This past weekend, I went on a 4 day trip with my cousins to Zion to celebrate my cousin John's 30th birthday. I, along with my cousins John, Ruby, and Jeff drove from California on Thursday night, stayed the night in Vegas, and then headed to St. George the next day, where we stayed from Friday thru Sunday. Our Utah family met us at the house we rented out and they did a little surprise party the first day we were there for our cousin John. I always enjoy these get togethers with my cousins because it always reminds me of how blessed I am to have family that I am so close to. In all honesty, it doesn't feel as though we are cousins, but rather, I feel like we are like siblings. Anyways, this weekend was full of laughs and nostalgia. So many moments where I thought I would pee myself from laughing so hard. I love my family.
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| The house we rented was a really nice, new house, in a still developing community way in the hills of St. George. |
We got to St. George on Friday at around 5PM-ish. Our Utah family was lagging due to a mishap at the bakery where they got the cupcakes at (apparently no one there had any idea we placed an order). So I had to stall somehow in order for this surprise to work out.. Luckily I managed to stall enough for them to set the house up and surprise my cousin John. For dinner that night we did Thai food at some place in Downtown St. George. It was really weird being in a Thai restaurant where there was nothing but White folk, but can't say I was surprised. After dinner we came back to the house and drank the leftover bottle of whiskey, the wines they brought, and some beers I bought at a nearby Walgreens. We also played board games and ordered pizza, because why not? Our cousin Tai got so drunk he threw up at the Pizza Hut when we went to pick up the pizzas. So as revenge, my cousin Brian and I left him there and parked across the street to see if he would notice. He was so confused when came back out and we weren't there.
On Saturday, we woke up around 8AM to head to Zion. We didn't get there until after 9AM and the parking situation was luckily not as bad yet, so we found relatively close parking. We started our day with a hike to the Emerald Pools. We did all 3, the lower, middle, and upper pools.
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| Trickling waterfall at the Lower Emerald Pools |
We made it to the Lower Emerald Pools in a relatively quick 20 minutes or so. We took our first break here to take pictures and rest up as it was starting to warm up. After that, it was another 30 minutes until we would eventually reach the Middle Emerald Pools.
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| We had to cross this neat little slot canyon right after the Lower Emerald Pool. |
The hike at this point was very mellow and for the most part, featureless, so I was just focused on getting to the next destination.
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| We saw quite a few of these creepy crawlies along our hike. YIKES. Way to test my arachnophobia. |
Once we reached the Middle Emerald Pools, it turned out to be rather anti-climatic (not to mention crowded), so we took a couple minutes to catch our breaths and continued forward.
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| Middle Emerald Pool in all its glory. |
The hike to the Upper Emerald Pool was the lengthiest one of the 3. This one took us a good hour due to the size of our group and having to wait on people every now and then. It was also largely non-shaded and thus, very hot. We spotted a pretty cool rock along the way that would make for good pictures, but more on that later.
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| Here we are at the Upper Emerald Pool holding a Happy Birthday banner haha. |
The Upper Emerald Pool was probably the 2nd most picturesque of the 3 pools (I'd say the Lower Emerald Pool was the most picturesque). It featured canyon walls as tall as the eye could see and a relatively large, but shallow, pool of water. The falls trickling down the rock face was nice, but very small. I'm sure after a heavy downpour or during the Spring snowmelt it would have been much larger.
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| As said previously, this was the rock we saw that made for great picture taking! Here's us guys sitting on it looking at who knows what. |
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| And here's the whole group! I need to Photoshop this photobomber out the picture haha. |
After taking our family pictures, we headed back down, and instead of going the same way back, we decided to take different path at the fork in the road, which lead us to the Grotto trailhead. From here, we walked the Grotto trail south which lead us to the Zion Lodge. We spent a good hour or so there refueling on some fries and ice cream (a must if you're there). After that, a collective decision was made to head back to the house and hit the pool, so that is exactly what we did.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in the community pool at the house we rented. We had a few beers prior to jumping in and just had a blast in the cold water. It was such a relief after such a hot day hiking. As the sun began setting, we decided on Mexican food for dinner at this restaurant in Downtown St. George.
That night, we decided to use this gigantic clown mask we bought at Walgreens the night before to scare our cousins Connie and Ruby. Needless to say it failed horribly so Brian, Tai, and I got bored and stayed up watching scary movies.
Sunday morning came all too fast. It was time to say goodbye to St. George and Zion. The girls, along with Hai and Jeff headed out first towards Las Vegas because the girls wanted to shop at the outlets. Brian, Tai, John and I left much later because we wanted to sleep in. We all met up at the outlet and then from there, headed to the Wynn for their lunch buffet. After lunch, we said our goodbyes and parted ways. I always hate goodbyes when it comes to these outings with my cousins. Our time always come much sooner than we want it to, but I suppose it leaves us eager for our next get together!
Brandon
