Zion National Park

Tuesday, June 30, 2010

Hi everyone,

I haven't blogged in a couple of days because we have not done much. We are temporarily stuck for a while. Hopefully, not too much longer. We blew a hose on the engine leading to the Turbo Charger thing. Not sure what that means but we had to order a part from several towns away and are waiting for it to come Fed Ex. I'm just hoping that Tommy can install it because A: the motor is halfway under our bed in the back of the RV, and B: there isn't a Tiffin authorized repair shop for over 100 miles from here. Wish us luck!

Yesterday was fun. We went into Zion National Park. It is beautiful! There is this road that is 24 miles long just to get in the park. Along the way I was not impressed, but the minute you pass the guard gate the landscape completely changes. Its gorgeous. You have to drive through a tunnel that is 1.1 miles long and can only take traffic one way at a time. If your vehicle is over 11.1 feet you need to have an escort, which also cost $15. You are truly driving through a huge rock. Its amazing.

The pictures I post do no justice whatsoever. These rocks, sandstones, are magnificent. They are as tall as skyscrapers and on the side slopes and tops are full grown 30 - 40 foot trees. You cannot actually tell that from the pictures but they are massive!

There is a $25 charge to enter the park, per vehicle, which I thought was a bit expensive for a National Park, but once inside you realize why. You are only allowed to drive so far in - up to the visitors center. There they have shuttle buses that take you all throughout the park. There are several stops along the way where you can get off an on as often as you like. Each stop has its own 'attraction'. All along the ride there is a narrated tape explaining what you are looking at and how it came about. Zion, actually pronounced ZI IN, is an old Paiute Indian word meaning; peace.

We got off on every stop and hiked one trail called the Ponds. It was pretty cool. It was only a mile long and led us to these natural ponds where the waterfalls created a pool inbetween the rocks. We saw a rattle snake on the way back. He was docile and we were only about 2 feet from him. He had 4 buttons on his tail. They grow one a year so he was relatively young.

We still cannot get a signal here and tried to hook up Skype so we could call via the computer, but it comes to be that our internal microphone is somehow damaged and of course there is not Radio Shack even remotely close to purchase an external one.

We alternated our plans once again. This is the great thing about not wearing a watch or knowing what day of the week it is. BTW, we also decided not to cut our hair until we get back home, so when we do arrive back in South Florida, we will be fit (hopefully), all confused about the time changes and have extremely long hair!

We plan on leaving here Saturday morning, if all goes well with the motor repairs. We will head over to Lake Havasu, AZ. Our friends, Jim and Jackie have a house there and a boat, and we plan on spending the forth of July with them. We are very excited to see them again. From there we will head to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

We hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th of July.