Camping and Room Service

S, Bean, and I decided to take our first camping trip as a family to St. George this past week. I love seeing the production Thriller and I love seeing it even more at the Tuacahn, so we decided to make a mini-vacation out of it. We loaded up our trailer and Bean and headed out on Monday morning.

Bean and trailer in tow.

Bean did great with the drive down. We only stopped once in Beaver to feed her and get lunch ourselves and arrived in St. George late afternoon. We stayed at this beautiful state park in Snow Canyon which is just a few minutes away from the theater. The show was that night and Bean did great. S told her to get used to hearing "Thriller" because it is one of my favorite songs. You should see my killer "Thriller" moves too. (Just don't ask S to demonstrate because it ends up looking more like a zombie version of the hula dance.)

We didn't sleep at all that night because we were so concerned with Bean being warm enough. We kept the heater on and had her bundled up (and it didn't get that cold the first night.) Still, I think Bean slept better than we did. When the storm front came through the next morning it got bitter cold and windy (the same front dumped snow back home) and S paced for awhile trying to figure out what to do. Finally he said we had better pack up and go. I only got a few pictures before we left.

Snow Canyon State Park

Bean's room in the trailer.

I figured that we would just head home but S wondered if we should just find a hotel room somewhere. I was totally game. I didn't want to go home to icky snow. We found the Marriott suites in St. George, asked if they'd mind us parking the trailer in their parking lot for the next few days, and literally set up camp in our hotel room. We brought in all of our food and everything. Bean experienced first hand the reason mommy and daddy love Marriotts so much: the bed (anyone who has slept in one of these knows exactly what I'm talking about.) Since we had a kitchen and all of our food with us, S went ahead and barbecued for us the next few nights (no, we did not barbecue in our kitchen, there was a grill poolside.) Another few perks of camping in a hotel? The room service and free breakfast!

Bean taking a very comfortable nap on a very comfortable bed.

We drove into Zion National Park the next morning. It was such a fun day! We took Bean on a few hikes (and I mean HIKES! Bean did great though!) and had lunch while some French tourists tried to take pictures of our license plates (true story.) The fall colors were amazing next to the red rocks and blue skies. We left that evening and I told S that it was one of the funnest times I've had there.

Bean sure loves her papa!
S carried her on the hikes in the SleepyWrap.

The Lower Emerald Pools. I have a million pictures
so it was hard to narrow it down to one but this give
you an idea of what the park looks like in the fall.

The next morning we headed home from what I considered the best mini-vacation I've been on. Bean did better traveling than we did I think! In fact, she literally slept the entire ride home so we made really good time. I told S I was nervous for this trip initially because it would set the precedent for future vacation plans. I think Bean will do just fine.