Beautiful Pansies

I, Linda, have always enjoyed yard work and I usually have a pretty decent yard. Well...this year I have out done myself. This sweet little "purple pansie touched with yellow gold" has made its way in a crack on our patio. What can I say...I'm quite the gardener!

Our St. George and Environs Road Trip

We started our full day in the St. George area with a road trip, going north out of St. George through Snow Canyon State Park (which we re-visited that afternoon for a hike) and then on to the scene of the Mountain Meadow Massacre. It was a terrible incident, but the site is now peaceful and hopefully settlers and pioneers are now reconciled in the Spirit World. We then took off south...

...visited a cute little Southern Utah town named Veyo,

...saw a dormant volcano just outside Veyo,

...and drove through an Indian Reservation. It was a fun little road trip.

After getting back from our morning road trip, we called Max (Linda's little brother) and Cindy, found out they hadn't had lunch yet and so went to eat together with Lizzy and Amy at the Pasta Factory in St. George. Lizzy, on the end, is getting married to Huck in July and we are all excited.

For me (Tom) the most fun part of the day was our afternoon hike in Snow Canyon State Park. The weather was perfect (low 80s) and as you will see below the scenery is out of this world!

Here I am on the trail next to the Silver Hair Sage. Maybe both of us are silver-haired sages, right!?

Following Kristen's tradition of taking pictures of our feet in Chacos.

Our last day was spent taking the long way home. We left St. George and went through Hurricane and LaVerkin (our guidebook said they are like Buda and Pest except no good food!) and then came to Zion's National Park. These following pictures don't do the park and the scenery justice! But I hope you can still sort of see how breathtaking it is. We then followed Highway 89 up through more beautiful and ever-changing scenery as you'll see below.

My (Linda's) grandma Nicholls was born in Hatch, Utah. It was named after her family. We are important people!

Did you know Big Rock Candy Mountain is in Utah? The one Burl Ives had a song about. We had no idea it was right here! It really does look like yellow candy flowing down the mountain