Saturday- Fun Day

Well we chose not to do the stop sign hike today and instead to rent a car and go to ZION! 6 of us went together to get a mini-van. Do not think we were skipping out of class, we had permission. Honestly there was only the hike and one class today anyway. In fact many were weighing out this morning. Sort of scary, the end is near!

Anyway, we got to Zion about lunch time and Valerie, Justine (a rocking 19 year old) and I decided to stick together and take a few of the easier trails and eat lunch! We ate at the Zion lodge and it was sort-of like the trips out on Biggest Loser. We just needed Jillian to come in and say "good choices" or "what were you thinking!" It was really a learning experience and I am glad we did it together. We special ordered everything once we made the best choices. I chose the roasted red pepper and tomato soup and a half turkey sandwich. Valerie and Justine chose a grilled chicken sandwich. I asked what the soup was made with. The girls asked to have bacon left off and salads instead of fries. I asked for them to not put the chips that came with my sandwich on my plate. And they had to ask the waitress to find a different salad dressing for their salad. The only choices on the salad bar were blue cheese, ranch and honey mustard. I am sure they were glad to see us leave. But it is something that we have to get used to doing from now on. You can choose an excellent nutritious salad and throw the wrong salad dressing on it and you might as well had a burger!

We took the shuttle up to the Weeping Rock trail. It was a short trail but very steep. And from the end there was a beautiful view of the whole valley and the weeping rocks! Of course we took time to take pictures! Then we headed back down to the shuttle and rode up to the River Walk Trail. It was a nice flat trail along the river. Also very good views. Our leisurely walk along the river became a brisk cardio workout when the rain/snow began. We thought it was going to really rain on us but it was snow balls. Not normal snow flakes, big clumps of snow. Of course we had to stop and take pictures of the snow covering us. By the time the shuttle came and we started back down to the visitor center the ground was covered. After some shopping in the gift shop it was time to head to the Ridge for graduation. I would say probably only half of the guests were left at that time. We had a nice video presentation of pictures from the week.
And they recognized everyone who had attended all of the classes. It was nice to be able to say that we hadn't missed any! Dinner was a yummy barbecue chicken sandwich.

We didn't have a lecture or anything else going on tonight and many people went out to the movies or shopping. We pretty well had the resort to ourselves. We hit the gym for an hour of circuit training. I chose to do cardio/weight circuit, while Valerie chose to work on just strength training. For me it was fun to see how far I had come in one week. Circuit Training you are on a cardio machine for 2 minutes then on strength machine for 2 minutes with a 30 second break in the middle of the strength portion. I was able to go so much harder and faster in my 2 minute cardios than when I first started. I just closed my eyes and said I can do anything for 2 minutes.

We followed that up by a nice long soak in the hot tub and some time in the saunas.
It was a good day!