Our first time snow tubing + trying the “BEST cinnamon rolls in the West!” (Brian Head + Parowan)

After spending a day at Bryce Canyon National Park, we headed back west towards Cedar City for one final adventure before we explore the central and eastern parts of Southern Utah. We had planned to just spend a day enjoying a winter activity nearby, but then we saw a billboard that was too good to pass up, which brings us to the town of Parowan. Parowan is located northeast of Cedar City and was the first settlement in Southern Utah in 1851. It's known as the Mother Town of Southern Utah because of the pioneers who came from this town to settle other communities in the surrounding states in the west. Parowan has a cute little downtown main street area and there are over 40 well-preserved homes, buildings, and heritage sites still here today. So we're not 100% sure if we're saying the town name right. We're saying Parowan now, but for a while we were saying Parowan, I think. But we heard a local say Parowan and we tried Googling it and we really could not find a solid answer. So if we're wrong, we're very sorry. Since we've been in Utah, we've learned that some of the names of towns and things are, they say them a little bit differently than you would think. One of the most different ones is the town of Hurricane, but they say Hurricane. So it looks all just like Hurricane, but that's not how you say it. And then Zion is actually Zion. So we're learning lots. We had no idea. One of the most important buildings in town is the Old Rock Church. This is actually the oldest church building in Southern Utah, built in 1867. During its heyday, it was not only a church, but a school, community rec center, a town hall. It was built of locally quarried stone. And today it's now a museum for local pioneer history maintained by the daughters of Southern Utah pioneers. While the history of Parowan and its significance is really interesting, there's something else that this town is known for. And the whole reason that we came here, Cinnamon Rolls. No! The place we wanted, Cinnamon Rolls, is closed until April 12th. We had seen on Google, it said temporarily closed, we were hoping that it was wrong, but it was right. Google knows all. We were afraid that that would happen. I guess we're going to come back in a couple days. We just drove by. Today is April 12th, the day they said they would be open to check back. It's not looking good. It's looking exactly like it did the other day. Newspaper's still up on the window. Despite Parowan Cafe still being closed, we're not giving up. We're going to try another place that we are hopeful that we can get at Cinnamon Roll. So the whole reason we visited Parowan is because about a week ago, we were driving on I-15 and we saw this huge billboard that said, Best Cinnamon Rolls in the West, and you can't read a billboard like that and not come try it for yourself. So a little bit of backstory on why that billboard even exists. In 2016, a branding and community development expert visited Parowan, and he loved the hometown feel of the town, and he challenged them to become the place to get the best Cinnamon Roll in the West. A few businesses accepted this challenge, and so the Sweet Tour was born. Along the Sweet Tour, you can find your classic takes on cinnamon items, like a cinnamon roll, all the way to something unique, like a cinnamon roll shake. So we finally got our cinnamon roll from Mama Lane's Bakery. So we got just a classic cinnamon roll, and it has a cream cheese frosting, a nice thick layer of cream cheese frosting, if you notice there. Feels nice and soft and moist, and kind of smells like the King's Hawaiian breads a little bit with tons of cinnamon and cream cheese on top. Alright, so right off the bat, it's very soft, and my favorite word, pillowy. The cream cheese is very nice. This is just so good. It's very cinnamony. It's a solid cinnamon roll. Yeah, right off the bat, you can just see how thick and pillowy, as Adam said. It just is very soft. I love cream cheese frosting, so I'm very excited about this. That is a pretty dang good cinnamon roll. It is very layered. You can see the different layers in here that kind of all go together. It has great cinnamon flavor. Favorite part is definitely the cream cheese frosting. It kind of just gives a sweetness to the breadiness of it. We haven't had a ton of cinnamon rolls in the West, so by default, this is the best cinnamon roll in the West that we've had. They weren't lying. Yeah. Even though the cinnamon rolls didn't work out on the first try, we are so glad that we saw that billboard, because Parowan is actually on the way to where we were planning to go today. A place called Brian Head Resort, and had we not seen the billboard, we would have probably just driven through, and we would have missed out on the famous cinnamon rolls, even though technically we missed out today, but hopefully, we just showed you that we did get them at some point. Even though it's now April, we really wanted to do something wintry while here in Utah, especially since we spent the first part of the year in Texas, where winter's not really a thing most of the time. So we came to Brian Head Resort, which is actually Utah's