day 19

got up early to catch a ride up to zion; we got a ride with a german couple that was a couple campsites down from us. they were super nice and were traveling around the u.s. for 3 months. we talked about parks, germany, and their van/camper. we caught the free bus up to the grotto to start climbing angels landing. after an hour of switchbacks and scaling rocks with a chain we made it to the top. it was hot and beautiful. it was quite an adventure climbing the rocks up and on one side is a couple thousand foot drop and on the other is a couple hundred foot drop. wild stuff but not real scary! i was surprised. we stayed around at the top just soaking in the picturesque and sometimes fake looking view. so wild.

once at the bottom we hiked over to the emerald pools which weren't that interesting. it was so hot and the pools were more like stagnant water pockets, except for the upper pool which was like a pond but it was impressive that the little waterfall was dropping from a couple thousand feet up. it was super busy there with kids so we hiked back down. we then caught a bus to the brewery/restaurant where we tried a couple of their local brews and watched a hockey game. after some time there, we hitched a ride back to our campsite and read for a bit then built a fire and waited for our friend greg to show up. greg is a friend from college and he drove up from vegas to hangout with us for a couple of days. we met up with him and chitchatted around the fire until we went to sleep.