Hi everyone, Thanks so much for writing back with your ideas. Here is a tentative outline for our daily activities. My only criteria in deciding what activities to put on what days was to separate days that had long driving trips with days that would be much closer to home base. So, of course, if anyone wants to swap days for any activity, that would be fine with me. Now you can look over this list and if you feel like something really fun has been left out, you can submit your suggestion with the appropriate committee.
Please remember, I’m not going to force everyone to do every activity. If you want to bring a lot of books and hang out at camp the whole time, that’s fine. (Parents of young children may not zone out the whole time, however.)
Day 1—Tuesday, July 28
Check in time is 3:00. You can come down any time that you like. Please pick up your own dinner on the way. Dad and Kathy are driving up. Lynne is flying in (and then getting a ride from one of us??) It’s about 3 hours from Lauren’s house, 4 from mine.
Day 2—Wednesday, July 29
A Local day. In the morning, we’ll explore the area and look for Cascade Falls. In the afternoon, we’ll have some family badminton and horseshoe tournaments. And after dinner, we’ll have a bonfire with smores in one of the large firepits. Yumm!
Day 3—Thursday, July 30
Best Friends Animal Sanctuary & Zions National Park
Best Friends animal sanctuary is just outside of Kanab and is the nation's largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals. The facility has been made famous by a TV show called Dog Town on the cable network Animal Planet. They provide a nice tour I think we would enjoy. The tour runs about 2 hours. I have made reservations for our group for this morning at 9:00. The only glitch is that they have 2 vans to take people around on the tour—and they can hold 22 people. We have about 26 in our group. So one family would need to opt out of this tour. The family that doesn’t come will get a few extra hours in Zions, or several extra hours of sleep in the morning. We’ll plan on leaving about 7:45 a.m. (with packed lunches). It’s a one hour drive to the Animal Sanctuary. We’ll be on the tour from 9:00-11:00. It’s a one hour drive from there to Zion’s National Park. Once we get to Zion’s, I assume we may split up with some people choosing to go hiking, some choosing to take a shuttle tour, others may want to drive through the park, or explore the ranger’s stations, etc. Because of the side trip to the animal sanctuary, this will probably be our longest day—we may want to consider meeting up at a specific time and having our dinner out on this night. There are several restaurants in Springdale, the city we’ll pass through on our way into the park.
Day 4—Friday, July 31
A Local day. We’ll spend some time around Navajo Lake, they have reasonable prices for renting pontoon boats or canoes. We could also have a family paintball tournament at camp!
Day 5—Saturday, Aug 1
Cedar City. We could relax for the morning and then drive into Cedar City after lunch for some fun. (It’s about a 45 minute drive.) In Cedar there is a nice public pool, a Discovery Park, a Benjamin Franklin exhibit is going on at the local library, and movie theaters for activities to choose from. Of course, the Shakespeare festival is going on, too. These plays are not for children under 7, though. If some of the adults want to see a play while the rest of us play at the park or go to a movie…that would be cool. I’d even be willing to watch someone else’s kids, but first come first serve (I’m not willing to watch ALL the kids at the same time). At 2:00 the Comedy of Errors and a play called Foxfire are playing. I think we’ll head home for dinner (of course this would be another good option as a night to have dinner out) but, if anyone would like to drive down for the evening play, at 8:00 As You Like it and The Secret Garden are playing. There’s a lot more info at www.bard.org. If this interests you, buy your tickets soon!
Day 6—Sunday, Aug 2
A Local day. Family Archery tournament?
Day 7—Monday, August 3
Bryce Canyon
Leave around 8:30 a.m. Pack lunches. It’s about 1 hr 15 min. drive.
Last Day—Tuesday, August 4
Check out time—10:00 a.m.
Now we know where we’re going to be and what we’ll be doing. Hope this helps. Sisters, please let me know if you have a preference for what day you’ll cook dinner!
7 comments:
Family archery? Why do I get visions of children running in front of speeding arrows? I think I'm paranoid. Michael would LOVE the animal shelter thing (and I would, too). I'm pretty tempted to go see the Secret Garden or As You Like It, so if any other adults are interested let me know and we can go together. If we did that, though, then it might not be a good night to do the dinner out.
Note to self: bring paintball clothing.
I guess we could opt out of the tour since we've already done it but I'll talk to Ryan about it. Also, I don't really recommend eating in Springdale - we didn't have any good experiences there, but I guess if you're desperate. There are places to eat in Zions that might be better but more expensive?
It sounds like a good tentative plan. I'll read over it a little more carefully later and let you know what night I'll do dinner, although it doesn't really matter.
Thanks for all your hard work Erika.
I don't mind if we eat in Zion's. I just thought that we'd really have to cut our time there short if we had to leave early enough to drive all the way home before dinner time.
If we leave out dinner on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, I'm only counting 4 dinners. I could use my salad for a lunch one day.? Or bring it with us somewhere like Zion's or Cedar City? The chicken will be cold, though....
I love all of these plans and ideas and food. An evening at the Shakespearean Festival interests me. My 2 cents on the animal shelter thing is that going there and to Zion seems like a lot in one day. Maybe we could organize it so that all of the kids could go and some adults. Then we could picnic and see the sites in Angel Canyon and drive home for dinner. Do Zion another year.
About my travel plans...I realize that this is a longer and more distant trip than last year and that many cars will be packed to the gills already. So I could rent a car and help transport stuff for big families. Or if this is not needed maybe I could find a place in a car that is not already loaded to the max.
What do you think?
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