Shakespeare Festival

This weekend was my annual girls trip with my fab friends Jen and Krista down to Cedar City for the Shakespeare Festival.  A fun time was definitely had by all!  There are a few traditions that we stick to every year: see several plays (of course), have dinner at the Pizza Factory, and hike up Kolob Canyon.  This year we were particularly ambitious and planned on seeing 4 plays.  We  went to Taming of the Shrew and Cyrano de Bergerac on Friday, and Fiddler on the Roof and Othello on Saturday.  All four plays were just amazing, but I have to say, Cyrano was my favorite by far.  One of the festival favorite actors, Brian Vaughn, played Cyrano,  and his performance was beyond words.  Yeah, I was crying and sniffing in the final scene.  If you have never taken the opportunity to go to Cedar City for the Festival, you must go, the quality of the plays and the caliber of the actors are so professional.

Here's the girls, me, Krista, and Jen:

Every evening before the evening performance they do a greenshow:

I really shouldn't be doing this, but I'll tell you one of the best kept secrets in southern Utah is hiking in Kolob Canyon, which is a part of Zions.  It's about a 20 minute drive from Cedar City and we always hike the Taylor Creek trail to Double Arch.  It's about a 3 hour beautiful hike.  Another nice thing is there are usually very few people on the trail!  

A few of the wildflowers on the trail:

I thought this tree was pretty funky looking:

Here is a part of double arch, it would be hard to take in the full arch with my camera:

There are a few old cabins on the trail along the way.  It always makes me wonder why settlers chose to live in the area and what they did to survive there.  

I love the beautiful red rock in southern Utah.