Day Twelve: St. George, Ut to Ogden, Ut Via Park City, UT

The past 24 hours have been such a great highlight of this 25 day journey... I know many of you are asking why??? What in the world is in St. George, UT??? Let me explain.....

14 years ago, almost to the date, I went on a summer trip to tour Europe with a High School Band comprised of students from all over the USA.... While on that trip I met lots of friends, but 1 or those friends, Teri was a super special, awesome, friend... 14 years later she and I have kept in touch the whole time.... We have been through lots together, even though she lives 2500 miles away... She is now married to a great husband and they have 2 wonderful kids..... The past 24 hours is the first time we have seen each other in 12 years... So we had a lot of catching up to do.... Thankfully, the Internet has made it easy to keep in touch, but there is nothing like seeing Great, Long Distance friends in person.

The pic below is me sitting at the Teri's house drinking lemonade from a Dixie Stampede Mug she had kept from her visit with my family to Myrtle Beach back in 1997... I couldn't believe she still had it...

Last night after eating a great Mexican dinner at Cafe Rio, a St. George institution, we headed over to see one of Teri's friends, Julie, who became one of my friends just through Teri... It was so good to see her.... The next few pics are from her house.

Matt and Teri and Justin's son, Austin

Julie, Jed, and Teri

From the Floor Up and Around....

Matt, Justin, Teri, Baby Kamryn, Jed, Julie, Austin

After we visited for a while Julie offered to cut my hair. She cuts hair on the side and has a little room in our house where she cuts... This cut should get me through the rest of the trip.

After a great night of reuniting, it was time for some outdoor adventure today. Me, Justin, and Matt headed about 45 minutes north of here to Zion National Park to go tubing.

Last night I googled this place near the park that we could rent tubes and float down the river, we were so excited to get there and get to floating....

When we got there here is what we saw.... an abandoned building.....

and an abandoned bus.... It looked like they had just deserted the place... We stopped in a local restaurant nearby and they said they place had been deserted since August... It is a bit ridiculous that they still have a website....

We were about to be disappointed but a the locals said there was another place on down stream.... and sure enough there was...

We entered the river around 11am and finished up around 1pm.... The company of course came to pick us up and take us back to our car....

Sites from the river!!!!

You can see it was a bit rocky... my "hinney" is still a bit sore.

On the way back out of the park we saw this Elk farm so we decided to take some pics... It was kinda weird... It was some one's  house and you could just drive up in the yard and take pics.

Tonight after some swimming here in town we headed over to Justin and Teri's for dinner... We had a great time... Too bad Teri is not in the pics below.... but she is the caretaker of the bunch and was busy snapping pics for us...

I am so thankful for my friend Teri and the friendship that I now have with her husband Justin. I know now that the friendship will just continue to grow and grow... They are even talking about coming back our way next summer... I can hardly wait!!!

Day 11 Stats:

Mileage: 100 miles (just the round trip to Zion and back)

Drive Time: 45 minutes each way

Gas: NO GAS TODAY!!!!

Tomorrow we are on our way to Park City, UT for the day and then on to Ogden, UT to spend the night before our overnight rafting trip on the Snake River in Jackson Hole, WY on the 27th.

12 days to go!!!