Zion National Park

Up early...ha-ha...it was about 8am, packed a lunch and piled in the car for our trip to Zion. Now I need to say right off the bat, we did no research. We've never visited a National Park except in the off-season. We had no idea, what we were in for. But we learn quickly...

It was so crowded there was practically nowhere to park at the visitor center. So we made a quick dash to the restroom, made a decision and off we gooooo.

We went up the only road cars are allowed...

The drive through was slow with everyone gawking at the magnificent scenery and pulling over to snap pictures and/or hike. That was us, too.

Plus we picked up the three Earthcaches and one Virtual cache. After all, it's our favorite way to see a new area.

 The Great Arch (We hiked to a viewpoint over this)

A 'slot canyon' (We got 'stupid' here and hiked to far along the rock slopes, but we made it back.)

I loved this shot of part of the hike to the overlook. Oh, and I'll add the overlook pic here.

 Thank goodness for railings and stairways cut into the stone in a few places. It was a pretty sheer drop and a 'yahooooo' down once in a while. But did they have to leave spaces between the boardwalk section? Eh gads, I almost had to close my eyes and hang on tight to the railing to cross this section. (Remember me? I'm the one, who has never made the top of the Astor Column, because I can see through the stairs to the bottom far below...oooooooo.)

The drive included a 1.1 mile drive through a tunnel cut in the rock. Because of the height of the RVs and buses, it was one-way traffic. They had to drive carefully through straddling both lanes. Bicycles and walkers weren't allowed. On the way back down through the tunnel we carried three bicyclists with their bikes (well, natch...lol).

When we got back to the park, we extended our stay two more days. We'll do Zion again and see the shuttle part of the park and the museum (I drove slowly around the parking lot three times trying for a space here.)

Today we're off to Bryce National Park...got our list of Virtual caches ready to go.

Hwy 93

We left Twin Falls before noon on Wednesday and headed south on the Great Basin Highway (93). It's good road, but one of those you wish you had auto-pilot on your vehicle. I should have taken a picture in the middle, but didn't. This one is towards the end of the basin...

Our plan was to stay in a couple state parks in Nevada. But a word from the 'wiser', they're not like Oregon's. Oh, and it does pay to do a little research. We did not... Our stop for the night was at Cave Lake State Park. It turned out to be a very small campground...no hookups...no pavement...and the showers were supposed to be remodeled in 2012. Did you notice, I said 'supposed'. As the temp dropped into the 40's no way was I going to shower. I'm beginning to stink...hee-hee. We managed to squeeze both the RV and PU into a space and settled down to dinner and cribbage. But the cool thing was to wake in the morning to this...

and 33 degrees.

As we headed east of Ely we were passed by a snowplow. Now that gave us some second thoughts! But no problem...

Thursday night was supposed to be in Cathedral Gorge State Park, but we did our research first and found they could only handle up to 26' vehicles. There was a great viewpoint just above the park. We were going to hike a trail or two, but after lunch the storm caught-up with us...

Ever heard of the Mountain Meadows Massacre? I hadn't...

A dreadful piece of Mormon history, I'll bet they'd like us not to know about now. This was ordered my the church leaders...carried out by members, Indians of the area and a U.S. militia composed of Mormon men. There was no apparent reason!

Then between 'George the GPS' and Norman, we wandered the streets of St. George, UT until we were finally at a deadend and had to disconnect to get around...LOL.

We're now parked in Hurricane, where laundry, unloading and washing the pickup and touring the National Parks near here will take place.

Sun Valley and beyond...

On Monday we took a little ride with Bill n Kathy to Sun Valley. Our little drive took all day...lol...

We liked the bear.

They liked the Moose.

 Sales everywhere, and we shopped, but didn't buy much. And, NO kids, Dad didn't buy the purple shoe...LOL

 Loved these twig buildings. I think eventually they'll be used as trellises for vines. The new art center will be located at this location.

This is a memorial to Ernest Hemingway, who died here. We walked along the slippery 6 inches of mud above a racing creek holding on to saplings for about 70 feet to get a birdhouse cache. Was it worth it? You bet...fun!

Lastly we strolled through a botanical garden in the making. This Buddist Prayer Wheel was brought by the Dalai Lama in 2005. But what impressed me in this area were the HUGE flat rocks. OMG, I'd sure love to have one or two in my yard.

Yesterday we did about a 3 mile walk here in Twin Falls. It was a wonderful morning...a bit cloudy...but warm.

The guys insisted on walking behind us, but eventually we got to walk behind them and enjoy the view.

 Along the way Kathy and I played with my camera...she is really pretty & will kill me if she knows I put this in...hee-hee...used the 'fisheye' effect. Then I used the 'sports' effect to try to stop the motion of the waves going over the rocks.

 44 degrees this morning and pouring rain...We're outta here after breakfast and heading towards the sunshine through Eastern Nevada.

Heading East...

 I'm feeling a little cautious about leaving the property for so long this year. So I've hired Ron the Garden Guy to keep the yard up, invited the neighbors to use the driveways anytime they want and made a couple other precautions. Now we just leave, have great times with our Yuma neighbors and hope for the best.

We were a little bummed, when we found out our quad riding in SE Utah was cancelled. But after a couple days and some discussion...our trip continues with just a slight change. We're now going to 'discover' SW Utah...the Vermillion Cliffs and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon before heading to Mesa and Yuma.

The first day was pretty laughable. We took the shortcut off Hwy 97 towards Silver Lake, Christmas Valley and Hwy 20. But we talked and gawked along the way until we reached a rest area at Summer Lake. OOPS, missed our turn and had to backtrack. The first night we watched the 'Harvest Moon' come up over a gravel pile where we spent the night just west of Burns.

 

The next day we pulled into Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park in Idaho. It's a beautiful park, but not what we expected. We expected a park full of quad  and sand buggy nuts, but not so. The only thing you can do on the dunes is walk and/or slide. The camp host was flabbergasted at the number of folks arriving for the weekend. After telling us we had to find a space in the overflow campground, he added he had never seen so many people here. BTW, the overflow is really nice; the trees just aren't so big.

 

On Friday night members of the Boise Astronomical Society came out to the observatory located in the park and set-up all manner of wonderful telescopes. We got to see magnificent stars, planets and galaxies. The young man from Mountain Home Airbase had his telescope trained on E.T. Yep, he's up there, but he does have a fancier name, I just can't remember it...lol.

Yesterday we did some geocaching, which included hiking to some. Although we left home with everything clean, the pickup and our shoes are terribly dusty now. 

 Of course, after being in the desert...ice cream is called for! We drove about eight miles into the tiny town of Bruneau for cones...

 Now we're off to Twin Falls and more adventures.

For those of you new to our blog, you will see an invite to join Feed Blitz. It will send you an e-mail, whenever I do another post. I do not intend to always put these on Facebook...sorry.

One last note...are the flies always this bad in Idaho in September? YUK!