The Great Adventure 2011 Zion National Park – 8/20/11 – 8/23/11

For more pictures, click HERE

Day 1: This morning we left the Grand Canyon North Rim and headed for Zion National Park. As we passed through Kanab, UT, they were having the 13^th annual Western Legends Festival. I was able to take pictures of Clint Walker, Paul Peterson, James Stacy, Kathy Carver (Cissy from Family Affair), Tommy Kirk, Ed Faulkner, Joel McCrea. We walked around the booths and admired the different crafts available. After stopping at a couple of grocery stores, we were on our way.

When we left there we stopped at a couple of antique shops in Orderville. We also stopped at some rock shops so I could find some rock disks to make a drop spindle.
We arrived at Zion and set up our tent at site B14. It is a beautiful spot with trees around us. We drove to Springdale for a block of ice and then went to the visitor center for info. Then we decided it was time to swim in the river (no showers in the park). After swimming we ate dinner (Doritos and bologna). When the stars came out, it was beautiful! We even saw the milky way! It was so beautiful we almost didn’t want to go to bed!

Day 2: I woke up to a really windy morning. It was still dark outside when I got on the computer and waited for the sun to come up. Don finally got up and we took the free shuttle to the Temple of Sinewava to hike in the Narrows (a slot canyon). On the way we saw Condors up in the trees and in the sky. We started hiking at 10am and we finished by 5pm after hiking at least 10 miles in the river. I only fell twice! The water came up to my chest on the way in at one place and on the way back it was up to my neck. That was the scariest part. There was lots of rock and boulder scrambling but it was well worth the hike! I think it was the best hike I’ve ever done (maybe because it was different).

Day 3: We had another windy morning which must be usual in the canyon. I played on my computer in the dark until hubby finally woke up. Our breakfast of bagels, garlic and herb cheese and a slice of bologna has really been a hit! Then we rode the shuttle through the park to the Lodge where we looked around. Eventually we even got a soft serve ice cream ($2.50). After that we went to the museum and another ranger talk about ravens. By this time, it was lunch (do you notice a lot of our day has revolved around food?) so we went to Blondie’s Diner in Springdale which was right outside the park. I had chicken strips and fries for $6.95. The food was so good that we decided to go back for dinner that evening. In the heat of the afternoon when the temps reached 103F, we played in the river to keep cool. At 6:30pm we went on a 2 hr. bus tour with the ranger through the park and enjoyed that. After that, we were back at Blondie’s where I had an 8 oz. steak, salad, potato, and vegetable for $14.95. It was a great day!

What I Learned Today:
· Many movie stars look nothing like they did when they were young and famous.
· It is hard to find a rock disk.
· The wind is pretty strong down the canyon in the morning.
· The water was 62 degrees F.
· In 1909 this area was made into a national monument by President Taft and called Mukuntuweap National Monument. In 1919, it became Zion National Park.
· This area gets an average of 15 inches of rainfall each year.
Posted on the Successful Teaching Blog by loonyhiker (successfulteaching at gmail dot com).
Original Photo: by Pat Hensley

Competition and Adventure Day 33

Blog prompt: Today is the Boston Marathon. Tell about a competition that you participated in and how it turned out for you.

When I was in college I worked in the circulation (also called complaint) department of the local newspaper and there was a competition for selling newspapers subscriptions. The ones who won got a free trip to New York City (from SC) and since I was from NY, I really wanted to win this. I was such a poor college student that I rarely ever got to go home to see any family. I knew this would be a great chance to see my sister so I really worked hard at it. The worst part of this was that I was only a part time employee and had a hard time competing against the full time employees. But, I was lucky enough to be one of the winners and won the trip to NYC. While I was there for the weekend, my sister and her family drove into the city from Long Island and met me for lunch. I was so glad that I won that trip!

Travel Notes:

We are spending the night in our tent in Zion National Park and I’m so excited. I think it will be dark enough to see a lot of stars and I hope to be able to identify some constellations. We have hiked all day so I just hope that I can stay awake long enough for it to get really dark. We have met lots of nice people on the trails today which made it a lot of fun too. I was really surprised today to find out how hard the trails really were because I think all of them went straight up. I think the park turned out better than Don expected. We had lunch at the park café and then soft serve ice cream. Now we are sitting by our tent watching the sun set. Dinner tonight will be triscuits and cheese (from the can) and chocolate chip cookies. No one said I couldn’t serve up an tasty dinner!

(Will have to download pictures tomorrow. It was taking too long and my computer is almost out of battery power!)

update: Pictures are loaded! You can see more pictures on Flickr - click HERE.