Utah August 2025 -- Jourdan Family Reunion
A family reunion with Jourdan’s family has been about 2 years in the making, and finally arrived. We are planning to spend time in Zion National Park in Utah with Jourdan’s uncle David and aunt Gayle and their grandkids Halle and Kohen; his brother Todd (and his family: Christie and Xander); his cousin Katie (and her family: Cory, Luke, Victoria, and Grace); and our niece Sydney (and her family: Steve and Charlotte).
Monday, August 4
Jourdan, Owen, and Julia left in the camper van on
Saturday to take the drive in a couple of days — Russell had to go to drivers
ed this morning so he and I stayed behind and flew down today. The camper van folks stayed outside Salt Lake
Saturday night and then at a place in the Utah desert Sunday night that was
done up to look like Tatooine (a planet in Star Wars). They said it was pretty cool, although the
van — both outside and inside — accumulated a layer (or two or three) of dust from driving
through the sand.
Tuesday, August 5
We rented e-bikes for the morning and rode through
Zion. Everything about that sentence was
incredible. Jourdan and I debated
renting e-bikes or regular bikes for ourselves, but ultimately went with the
e-bikes — it was pretty nice to be able to turn on some assistance up
hills. We rode along the Pa’rus trail (a
paved walking and biking path with no motorized vehicles) and then the Zion Scenic
Drive (a road that only allows bikers and the Zion shuttles) — approximately 10
miles total one way. We stopped for a
couple of short hikes in the Court of the Patriarchs and to see one the Emerald
Pools. My favorite part was at the end
of the Scenic Drive, riding along with giant rock walls next to you, it felt
almost like being in your own world. The
scenery for the entire ride was breathtaking.
On the way back we just rode straight through as we were cutting it
close with bike rental return time (and actually ended up returning them 45
minutes late although they didn’t seem to care).
We had to return our bikes around noon, then went to a brewpub right outside the park for lunch — where everything was delicious. After lunch we went back to the house where we hung out, talked, ate dinner, then went to bed. The kids were all sleeping in one room that had a bunch of bunk beds and had been up pretty late the night before — but were exhausted after the biking and swimming and heat so thankfully fell asleep at a reasonable hour.
Wednesday, August 6
This morning we had family pictures planned for 7:05 in
Zion so it was another early morning. We
got to the location where we were to meet the photographer and it was super
windy, so she suggested an alternate location where the canyon walls would
block us from the wind. The alternate
location was kind of incredible; red rock walls that made us (or at least me) feel like we were
on Mars.
After we finished pictures, we drove up into the park and did a short hike to the East Rim of the canyon. The hike had all these areas that were cave-like under giant rock carveouts that added to the other-planet feeling.
One of the most striking, beautiful things about the drive and hike was just how many different types of rocks we saw. It seemed that even within the same mountain, there would be completely different types of rock. Nature, well, rocks. (It had to be said.)
After the hike we went to explore a ghost town — Grafton, UT. The town had been settled in the mid-1860s, then washed out in a flood and rebuilt, but was finally abandoned in the early 1900s when the LDS Church was trying to coalesce small communities into larger ones. The houses were well maintained and surprisingly cool for how hot it was.
By the time we finished at Grafton, the temperature had climbed to somewhere around 104 so we went back to the house. The kids swam, the adults napped and read and talked. We ate dinner all together and then played some board games, then again had an early bedtime.
Thursday, August 7
This morning we had an 8 am horse ride planned, that
started about 2 hours away from our house (half of our group was riding at 9
am), so we again were up early and on the road.
Fun fact: on the way to the horse ride, we passed a road called Endofthe
Rd. So obviously I had Boyz II Men in my
head for the rest of the day.
The kids had never really ridden horses before and they loved it! The trail we followed was narrow and rocky and next to a large hill and it seemed that one misstep would take us tumbling down. So it was a little nerve-wracking but also impossible not to be in awe of these gorgeous creatures and how steady their footing was.
The ride took us to a view of something called Checkerboard Mesa — a series of square-shaped projections of earth that probably does look like a checkerboard from above.
