Scenes from a camping weekend

Okay, pictures of Memorial Day weekend. First, Shorty tromping along a path in a small southwestern Utah state park:

It was a bit overcast, and it was also evening when we hiked this path, just before a rainstorm. The photos don't quite do the luminescent orange stone and sand and black lava rock justice.

The next morning, we hiked through Zion National Park, a beautiful canyon with striking little waterfalls spitting and trickling over and out of rocks. This waterfall was about 500 feet above us at the highest of what's called the Emerald Pools, so named because they're all green from algae (but still quite pretty).

The image below is of Weeping Rock, a spot in a cliff where two types of rocks come together, one of which is less porous than the other. Hence, water that lands on top of the cliff ends up running out from between the rocks and creates a waterfall right out of the cliff's face. What's cool, though, is that scientists have figured out that the water that comes out of the rocks takes 1200 years to filter down and come out. Talk about mindblowing.

Another beautiful shot of Zion Canyon.

We then drove over to Bryce Canyon just in time to experience late-day sun on the orange and white stone canyon walls and thin pillars shaped by time and weather.

This tree was growing in the middle of a narrow, dark canyon. Quite the metaphor.
After watching the sun set, we camped at Bryce Canyon, then headed back to Denver, nine hours in our little SUV, cracking jokes and singing potty-humor parodies of every song that came on the radio.