It’s sad to say that I’m heading home today. Not that I don’t want to see JD, the dogs, chickens and my fish. I just am not ready for real life yet. After laundry last night, I packed everything except the clothes I was wearing the next day. We both got up early even though we could technically sleep in. We did have a work meeting that was a town hall that we needed to attend. Though after that, we headed out for Snow Canyon to do one final hike before I flew out.

Snow Canyon was on our way to St George so it made it the perfect stop to hike. For being one of the smaller hikes established state park, it had a great trail system that lead one to the other to another. The hike we decided to do was the Butterfly trail to the Lava Flow to the Petrified Dunes. The change in the scenery has ceased to amaze me.

This is the start of the Butterfly trail which fallows along with the Lava Flow trail. We didn’t see the “butterfly rock” whether that be due to our inartistic ability or we just didn’t go by it. Who knows.

Lava rock can be found all the way through this section where the two trails join for a bit. We branched off to the lava flow trail in which the landscape changed.

This is a section of the lava tubes that run through the area. The lava field was created over 27,000 ago from an eruption in the Santa Clara Volcano. The tubes are the flow of lava after the top layer has cooled and creates a tunnel like system. The reminisce are the hollow tunnels.

A second tube which I think connect from the upper one we saw. You can climb down but you need a rope to get down all the way.

After we left the lava flow section, we hiked a gravel road for a bit until we hit the petrified dunes. We had seen something like this previously in White Pocket but the climb up was not nearly the same. It was a straight hike up. Another booty buster!

We ended up with just a little over a 3 mile hike. It was also very different from the lava flow field than we had done before. The first and last half of the trail were terrain we had seen and hiked previously. We took off for Costco in Las Vegas to fill Jess up before she left (I have a membership) then headed to REI. They are having their anniversary sale so why not right? After that we went to a raman place for an early dinner. I didn’t get any pictures due to how freaking hungry we were. Trust me, it was good.

Jess dropped me off at the airport with plenty of time that I didn’t have to rush. We said our good bye’s and I proceeded through security. I never thought I would fall in love with UT like I did. The natural beauty that surrounds you is just breath taking every time. The landscape is wildly and vastly changing with every step. The people I’ve met from the area were fantastic. The history I learned about the land, the culture and the vegetation was fascinating. This has been one of my top five places I’ve been and I’m grateful!!