This past January, I aptly convinced both of my sisters to come visit me in Salt Lake City, Utah. Shouldn’t have been hard, right? Well, it was and here’s why—the previous year, they had come to visit me and we had a little snafu. It had been my birthday weekend and like a true bday QUEEN, I went wild on a Saturday night with no regard for our Sunday hiking plans. Long story short, they ended up needing a rental car and were short one Dina and one Camry that fateful Sunday.
Having learned my lesson and being one year wiser, I knew it was time to rise up and seize redemption. No more hangovers. No more sassy Dina. This was going to be one for the books—and I’m proud to report it absolutely was.
All smiles and no squabbles on Observation Point in Zion National Park.
In anticipation of this trip, I knew I needed to pull out the big guns. We were gonna have fun goddamnit. Given the mild winter we were having in Utah, I decided to plan a desert-romp extraordinaire featuring Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend and Zion National Park. Usually more of an interpretive explorer, I did the unusual and built out an hour-by-hour itinerary to appease my weary sisters.
When the time finally came, I picked both of them up from Salt Lake City International Airport on a Friday evening and brought them back to my cramped, cozy studio apartment. It felt like a slumber party from our old days, with the two of them flopped on my floor-lain mattress and me adjacently on the futon. That’s when I broke the news. There was going to be a massive blizzard starting that night into the next day, exactly when we were supposed to be driving 6 hours south to the desert. But, fear not! We would wake up early and hopefully get far enough south to beat the worst of it.
The next morning, I peeked out my window to see an absolute snowmaggedon. Cam’s front-wheel drive is surprisingly agile, so we decided to send it down to Virgin, Utah. The drive down was filled with close calls including countless windshield whiteouts from passing 18-wheelers. My knuckles were white, my sisters were at the edge of their seats, but we made it unscathed! While we had successfully weathered the snowstorm, we now had to brave 30mph winds, icy rain and sub-20 degree temps. This didn’t phase three girls from New Hampshire in the least.
It’s important to note that while one of my sisters, Cassie, loves camping, the other, Aleka, is not so fond. Aleka spent the night getting slapped in the face with the wind-blown tent lamenting, “Why me??” Of course, Cassie and I were absolutely losing it with laughter. Even with Aleka’s plight, my sisters were blown away—not just by the 30mph winds—but by the sheer beauty of the Utah desert.
The next morning, I took my sisters to Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend in Page, Arizona. The wind seemed to follow us, but didn’t stop us from enjoying the views. After a full day, we drove back to our base on BLM land in Virgin, Utah so that we could make our last stop in Zion National Park.
Driving back to Virgin, we had to pass by a La Quinta Inn before our campsite. Aleka begged Cassie and I to stay there, but we simply refused and continued to laugh at her.
Aleka reaching for the La Quinta. (This photo was not staged, that is genuine longing.)
Much to our surprise, the winds had calmed down once we returned to the site. We had a night filled with mac and cheese, star gazing and laughter, the perfect combination to prep us for our final adventure. The next morning, we drove into a virtually empty Zion National Park. Unlike peak season, we were able to drive all the way up to the Observation Point trailhead. We only saw ONE other person on the trail the entire day!
Returning to Cam and heading home, all of us were at peace. We braved snowstorms, icy winds, low temps and even lower expectations (regarding the last trip)—but I kept my promise through it all. To finally have given my sisters an actual taste of my life was priceless and something I will always remember.
All photography courtesy of Cassouki Chouramanis.