Can you find the deer in this picture?
It was really this close
Day 25 Zion National Park
Here we are in a place where it hardly rains and the sun always shines. So of course, today was very cloudy and showery.
The good news was that it made for cool weather, I really didn't need to be climbing up trails in 100 degree weather. The bad news was that canyons, especially these red ones don't really show their beauty with the sun lighting them up. The absolute bluest sky that I have ever seen or photographed was sever years ago at Bryce Canyon, not far from here.
First we went north of here to a separate sections of Zion called Kolob Canyons. This is a section that is cut off from the main park. It's about a five mile drive up and down a spectacular canyon area. Of course, I dressed for the heat, with shorts and short sleeve top and it was 59 windy degrees up on top. I didn't spend much time out of the car taking pictures.
Kolob Canyon at Zion NPThen we drove for about 40 minutes to the town of Springdale UT to the main gate of Zion National Park. The park provides shuttle buses into one section of the park. This is the lower area, it has lush vegetation on the bottom of the canyon. The shuttles stop at various sites of interest and people can get off for as long as they want, another shuttle comes along in six minutes. If you didn't want to get off the shuttle at any stop, the tour would last 90 minutes. Great system, really.
We spent most of the day. One interpretive center has a 30 minute movie about the park, the geology, nature and its wildlife. Another stop has a restaurant, snack bar and gift shop. We were hungry and cold (didn't take our jackets) so the stop was much appreciated. Got some good sandwiches and two new jackets, that we didn't expect to buy, there.
When we got our lunch and took it outside all the tables were filled. We ended up sitting on a stone wall with our tray between us. Three feet away was a strange couple eating ice cream cones. The man (about our age) was already down to the cone part when we got there. Certainly,we thought, he would be finished in a minute and we would have a table. Well, this couple was strange. He ate that cone in pea- sized bites that he chipped off the cone at a rate of about three chips per minute. Of course, Jim was staring at him all the while. Jim ate a hot dog, turkey/Swiss sandwich, a bag of Fritos and a large drink BEFORE Mr. Mini Bites finished his cone! And yeah, the guy was skinny. They say to eat slowly to lose weight - it works!
When we are in a place such as Disney World where tables are at a premium, we always eat and leave as soon as we are done. If we want to sit and talk or rest we can do that somewhere else. When people are waiting to eat, it is the courteous thing to do. We were trying to balance our tray between us on the stone wall, it was obvious we would have been more comfortable sitting at a table on CHAIRS. They could have sat at any bench and had that ice cream...what's wrong with people?
Next stop we took a 'short' .6 mile walk on a trail, in rain showers, to see an emerald pool. The bad news was that it really wasn't worth it and it was mostly all up a steep climb. The good news was that we literally bumped into two deer on the trail, and a couple of squirrels. The 'wildlife' should be renamed 'tamelife'. It was almost funny how accustomed to humans these animals are. We walked RIGHT up to the squirrels and deer.
There were many Europeans there, mostly German. My dad always said, "Those Germans are SMART, you know." I think he may have been right, these people were easy to pick out even before they opened their mouth. They just looked smart....like you could give them all the stuff in your junk drawer and they could make a nuclear power plant out of it. I was almost spreken ze Deutch by the time I got off the shuttle....does wiener schnitzel count? ( I can see Babette wincing here)
Of course, just as we were leaving the park the sun finally came out. So we took the car and drove several miles UP the canyon (some scary curves) and through a tunnel, 1 mile long, made in 1930 through the mountain. The area on the up side of the canyon is totally different from the lower, but just as spectacular in its own way. And I got some good photos because it was sunny!
Anyway, we had a fun and informative day. It's getting more and more difficult to find a place that we haven't been!
Came back to three very happy to see us dogs. Made a strange dinner by combining some leftover rotisserie chicken, drained and rinsed black beans, Spanish rice, black olives and a can of Mexican corn...it was good! I'm going to use what's leftover for a cold rice salad. I'll add some chopped avocado and tomato, maybe onion? Yeah, improvise!
Tomorrow: VEGAS BABY!
