For those who only spend time in Seattle in the summer months, it is hard to imagine how dreary the winter and spring months can be with constant gray and drizzle. The wet cold goes all the way to the bone. The winter and spring of 2010 was one of the worst years for Seattle weather.

So I twisted the arm of my bride, Jamie, and asked her if she’d like to come with me on a drive east to some sun and hopefully dry heat.

“How long will we be gone for?” she asked.

“When I get good and tanned and tired of the sun (like that will ever happen)” I replied.

So we packed our trusty Ford Escape and headed east.

“Do you have any idea where we are headed?” she asked two days into the trip.

“Looking at the map last night, I kinda thought we’d head to Zion National Park” I reckoned.

So that’s where we headed. How nice it was to occasionally have to use the car’s air conditioning. What a concept.

Little did we know the world of wonder we would enter. We were so taken by the sights and natural history that we knew we’d found the theme for our trip – how many national parks could we visit in the next 12 days?

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