Zion National Park (5/27/14)

Last night was a pleasure sleeping in the air conditioned Escape. After reading the forum for a year and hearing owners complain about the Dometic Air Conditioner, we were pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. Some complained about the noise. I can guarantee that they have never spent a day in the desert @ 99 degrees without electric! We got a “relatively early start” and were on the road to Zion by 7:45. The drive was about 1-1/4 hours and just getting there was spectacular. The red (Navaho Sandstone) mountains and hills were beautiful. But then, we drove through the gates to Zion! WOW!!! Since it was only 9 AM, we quickly found a parking spot near the visitor center and then went in and checked it out. Barbara wrote out a post card for the boys and mailed it off to them. Then, we struck out to the park shuttle bus. They have “free” shuttles that make a continuous loop of 8 different stops. At the stops, there are walks, photo ops, museums, rangers, and spectacular views. We stayed in the park visiting all 8 stops until about 1:30 when the temperature hit 100+ degrees. At that time, we decided to head home to the “air conditioned” camper. Throughout the drive home, we kept passing camper after camper heading into the park. I guess nobody told them that the park would be hot and crowded. They even had to park outside the park and take a shuttle. On the way home, we stopped at a Starbucks for a cool tea and free wi-fi. I got to upload 6 more editions of the blog, do some banking and download e-mail. At the campsite, Barbara cooked a great dinner of Salmon, broccoli, baked potato, Hershey’s dark chocolate and washed down with some wine from Jessie’s Grove Winery where we stayed a week ago. Another great day. The biggest challenge now is deciding what to do next over the 19 days before we get to Richardson.