Emerald pools and the Virgin river

Zion is lush and green. Instead of being on the rim like at Grand Canyon, you actually are in the canyon. We love it! Today we hiked to the Emerald Pools, went on a ranger led bus tour of the park, and played in the Virgin river. Tomorrow we are getting up early to hike the Narrows. Today flash floods were probable so we couldn't. The trail IS the river with nothing but canyon walls on either side of you, so not a wise undertaking with thunderstorms likely. Turned out there was no flash flooding in the Narrows today, but there was flooding on the west side of the park in the mid afternoon. Little creeks can turn into white wave torrents in literally minutes. Unfortunately it is a bit risky to take the iPad on a Narrows hike because of the strong likely hood of getting wet, but we have another cheapo waterproof camera we'll bring along:))

The Virgin river runs right by our campground. It was nice chillin' in it when the afternoon temps hit 100! Some dopes lit firecrackers today and set a section of the campground on fire. The fire dept was right on it and it was contained within an hour but it is scary the stupidity of some people. There is a fire ban all over the Southwest!!