Thanksgiving in Southern Utah

Our family spent four nights in Southern Utah, visiting both Zion Canyon Natl Park and Bryce Canyon Natl Park. If you click on the title, it will take you to a slideshow of the pictures we took. The first two days were beautiful and clear, and then we hit some snow at Bryce Canyon which made us miss going down into the canyon itself. I hope we have the opportunity to go back down into Bryce as a family. The scenery was stunning from up top, and I really want to share the views from the bottom with the kids.

The first day we went horseback riding around the Zion Ponderosa Ranch where we were staying. Later in the afternoon we drove to Kamas, aka "Little Hollywood" for the plethora of old movie sets left from 40-something westerns that were filmed there. It was closed :( due to Thanksgiving, but we were able to drive to a cabin in the middle of a new housing development that was the set used on one of the episodes of Gunsmoke. We took the "scenic" way home which took us close to Coral Pink Sand Dunes -- but it was getting so late in the day, and we really didn't have a clue where we were, so we didn't actually go into the park. We just saw some coral-colored sand dunes along the way, and hooked back up to the main highway. The weather was beautifully clear and crisp. The second day we visited Zion's and hiked a few trails -- Canyon Overlook, Riverwalk and Lower and Upper Emerald Pools. We also saw an IMAX show about Zion's. The third day we visited Bryce with the intention of hiking down in, but the snow caught up to us and we admired from the rim. Night was upon us promptly at 6:00, so we spent the evenings playing family games (Candyland, Sorry, Monopoly, Slamwich and Life) and watching old Christmas cartoons, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. We probably saw over 500 head of deer during our visit. They were everywhere. There was even a herd of buffalo close to where we were staying.