Celebrating 3 years in St George

Way back when we found out Monty had to have surgery, I decided we needed to plan a vacation. We decided we'd celebrate our 3rd anniversary by spending a week in St. George. I had never been down there and so I figured it would be a nice get away. It was amazing. We stayed at a great resort and and a very enjoyable and relaxing week. We spent 3 days hiking, I lounged by the pool, Monty did some golfing, we had dinner with family and friends, and enjoyed the sun and warm weather.
This is the view from our deck down at one of the pools. We had a BBQ out on the deck one night and grilled chicken. One of the resort hosts suggested we check out Snow Canyon and do some hiking there. It wasn't a very exciting place. There were a couple decent views but mostly just a lot of sand and a few mucky dried up ponds.

Trekking along the river bed.

Stopping to rest in the shade.

While we were in Southern Utah we went to Bryce Canyon. It was absolutely AMAZING!!! We could have spent an entire week hiking through various parts of the canyon. Because Monty is still trying to recover his endurance we stuck to easy to moderate hikes. The canyon is full of Hoodoos which are rock pillars formed mostly by water melting into the cracks of rocks and freezing, thawing, and freezing all over again. There were rows and rows of symmetrical hoodoos that extended for miles. We hiked down through the canyon and up the other side and then hiked the rim up to several lookout points. We realized after the fact that we did it backwards. We should have taken the shuttle up to the highest point and hiked back down instead of hiking up. All the uphill made for a challenge for Monty but he did great.
Me with a view of some of the Hoodoos.

There were several caves carved out along the canyon walls as well. This was just a little one I hid out in.

Us down in the canyon.

Monty with the Hoodoos as we hiked back up.

Hoodoos hoodoos everywhere (I like the word hoodoo in case you couldn't tell)

Us at one of the look out points along the rim. Yes we are dressed a like and no it was not intentional. Monty noticed before we left the resort that morning but didn't bother to mention it. No we are not one of "those" couples.

We also went to Zion's Canyon and spent a day hiking there. It's also a place we could have spent much more time enjoying. All throughout the canyon there are places where water seeps out of the rocks. Some of it is 4,000 years old. You can see marks all along the canyon walls where water has seeped out. There are a few places where the water continually seeps out. One of these is known as Weeping Rock, where Monty is getting his second shower of the day.

We hiked up through the Emerald Pools. There's a lower, 2 middle, and an upper pool all fed by waterfalls coming from the rocks. Apparently there is an algae that grows and makes the pools appear green but they weren't so green when we were there.

Us at the Upper Emerald Pool

Monty on a bridge over the Virgin River which has carved Zion's Canyon.

It was an amazing trip. We had so much fun and it was very hard to come home. Now it's back to reality. The good news is our house looks so much better from the outside now. Our yard is completely in and our new sod is growing like crazy. We planted our garden before we left for St George and it's starting to pop up already. I'll have to post some pictures of that later. It's a new adventure for me testing out my green thumb. I just hope I don't kill it.