After riding horses, we ate breakfast while waiting for the 9 am riders, then we planned to go into Zion to do the hike to the start of The Narrows (we were planning to actually hike The Narrows tomorrow) — but by the time we found parking the temperature was 105 and hiking didn’t sound super fun. So we did a little souvenir shopping (a highlight was that Julia needed earrings as she hadn’t packed any extras and lost the back to one she had been wearing, and she found a pretty pair made by a local Native American artist) and ate some ice cream. We then went to the shop to rent hiking gear (neoprene socks, grippy shoes, and hiking poles) for The Narrows tomorrow, and then back the house for more swimming, reading, talking, eating, and bed.
Friday, August 8
Today was our earliest morning yet, much to the dismay of
the kids and maybe some of the adults in our group — we were out the door at
5:30 so that we could get an early start on The Narrows. We made it to the park shuttle around 7 am
and probably started the hike around 7:45.
There was an approximately 1 mile walk from the shuttle stop to the
start of the hike, paved the whole way, to the Temple of Sinawava.
Then the trail starts by literally having you walk into the river. At times it was up to our waist (or higher)
and at times we got to walk on the river bed, but it was in the water most of the time. It was cooler in the canyon than
elsewhere in the park and the water was cold when we got in it — but not as
cold as I was expecting so it was a pleasant surprise.
The hike itself was something I know our pictures won’t do justice — walking in the water with tall, beautiful rock walls raising up on either side — maybe the coolest hike I’ve ever done.
Our plan/hope had been to make it to a part of the hike called The Grotto — which we did but didn’t think we did so we went a bit farther to another place that also looked like it might be The Grotto. At that point we’d walked about 2.75 miles from the bus stop, and the kids were wet (obviously), cold and tired so we headed back. It wasn’t until we returned our rental gear back to the shop that we realized we’d overshot our goal.
Hiking through the water was definitely challenging — when it was deep it was hard to walk through and when it wasn’t the slippery rocks added a balance challenge; my left (not-yet-replaced) hip was definitely feeling it at the end of our 5.5ish miles. But even with the challenge, it was incredible and I'd do it again, and highly recommend it!
After the hike we went back to the house and hung out for
the afternoon, then went out to dinner.
Katie and her family had headed home so our group shrunk, and the week’s
cooks (mostly Jourdan and Gayle, with Cory running the grill)
deservedly decided they were done cooking, so we found a restaurant (who served
prickly pear margaritas — I firmly believe it is my duty to experience local
culture when I travel, so I always have to have a prickly pear margarita when I
travel to the desert). After dinner we
headed back to the house to pack up to drive home in the morning.
Saturday, August 9
Sad day today as we had to say goodbye to everyone, and
we hit the road to start the drive home at 6 am. We planned a detour to Bryce Canyon National
Park, and Sydney, Steve and Charlotte joined us. The drive up the mountain towards Bryce was
winding and beautiful. There was a
forest of pine trees (Dixie National Forest), that — at least some of them —
were growing out of sand/a sandstone mountain.
I haven’t really seen anything like that before. Later we drive through Red Canyon, with red
rock formations that looked like castles. That turned out would just be a
preview of what we’d see on the park.
We planned to do a hike called Little Navajo Loop, and walking to the trailhead we were able to see the most incredible red rock formations. They were unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and I have since learned they are called hoodoos and are formed by erosion, particularly frost wedging and rain. Hoodoos exist on every continent on earth, but the largest collection of them is in Bryce Canyon. The 1.2ish mile hike took us down a winding trail in the middle of a giant rock wall and at the bottom there were some VERY tall trees growing out of the rock or red dirt or whatever made up the base of the rocks — it was so cool. On the way up we got closer to some of the rock formations, including one called Thor’s Hammer (which was near a group of formations that Julia thought looked like The Avengers).
After the hike, we said goodbye to Sydney and her family, and then drove. And drove and drove. We had left the park around 11, stopped for a mid-afternoon lunch at Guru’s Cafe in Provo (SO good) and to buy some vinyls at a record store down the street, and then drove some more, making it home around 1:30 am. The whole week was nothing short of incredible, getting to spend time with family and see some amazing nature.
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