogs, scorpions, mice, and bats going through our camp.  I don't think our friends will be going camping with us any time soon.  I was so happy to get home.