Zion National Park

Zion National Park is majestic! Some how I was driving again as we entered the park on the east side. The park road was only slightly less scary than Rt 12, but still a windy, curvy, high grade road with drop-offs,  but now with many cars. It was another tough ride, so rough that my mother planned the next leg of our journey so that we avoided that entrance and road. Then there were two tunnels through the mountain. The first was short, but the inside was just the mountain rock. It looks like they used a huge industrial mining drill to carve the tunnel. The other one, Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel, was so scary long, 1.1 miles. The rangers were only letting one lane of cars at a time go through, my mother thinks it was because of the exhaust build-up in the tunnel. There were a few windows in the tunnel, and the inside was concrete.

We took a day off here in Zion. This is only our 2nd day off in 3 weeks. We took one in New Orleans and now one in Zion. Day off means no driving, not rest and relaxation. This was the best day of our whole trip so far. We took the shuttle to the end of the scenic drive - private cars are not allowed in this section of the park. MJC and I walked the Riverside Trail out to the Narrows. It was still early so it was cool and sooooo beautiful! So beautiful I actually teared-up at the beauty of this place (I maybe a little tired too). Then we went back to the lodge and ate lunch, played a game of chess (MJC handily won),  shopped the gift shop, and had some ice cream while rocking in the rocking chairs
It was a small slice of heaven. In the afternoon we went horseback riding inside the park along the Virgin River. It was really hot, but it felt so good and natural to be in the saddle again. We forged the river and actually got to trot a little even though we were with a group. We are going to do another trail ride when we get Jackson Hole.

We learned a few interesting things. The Mormon’s who settled here actually gave up on the valley because every time they planted their gardens a rock slide would cover the gardens up so they couldn't Survive here. The ancient Paiute survived here before the era of tools by herding wild animals off the sides of cliffs. We saw the cliff on our trail ride.

It was an amazing day. Zion is now my  mother’s and Micah’s favorite National Park. For me, Zion is tied with Monument Valley (technically MV is not a National Park  because it’s on the Navajo Reservation).

Wildlife:
5 deer
1 turkey
14 rock squirrels
3 lizards

0 Roadkill

Gree’s senior park pass savings to date $ 340+