We stayed at my aunt's trailer home, which was very generous of her to allow us to use. It also was a perfect fit for us.
After we stocked the fridge with a load of food and enough cheese to feed a small country, we got down to the important things...like figuring out who exactly was the shortest Scribner girl. Turns out it was me. I hate to admit it, but I don't think I can deny the old knife-on-the-head balance test.
That night we saw a local rendition of 'It's a Wonderful Life.' The playhouse was very cute and the actors were very animated. It made for a fun evening.
We spent the next couple of days doing things that we never have the chance to do when we are surrounded by all the kids.
We ate out. A long, relaxing breakfast at a restaurant without chasing down little ones or hearing any complaining? Yes, please!
We stopped by the Saint George temple. It is so pretty.
We shopped the antique stores. It's amazing how silly we can be when we aren't busy telling our kids to stop being silly.
We stopped in art galleries and, get this, actually stared at the art.
One evening we drove to the mountains and we stopped at the Tuacahn Theatre and we decided to have the Scribner Family Cloggers perform a couple impromptu numbers. We were awesome.
The audience loved us.
Out biggest day was actually one I wasn't super excited for. Since we were so close to Zion's park, we all wanted to spend some time there. Mom was thinking about a drive. I was thinking about a couple small hikes. Gina was thinking about buying the postcard. But it was Lora's day. And Lora was thinking about rappelling down the mountains. What? I know she is young and sprightly, but I'm nearly middle age, Gina (although more in shape than us all) is even closer to middle age and Mom is just barely past it. What was that girl thinking?
Well, I guess she was thinking we needed a little adventure in our lives. And we did! Here we are not really knowing what to expect.
We just decided to go for it, and we followed our fun, young guide straight up the mountain.
And when I say...straight up the mountain, that is exactly what I mean. This was not easy hiking. This was mountain goat hiking. We had to find footholds and handholds and sometimes bum holds (when the person in front of us wasn't quite making it :) Somehow we scrambled up those mountains 4 times in a row. Half of the hike was covered in snow.
This was our first rappel. It was a sort of 'sink or swim' sort of training. Jack hooked us up and told us to head on down. I have to say, the first time was pretty darn scary.
I can't believe how brave Mom was doing this. She picked it up like a pro. I have to admit, I was pretty nervous, and on that first decent, I stumbled a bit and ran into a weird tree-bush that scratched my leg up so good that the bruise was there for a good month. These were big drops!
Now prepare yourselves for many, many photos. Something like this, really needs to be well recorded. (Who knows if this will ever happen again?)
I think that is lora coming down the mountain, way up there.
The view.
This rappel was our very steepest. You can see that the ledge to drop down was tiny. The actual drop was completely vertical and flat. That made it scary-fun.
This picture looks scary, with Jack's hands look like he either just pushed Gina off the cliff or was trying to grab her. He was a funny kid.
Here is Mom making that same rappel.
Now this picture looks like I didn't rotate it, but that is the drop Mom made. The wall is so vertical, that when Jack leaned way out to snap her picture, it looked like she was just standing straight up.
Here is a view of the same drop from the bottom.
Hiking back up.
On one of the hikes we took, the path kindof disappeared for a small stretch. Jack balanced himself on a small ledge below us and he held our feet as we walked across the ledge.
Gina coming down.
This was a tricky 'path' as well. We had to work our way through this crevice. About half way down we could drop down and walk on the ground again.
Mom on her way down.
The view. This was the the field that Robert Redford and Paul Newman rode through while filming Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Many of the places we went where through were tight little hole in the walls...or ground.
But this rappel started at the end of what I fondly call 'The Wedge.' We had to shimmy through this crack and then rappel down.
It was worth it. Can you see the wedge way up high from this next shot? That was a fun drop and sadly, our last one.
We made it! We lived! Thanks to Lora, we had a wonderful new adventure.
And that, my friends, was a great way to end a very fun girl's trip to Saint George. Too soon, we all had to head on back to our normal lives. No more spur of the moment antiquing. No quiet lunch dates. We all love our crazy little lives at home, but it was sure nice to be a kid and a sister for a few days.
