Zion National Park

Today's National Park Adventure brought us into the incredible Zion National Park. We picked up our rental car in town from Small Town Auto Sales, picked up the ladies and our gear for the day (i.e., cameras, water, lunch, and jackets) and headed for Zion. The drive from Hurricane to the park entrance at Springdale was a short 40 minutes through interesting landscape and past several nice communities. There were, of course, the usual tourist traps; we avoided those in the interest of time. As we entered the park, using our Senior Access Pass (if you are over 62, buy it now before the price goes up) which gave us free entrance, we saw the signs saying that all parking was full and that we should park in town and ride the shuttle. We tried anyway but failed to find parking at the Visitor Center.

So, we drove the main park road through some of the most spectacular rock formations we have  every seen. We drove through the 1.1 mile tunnel all the way to the entrance at the opposite end of the park. We turned around and made the drive back down into the canyon; stopping at one of the overlooks for lunch. We found parking at the VC this time and proceeded to board the park bus for the drive down Zion Canyon. Cars are not permitted to drive this road.

We did not have time for all of the stops, so we opted to visit the Temple of Sinawava and the Court  of The Patriots. Three tall rock formations named for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

We left Zion around 4:30 and arrived back in camp at 5:20; just in time to take dinner out of the crock pot.

I'm still processing the photos from today, so, here are a few more Grand Canyon shots taken from Yavapai Point.