Heath had work to do and once we woke up Bean, Heath and I drove to the closest gas station that had wifi and got Heath set up to work. Bean and I grabbed some donuts and coffee and went back to the cabin. We got the kids up, ate breakfast and started a major cleaning and packing project. We took everything out of the cabin and van and packed it up logically and got rid of any trash. All the kids had lots of little jobs and they did a great job helping me out.
Eventually we had clean room, clean clothes, clean van, clean kids and everything all packed and ready to go. We checked out of the cabin and went to pick up Heath. Then we drove back into Zion
We barely made it into the park before finding a picnic spot and pulling over for lunch.
We tossed a sleeping back on the ground and cooked up some lunch. Pumpkin helped cook up the noodles, tuna and Beans and it was really tasty.
Then we packed up and drove the rest of the way into the park. We went straight to a nature center place and got there just in time for a ranger program on the cool rocks in the park.
The program was one of the last thing the kids needed for their badge. Afterwords we did some more hiking and exploring around the park and checked out the history museum. We had a snack break in the afternoon.
Then rode the shuttle back to the visitor center.
Then the big kids took their pledge and got their badges.
We were all kinda tired and hot and headed to the van and started our drive toward Vegas and out of the park. We were not hungry but saw some spots we thought we be good for dinner picnic and planned to stop but Bean fell asleep and we decided to let her get a nap in. After an hour or so we drove though a little town and saw a grocery store and randomly decided to get supplies. We got cookies and marshmallows and fruit. There was a giant park area on the map for the Red clifs so we had google lead us there to find a dinner picnic spot.
We ended up way off the highway following crazy dirt roads to weird goat farmers up in the hills and not finding anything reasonable for a picnic spot. We abandoned that plan, drove into the nearest town a found a nice city park. It was almost 8pm but the park was loaded with kids with temps in the high 80s and it didn’t feel that bad. Heath and I cooked up some Mexican for dinner while the kids played in the sand.
Eventually we all got really full and it started to get dark so we hit the road. Heath started out at the wheel and drove us through Vegas and I took over sometime after that and spent most of my shift winding my way into California and through Yosemite.