July 17 Monday Zion

We let the girls sleep in a bit this morning and Dave and I made bacon and blueberry pancakes for breakfast since we ate out last night.  The smell of the bacon cooking woke the girls up and they were soon ready to eat.  After washing the dishes, we hopped on the shuttle to finish a few questions the girls had to complete their JR booklets.  We stopped at the Grotto to look at the first museum built in the park in 1924.  It is now a residence for an artist.  We walked to the Lodge for cold drinks and then had to identify the very large tree on the lawn in front of the Lodge (see pic).  It was a Freemont cottonwood tree.  I could tell by the leaves that it was a cottonwood, but we got the specific name from a ranger.  Our last stop was to the Human History Museum, where we cooled off by watching the introductory movie in a lovely air conditioned auditorium and then found the plaque identifying one of the founders of the park (the last question in the booklet).  We headed back to camp and had lunch.  It was very hot again today (100 again) so I took the girls down to the river for a couple of hours of swim time.  They found a place on the bank where they could jump into a deeper hole in the river and had a grand time just playing in the water.  We came back to camp, but it was still really hot so I got on my swim suit and Dave came with us to cool off.  Dave didn't put his suit on so he just stood in the river to cool off, but I was so hot, I sat up to my neck while the girls swam and splashed.  We will be making dinner soon and then we will pack up the truck in preparation for leaving tomorrow.  We will go to the ranger program tonight and then have the girls get their badges tomorrow on our way out of the park.  Tomorrow we head to the Grand Canyon.