Deb and I were both pretty confident that we'd been to Zion National Park when the kids were small but after today's visit there, we've lost some of that confidence. Seems like we would have better remembered the sheer cliffs and spectacular beauty. Now we're thinking that perhaps we'd only been to Bryce! Oh well! We'll figure it out from old photo albums at home. One thing is definite -- we had never been on the Scenic Highway 9 access to the park -- built in 1930 including a mile long tunnel called the Zion-Mt. Caramel Tunnel.
Here is our route for the day. We started the day with a side trip through the Dixie National Forest. It was here that we pulled into one campground looking for a rest room -- but upon not finding one, returned to the main road. When approaching the main route, I noticed a car coming at a pretty high rate of speed -- so elected to await its passing before getting back on the main route. Within a mile after getting back on the road, we rounded a corner to see the same car that had flown by us turned around and up on the hillside in what was an obvious spin-out. We, along with another car with a solo male occupant pulled over to see if we could be of assistance. The car that spun out was driven by a female who appeared to be in her mid 20's. She was able to move her car to a safe spot -- dragging some plastic -- whereupon she exited the vehicle, broke into tears -- and explained that she was rushing to and late for work and the cars' failed shocks made it difficult to control. I noticed a baby's car seat in the rear of the car -- and asked her about any other occupants -- and she explained that her baby was at home. I checked all the tires, confirmed her observation about bad shocks by watching the car bounce when I compressed them, and put the dragged body part into the trunk. As she tried to calm herself, I learned from the driver of the other car that stopped that he was a solo tourist from Hamburg, Germany who had actually observed the car go out of control. He was appreciative that we had stopped because he felt his command of English was not good enough to have been helpful. Shortly, the woman expressed her appreciation for our stop/help and continued on her way. We too shuttered thinking how lucky the woman had been to spin out where she did as elsewhere along the road the outcome would not have been favorable.
With that excitement behind us, we arrived on the very scenic entrance to Zion and traveled into the park where they are well equipped for crowds by limited all exploration of the valley to free shuttle busses that run every 8 or so minutes. We rode the shuttles to the furthest point in the park -- took a short hike -- and then back to the museum and our parked car. Zion is truly amazing and I must add it to the "not-to-be-missed" list.
As planned, we continued our journey into St. George, Utah -- and found one of the top rated (tripadvisor.com), inexpensive motels for the night.
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