July 8: Today was intended to mostly be a day of relaxation, with a short trip to Cedar City and a visit to the Kolob Canyons area of Zion. The Kolob area is basically canyon after canyon after canyon, providing some nice scenery, although it is definitely outclassed by the grandeur of the main Zion Canyon and the East Plateau.

Not quite feeling ready to head back to camp, I decided we’d take the long way back through the other side of Zion, taking more time to explore the turnouts on the East Plateau. This was not to be, since while in the one small window of cell-phone reception, I received a voice mail from my mom, saying they were stuck in the mud near Cedar Breaks. After lunch and after playing phone tag for a while, fighting for reception, the rescue mission was underway. We did stop momentarily at a few places in Zion, but the East Plateau became the East Blur as we made the long trip back to Cedar Breaks.

We arrived at Cedar Breaks and found my dad not two minutes after the Forest Service Ranger had. After some tugging and reconfiguring of branches under tires, my dad was freed. It’s probably better that the ranger showed up, since I’m not quite sure my 3500 lb Freelander would have had such an easy time pulling out my Dad’s big F-350. After cleaning up, it was back to camp for one final night of relaxation.