Last day in Zion

Since we had abandoned the idea of taking the Zion shuttle the previous day, we wanted to get up early on our last day and do some of the Zion hikes. We got pastries for breakfast and, after checking our options at the visitor center, we managed to get to the 10 AM shuttle. Not the earliest, but not too bad.

We had considered doing the beginning of Angel's Landing. Definitely not the end, which is considered dangerous and apparently super scary for people who, like me, can't handle the view of cliffs very well. And we also thought about going to the Upper Emerald Pool through the Kayenta trail. Following the recommendation of the ranger, we finally decided to hike the Sand Bench trail. This hike, which isn't too long and can be done by horse at other times of the year, was not as spectacular as some of the others we had done the previous two days, but still very beautiful. And best of all, there were very few people, which is the main reason we picked it.

I thought it was gonna be super cold but it wasn't. In fact, I had to end up taking some of my clothes off because I was too hot. I guess it's better than the opposite... The sugary breakfast wasn't a great idea and it didn't take too long before I started feeling tired and hungry (shocking, right?) We had packed some snacks though, so we got to eat them on a rock, enjoying the landscape.

When we got back to the trailhead we considered walking all the way through the lodge and to the Grotto, but we decided to take the shuttle to the Grotto and home to the lodge instead.

Mistake. We got confused about the distance and didn't realize this wasn't a real hike, but a short walk. At the same time, it made us waste the time we could have spent on a real trail. We still could have done it afterwards, but by then I was getting more concerned about the timing, and I wasn't that excited about it anymore. Anyway. I guess we could have done more but it was also nice to take it easy.

We had some coffee at the lodge and took the shuttle back to the visitor center, where we had left the car.

Our flight was leaving from Las Vegas and we decided to have dinner in the city, but outside of the Strip. We stopped at a Vietnamese restaurant called Pho Aimie, which was decent, and finished our road trip at the airport, ready (not really) to go back to work.Read more