highest base elevation ski resort at 9,600 feet. We haven't had the best experiences skiing in the past. We do want to give it another try, but we just don't have the time to properly learn right now, so we're going to try something new. We're going to try snow tubing, and if it's as any fun as sand sledding... We are going to love it. To go tubing, it's $25 a person, and you have an hour and a half window, we're ready to go shred. Apparently the green tubes are the fast tubes, so that's what we got. So the rules for tubing, if you're over 50 pounds, you could lay on your stomach on the tube, and you have your feet hanging down, using your feet as brakes. You have to have your feet touching the whole time, and if you go past this orange sign, or you hit the dirt pile, it means you went way too fast, and they're going to downgrade us to a slower tube. I feel like I'm going to be a little bit conservative with my speed at first, because this is new to me. But I'm really excited. You also have to wear a mask or a face covering the entire time, so we're sorry if you can't see the joy in our faces as much as when we went sand sledding, or hear what we're saying at all. These look a lot steeper than from the ground. Before, when we were just watching people, I was like, ah, this doesn't look that steep or fast, but you're up here. That was awesome. Oh my god, that was so fun. That was so fast. I laughed the entire time. It happened so fast. They said go, and I wasn't ready. My feet weren't on the ground for a bit, and I was like, oh shoot. Oh my gosh, it's never going to get old. That wasn't my best one. It's actually kind of embarrassing I lost out of everyone. I think I came in second. Oh shoot, it's so bumpy. Oh my gosh. It's so bumpy. Alright, it's our last time. We're going to try and make it our best one yet. I know we're a bit of a broken record, but you can actually see the smiles on our faces now, but that was just so dang fun. You're turning, sliding, going so fast. Oh, absolute blast. Yeah, absolute blast. We're not big winter sports people. We just didn't grow up around it, but being here, it's making us really want to try it again. I told myself, and I told Catherine, I'm never doing this again. I'm not skiing, not snowboarding. No, no, no. Never. But being here and just seeing, being in the environment and seeing how much fun that is, give it another try. We're going to take it to the next level next time. Instead of tubing, we'll go skiing, so we have plans to hopefully go skiing next year. Get some lessons. We're really excited. Do it right. We'll definitely get lessons, because we'll tell you the story next time of what happened last time and why he said he'd never do it again. No day out in the snow is complete without hot chocolate. They have a little cafe inside the building here, so we got two hot chocolates, and they're really fun hot chocolates with tons of different flavor combinations. Mine is called, I don't remember, but it has peanut butter and chocolate in it, which sounds so good. Oh, yeah. I got s'mores, just typical s'mores and ingredients, marshmallows on top, of course. That's so comforting and delicious and sweet and good. Oh, yes. Oh, it's hot. Oh, sweet, sweet, hot goodness. To a tubing job well done. As we mentioned earlier, Parowin is the oldest settlement in Southern Utah, but its history goes back quite a bit further than the 1850s. We've been staying at this really cool spot all week called the Parowin Gap Petroglyphs, which are said to be the largest concentration of petroglyphs in the West with over 1,500 figures. This gap behind me is what's called a wind gap. It's where an ancient river carves this giant notch out of this hillside. Many Native American peoples would pass through this area and carve and chisel figures and symbols into the rock face. This is a collection of over 1,000 years of artwork etched into the rock face by Native American groups. There's geometric figures, solar and lunar calendars, animals, and human figures. And on both sides of the gap, there are short paved walkways where you can walk up close to the petroglyphs and read signs about different interpretations of them. We've never seen so many petroglyphs at once, and especially this clearly. They're in great condition and you can very easily make out the different symbols and shapes. Look at these amazing sunset colors. We've had a nice sunset just about every night we've been here. We've been here six or seven nights now and we're going to stay a few more. We don't normally stay at places for this long, but we're really happy that we came back here from the Bryce area. We just love this area. Parowin's a really cute town. Cedar City has been really nice. Best library ever. Best library. Uploading vlogs. It's a tip for you. Very important when you live on the road is find solid Wi-Fi in the Cedar City Library. A plus plus. But we are going to continue more east from here on out and we have so many more southern Utah adventures to share with you soon. The cinnamon roll quest continues. Cinnamon roll gate 2020. One. Oh shoot. Despite being four months into 2021, I still think it's 2020. It's basically because nothing really has changed. It's the year that never ends.