26.7. - Narrows und Burrs

Today we got up early to avoid having to hike in the heat! After a nice fruit salad and corn-flakes breakfast, we walked to the bus station and took the shuttle to Zion. We got out at the Temple of Sinawawa and started our walk wearing neopren socks and hiking shoes from the rental store. The Virgin river does not carry a lot of water but to get in to the Narrows you actually have to get in the water. A walking stick is of great help to find out how deep the river is. Unfortunately the water is not clear since it rained the day before and, actually, there might be flash floods if it suddenly begins to rain again!  The Narrows is a canyon with high ligth brown tall walls and other rock formations. It is not alway easy to wade the river because the current is sometimes stronger and the water comes all the way to our knees. We try to go as fast as we can because we want to be back at around one o´clock to check out from the campground.
Markus seems to be enjoying himself a lot... at least he is always ahead of us. Erik and I are a little bit more careful because we don´t want to fall.

Back in Springdale, we bring the gear back to the sport shop while Klaus goes to get the Rv.
We are going to drive back to St. George to visit the Burrs. They are the Mormon family I lived with in Provo, Utah when I was fourteen years old.

In St. George we check in at a Ramada Inn. The reason: we need to shower and make ourselve presentable for the Burrs and we can´t do that at the campground because check-up time was actually noon (we left there at around 2:00).

At approximately 5:00 we arrive at Nicole´s. She is my "little sister" who lives in Washington City ( a nice neighborhood in St. George, Southern Utah).  "Mom" and "Dad" are also there and it is nice to see them again after almost 16 years (Klaus and I had stopped at their place in Provo when our VW Van broke down, back in 1995).

We had a nice chat and the kids go downstairs to play billard and watch a movie. As we are sitting in her living room, the sky goes dark and we all go to the porch to see a dust storm coming our way, You could feel the dust in your eyes and the wind was quite strong ( We are happy because that means the temperature is going to go down. It had been very hot while in Zion, and our camping-site didn´t have any shade).

Later on we go to eat something small at a very American place call Freddy´s where you can have hot-dogs, hamburgers and milk-shakes. While we eat it begins to rain!! That ´s a big surprise for all (we are i n the desert, almost).

At around 9:00, "Mom" and "dad" leave and we still stay another hour talking to Nicole and Kyle who is indeed very funny.

We agree on meeting the next day to go play pickl-ball" ( a mixure of tennis and pin-pon).

Back at the hotel we have a good night.