June 2, 2004 - Zion National Park, Utah--Day 1
Well, dang. I had to give up "control" of our lives for a bit here. Well, didn't really "have" to, but it seemed prudent. Since 1999 the park has had these free shuttles that make all the important stops in the scenic sections of the park. I hate public transportation for all kinds of reasons we won't go into, and my knee jerk reaction to riding a bus is negative. However, we packed up what stuff we thought we couldn't live without and boarded for the 90-minute round trip. One of our (my) better decisions. Barb loves public transportation and it never was a question for her. I just did this internal arguing with myself, you know. Great fun. End of the run (bus turnaround point) was the Temple of Sinawava. The Native Americans (there were several different tribes inhabiting the valley at different times) believed one of their gods lived here. Short two-mile round trip walk, easy, with paved trail and no hills to speak of, called Riverside Walk.
HA! The lawyers are alive and well here too. Far as I'm concerned, that bottom line says it all. "Don't be stupid," in other words, and if you are stupid, don't blame it on somebody else! There is no way we can take enough pictures to share the beauty of this place, even if we tried. Some of what we think are the more outstanding views are included here, but, trust me, none of the pictures do justice to the beauty, majesty, and grandeur we saw.
Dang stink bug would have crawled up my leg if I'd let it, which I didn't.
That leaf must have been confused. It's nowhere near Christmas yet. Looks like some kind of bug chewed on it a bit though, eh? Glad to see the walkways being repaired, and got a kick out of the little tractor with its Jeep look-alike front end.
That's one tenacious tree, growing out of the sandstone, and Barb's hoping that piece of rock likes it up there over her head. Lots of evidence that the canyon is still in the process of widening. Rock slides have been known to produce some interesting results like 100 mph winds, knocking down trees on the opposite side of the canyon from the slide.
Looking just about straight up, we see moisture seeping out of the stone which creates interesting places for plants to grow. Yeah, Barb's with me and there were some interesting flowers. The one happens to be a columbine.
Talk about blending in! That squirrel went undetected until it moved. Looking up the Virgin river. A Father Escalante named it the Virgin Mary originally, but somewhere along the line the Mary got dropped; he also named some other landmarks. The river has carved the canyon some 3,000 feet deep in places. Between the Mormons and a Methodist minister who explored this area, lots of landmarks have names from the Bible.
Another view upriver, and a spotted towhee (I think). These colorful little birds were all over the place.
The Great White Throne, the largest monolith in the world, and a mule deer buck who couldn't have cared less about us walking along minding our own business. He had a companion buck with him, and they just laid there and chewed their cuds.
The "Weeping Rock" gave life to plants that were growing upside down from above. And, of course, we got wet walking under it, which we had to do. Apparently it "weeps" all the time, some times more than others. It was pretty slow today with the temperature approaching 100 degrees.
No end of beauty here. Looking across the Weeping Rock and then up.
Everywhere we looked, we saw something worth noticing. At least to us.
A short stop at the museum to watch a 20-minute video on the park, and this layout of a stateroom as it would have been on the railroad at the time the park was being developed. Lots of the park was developed by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) in the early '30's, and the rockwork on the bridges is not only very sturdy and functional, it's beautiful as well.
The sandstone is only about 85% solid, which makes it pretty porous and somewhat unstable. There are lots of places where it's broken away in arches like this. We suspect that the Arches National Park will be full of these. The striations on some of these rocks almost look like they were glacier carved. Fascinating patterns.
We drove through a tunnel built in 1930 that has a roof that is 13'6" from the center of the roadway, and 11'3" at the edges. Large vehicles like motorhomes have to pay $10 for an escort and traffic is stopped so they can drive down the middle of the road. After taking the 1.1 mile tunnel, we decided to find another way to Bryce Canyon NP on Saturday when we move. $10 for a thrill ride is OK if I'm not the driver and our home isn't at risk, but there's a significant climb here, and plenty of switchbacks to boot. We could do it, but why put ourselves through it? 18 miles longer and no tunnel and only modest switchbacks and we're there.
OK, there's more than one tunnel. At least this one doesn't require an escort. Carved out of the Navaho Sandstone, and no cement liner inside like the one that we went through earlier. Wonder why.
Even the roads here are red for crying out loud (the colors in these photos just don't pick up the real thing). The fascinating patterns never end.
These last two photos are of the "Checkerboard Mesa" where the crevasses run both horizontal and vertical. How'd that happen?
AHA! It may be 103 degrees at "home" but there's snow on the ground here! Sure surprised us. The pass was at 10,000 feet, so maybe we shouldn't have been surprised. And then these two does looked surprised to see us. We were surprised to see them, that's for sure! They turned, and quickly scrambled back up the bank behind them, and Barb said, "OOH, please stop so I can get your picture."
And one of them actually did! What an accommodating pose, eh? And now we're home (RV park) and this is the view from the road we're parked next to.
And home sweet home. Even if it is over 100 degrees during the day. It drops down into the low 70's at night, and that makes for comfortable sleeping. The air conditioners keep the interior to what we want, which is between 81 and 85. With a humidity in the high teens low twenties, it's actually quite comfortable. Inside!