No, I am not just whistling Dixie. We went to Dixie for the Thanksgiving holidays. Here is a little explanation. You see, here in Utah, they call the southern part of the state, Dixie. Go figure! Diane, Sam, and I left Thursday morning from Salt Lake City(really Sandy, our official residence). Riley, Jamie and Riley's girlfriend, Natalie left from LA. Our rendezvous point was a house just outside the east entrance to Zion National Park. It was a pretty fancy house but we got a good deal from VBRO.com. It had four bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. There was a custom kitchen and a dining room with a large table that seated 10. Next to that was the great room with a cathedral ceiling and a fireplace. We had picked up a full turkey dinner from Mimi's in Salt Lake. We heated up the meal and had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. That evening we played a round of Trivial Pursuit following by a fun game called the Game of Things. The next morning Diane fortified us with a gingerbread pancake breakfast with plenty of bacon for the Baconater. We drove into the town of Springdale for a look see and stayed for lunch at a Mexican place called Oscars. It was then into the Park where we drove to end of the canyon and took a hike called the Riverside Walk. It takes you to the start of the Zion Narrows hike. We encountered a little ice on the hiking trail but had no serious mishaps. We headed back to our house and prepared for a visit from the Meulemans who were having their Thanksgiving at their house in Hurricane(pronounced Her-A-Can by the folks that live there, if you can call that living). Tom and Jan brought along their daughters Lindsey(with husband, Joe) and Laura(with boyfriend, Patrick). We had turkey enchiladas and watched a little football until they departed. The next day, we split up. Diane, Riley, Natalie, and I took off to do some hiking. We stopped at the Canyon Overlook trailhead and hiked to a beautiful vista just above Pine Creek. Next, we drove into the main canyon and started up the Emerald Pools hike. Almost right away we came upon an icy trail. I was prepared. I pulled out the traction devices from my backpack. We put those things on and now we could easily walk on the icy paths. We passed some people who accused us of cheating; which I guess we were. There were 3 pools. The upper one required a fair amount of uphill hiking but it was a beautiful sight, well worth the effort. We made our way down and headed back to the homestead. I failed to mention that we saw several Rocky Mountain sheep sure-footing themselves on the steep sandstone on the way into the Park. This would now be our last night and the forecast was for snow the next day so planned an early exit. In the morning we left the house about 6:40 am in a caravan. There was about a foot of snow on the road and it had not been plowed. We made our way through the snowy, steep switchbacks that took us through the Park and into Springdale. From there the roads had less snow on them and by the time we hit Hurricane, the snow was gone. Here, our routes diverged. Riley, Jamie, and Natalie headed back to LA and we headed home to Salt Lake. It was a fun and memorable Thanksgiving.
