Canyon Overlook Trail

 Last day and our last hike. We drove over to the east side today to do the Canyon Overlook Trail. It is an easy breezy hike up about a mile, across death defying bridges, scaling the side of slippery rocks. We were hanging out with the native big horned sheep.

 I caught these two taking a selfie.

 This reminded me of the dolmen in Ireland. Ally enjoyed scaling up and down while using it as a slide. She did bust through the tail end of a pair of shorts on this sliding adventure weekend.

 Cater was done enjoying the view and the sun before Byron so he found a shady spot to rest in.

This was the best portion of the trail. The hop between. It feels like you are a character in a Mario game jumping from one side of the wall to the other and back again.
Carter had his eye on a piece of glass art at the Zion Lodge so we had to drive up and let him grab that on our way out of the canyon. Byron needed to visit the Visitors Center to see what was going on in there. We managed to spend most of the day tooling around and taking it easy.
On our way out we grabbed lunch at Oscar's and fought over whether the heat lamp was on or off. In the end we all got our jackets and a blanket from the car and Byron won. Lamp off. The beauties of outdoor seating in the fall.
We fully enjoyed our time in Zion and were all sad to leave. This may be a new tradition for the BJPs. Byron said more than once this was the best idea I've ever had. We had fabulous weather and great hiking. It really was a good Thanksgiving getaway.

Red Cliffs Recreation Area -turn right at Harrisburg or is it Harrison?

What type of shops do they have in Southern Utah? Rock shops of course! You could spend a lot of money on rocks here. We went to the Prospectors Shop. Tyler had been eyeing it the whole trip. He scored a cool rock sculpture that he will be getting for Christmas. 

Red Cliffs, how we love you! We finally got to bring Byron to the Red Cliffs Rec area. We had a bit of trouble finding it on our first day. You've got to go down the side road of I-15 and after the little town of Harrison or Harrisburg you take the right that leads you down a one-way bridge under the freeway. I had forgotten about following the freeway south and got us all mixed up. There was a nice guy living in the Silver Reef community that knew how to get us there.

 There was a bit of a traffic jam on the rope area trying to head up river. We finally got our turn.

 We ate lunch on the rocks and spent time relaxing and soaking up the sun. Our lunch was terrible. Carter and I got a gross chicken salad and Ally and Ty got the quiche which was pretty bland. Byron lucked out with a yummy curry chicken salad and was nice to give us all bites. We also split up the clementines and popcorn so nobody starved to death. I had a slight panic attack on the top of the tower the kids and I scaled up. We got to the point of having a drop off on each side of us and I decided we had gone far enough. Yes, Mom chickened out.

 This wall was not easy. It felt much steeper than it looks. I was much relieved to not end up in the cold water.

 Heading back out. This was such a fun hike. Love the foot and hand holds carved out of the face of the rock. Someone hung new ropes this year and they weren't even all fraying and dangerous looking.

 Love the sunbeam here! 

 Tyler heading over the lip. He went back and climbed this section again just for fun.

 I told the kids to hold hands while they were crossing the river here. You can see they all listened.

 We did a little slot canyon/crevice climbing here. Byron is trying to figure out the best way up this wall.

 This looks like Lion King rock. We had a good time trying to avoid the prickly holly leaves and scaled quite a ways up the crevice here.

 We think this tree looks like an elephants trunk and skull. Pretty sweet old trunk.

Ally picked up this cute owl hat in town at the arts and crafts fair today. She loves it! She also got the iguana next to her head. It will be a matching iguana to the ones she has at home. Long day of hiking makes for sleepy children at night. We will definitely have to come and do Red Cliffs again.