Our Zion trip -- day 4

On the fourth day of our trip, we decided to poke around a bit in The Narrows.  We had no intention of really hiking The Narrows; the previous day had been quite adventurous enough.  But we did want to venture up the river a bit and see what the hike was like... so once again we found ourselves on the Riverside Walk Path (which you may recall from my journaling about Day Two, led to the beginning of The Narrows).

Here is Shawn, armed with a pair of water shoes (he insisted on wearing his hiking boots and carrying the water shoes).  We had cheap watershoes, not the sturdy water boots the real hikers were renting.  We also did not rent poles, even though everybody else seemed to.

Here I am in my water shoes.  I was very matchy-matchy that day, and felt pretty stupid.  I cannot imagine what possessed me to buy hot pink water shoes in the first place.

On this day, we ran into an inordinate number of kind strangers offering to take our picture.  This was the only day this happened.  It was strange, but in the end, we wound up with quite a few pictures of the two of us together, pictures that are not even what Laura's photography teacher would call, "armpit shots."  I do not know why this day, of all days, was so filled with kind strangers.  We had walked the same trail both previous days, and received no photographic offers.  Maybe I really stood out in my psychedelic pink or something.  How mortifying.

Another couple picture, taken by another kind stranger.

And yet another couple picture, taken by yet another kind stranger, this time right in The Narrows.  The lady who took this seemed like a nice Mormon mother.  She was particularly sweet, and we took pictures of their happy, blond family for them, too.  I was nervous at this point, because Shawn had taken off his hiking boots and left them on the rocks where the Riverside Walk trail ended and The Narrows began.  There were literally hundreds of people coming and going at that point of the trail, and I was worried somebody would take Shawn's nice boots.  The whole time we picked our way up the river in our water shoes, I was thinking, "We really ought to get back, before somebody makes off with his boots."

This is just a perspective shot, to show what The Narrows was like.  You can see a guy with a walking pole.  Most people seemed to have them.  It really was pretty hard to keep your footing.  We saw one grandmother and granddaughter coming back down from above, and the grandmother was kindly encouraging the little girl, "Just one step at a time.  Just take one step at a time."  And the little girl emphatically replied, "Yes!  I am being careful!  I don't want to fall again!!"

 

Here am I, standing in The Narrows.  I like the way this picture shows how the water comes right up to the sides of the canyon.  It was very cool and refreshing in there, miraculously so.  You could forget how hot the rest of the desert was.

Shawn went out deeper than what I was hoping.  I had to remind him that our snack was in the fanny pack, and it was not a waterproof snack!

Eventually, we turned around and returned... and got Shawn's boots back.  Then we found a nice rock, sat down on it and availed ourselves of that snack.

There is not much in life that I enjoy more than sitting on a big, shady rock in the middle of a beautiful rippling stream, surrounded by majestic canyon views, drinking cool water and eating carrots sticks, grapes, almonds and Triscuits.

 Content.

 Pleased.

Well, I guess you need at least one armpit shot in a post like this one.

Then we headed "home" to our lodge...

We did some interpreting of signs along the way.   "Blind Curves" means different things to different people.

Back at the lodge, we cleaned up and had a lovely, simple dinner on the veranda.

The blueberry parfaits were particularly tasty, but the smoothies weren't half bad.  We ate, and then we took pictures...

 ... of our Adirondack balcony loveseat ...

 ... of ourselves...

... and of our view of the moon.

It was another lovely day, maybe even my favorite day, although the day before was pretty fantastic and so, come to think of it, was the day after.