Visit to Four of Southwest USA's National Parks (Part One of Many!)

A year ago, Baab castigated us for having visited the Grand Canyon without him, notwithstanding the fact that this egregious act was committed prior to his birth. To propitiate him, we had to promise a trip in the near future. Well, tomorrow finally arrived recently.

My parents were scheduled to visit the USA to welcome a grandchild. Given that they were planning to be with us for a couple of weeks in June and we had vacation days to spare, I cobbled together a plan that had us visiting three National Parks (Zion National Park, UT; Bryce Canyon National Park, UT; Grand Canyon, AZ) in Southwest USA in one week. I will explain the title later ...

Zion National Park
My first mistake was not reading brother-in-law's e-mail properly and going to this place for sunrise, for which we had to wake up at 4:00 am. Big mistake. Zion is not the place for sunrise, or sunset for that matter. Unlike Bryce Canyon (which, technically, is not a canyon) and Grand Canyon, at Zion you are looking out from inside as opposed to looking in from outside. As a result, the scenery is not all that good unless, of course, you wake up really early and hike (climb) up to a spot in the canyon walls - that was out of question for us.

Mistake #2 was going out for sunrise in shorts and without a sweater.

The third mistake, parking the car at the Majestic View Lodge - way outside the park - not realizing that there are TWO shuttle bus routes, one from the town of Springdale upto the park and another intra-park shuttle.

Anyway, we atoned for my mistakes by spending an hour waiting for a bus to ferry us back to the place where we had parked the car; we waited at the very spot where the bus had dropped us off, which was none other than the spot where we should have driven to in our car. I had read too much into the information online which specified that individual vehicles were not allowed into the main drag of the Park this time of the year. The saving grace was that the two eldest members of the party and the youngest member were all left in the motel to catch up on their sleep. Also, I got to take this nice photo of the setting Moon (yes, I mean Moon, not Sun).

<a href="http://porcupyn.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/img_1249.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-369" src="http://porcupyn.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/img_1249.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>

A colourful e-mail address - a Katya tale

Well now, Baab has got a new e-mail account for himself, thanks to his mother, and has been e-mailing all grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc. He even replied to his own e-mail when he did not get a response quickly enough (shades of what his father was told - he vehemently denies this - he himself used to do two decades ago!). Anyway, his excitement was infectious, so the little one was excited.

Katya: "I want one! I want one!"
Baab: "Wait until you are as old as I am now, and I will create you one."
Katya: "I want pink! I want pink!"

A few anecdotes - a Baab tale

1) While travelling the other day, the topic of conversation veered from mammals feeding their young to egg-laying animals to humans consuming eggs ...
Mom: Some people have omelettes for breakfast.
Kiddo: I know I know! They have cheerios in them, don't they?

Mom and Dad: What??!!
Kiddo: Well, you string the cheerios and ...

OK, What's The Good Word?

2) A short time later, after being bored at being quizzed, the kiddo goes: I am tired of questions.
Mom says: Let's reverse the situation and you ask me questions.
Kiddo: How many quarts in a gallon?
Mom and Dad (aka true-believers-of-the-good-old-SI-system-in-spite-of-a-combined-three-decades-in-this-land-of-the-FPS-system):
Kiddo: OK then, how many litters in one thousand gallons?
Mom (Counts fast, anxious to beat out Dad): o-n-e-t-h-o-u...
Dad (Does his best imitation of ROTFL while driving), while mentally thinking "what a language! Litters, letters, litres and liters!!"

3) After the entire family has (unwittingly or witlessly, whichever you think fits the situation) taken a bath in the Kali river rapids boat ride (Magic Kingdom), Dad stands over stroller as rest of the family is in the restroom doing as best they can to dry themselves off without change of clothes. At that moment (aka ऐनवक्तपर), another couple walks towards the restroom as drenched as the First Family (of this Blog). Now, among the park visitors, most of whom were prescient enough to have got, brought or bought ponchos, this couple stood out like a pair of sore thumbs.

Dad: Looks like we were in the same boat.
Sore thumbs: No, I don't recall seeing you in our boat!!
Dad (looks away; unfortunately, ROTFLing is not an option in the murky waters)