Day 16: Zion Canyon

Today was our last campfire. We're camping tomorrow but we're only allowed to use charcoal, so this one mattered. It was a very low pit but we made a huge fire anyway-Nick's become quite the fire genius after getting into the swing of things again. We pressed paninis with turkey, ham, avocado and swiss. Then we made Jiffy Pop, the popcorn in the covered aluminum pouch that you hold over the fire with a provided for handle. It came out wonderfully, probably the best popcorn that I've had. I'm not saying this because we were at our last campfire of the roadtrip, this popcorn was immaculately popped and perfectly buttered, not a single bad kernel.

This came as somewhat of a surprise because the cashier at Wal-Mart was rather ominous about our Jiffy Pop. "You can return this if it doesn't work, like if it all burns, you know. I mean, there doesn't even have to be popcorn in it". We weren't sure if this was a warning spoken from experience or a bit of Wal-Mart insider knowledge on how to beat the corporate machine. Watch out Wal-Mart, you've got a disgruntled employee at the Scottsdale store.

This evening was a perfect cap to a near-perfect day (more perfect only if Evan was still on the road with us). We spent the day in Zion, an incredible and spectacular National Park. This was by far the best run Park we've been to. Visitors used a free bus running every five minutes instead of your own cars. It would go up through the major trail heads and scenic views, narrated by a tour guide giving a bit of history and explanation of the park. And the trails were amazing.

We put on our watershoes and swimsuits one last time (..le sigh) to hike the Narrows, a great multi-terrain (read: land and water) hike through Zion canyon. The bus dropped us off at the top of the route and we hiked up another mile to a river bank. At this point we had to begin wading the river. Soon enough we were waist deep in the water laughing and splashing and taking photos. The hike continues down the river, at times we'd be wading waist deep or more across the river. Other times picking over rocks on land or under small rapids. Each meandered turn revealed a unique spot. Some beautiful, others dramatic, others still ancient. Eventually we had to turn back, if only to ensure we would be out of the narrows by sunset.