Better Weather

May 2 – Well the weather guy was right. When we woke up this morning there was about 1.5 inches of snow covering everything. When I got out of bed at 8 it was 26 outside and 38 inside. I turned the furnace on immediately. After about an hour it was bearable inside so we got up and made some breakfast. After loading Maggie’s car on the tow dolly we headed south to Zion National Park. We checked the weather and the highs were supposed to be in the 50s: sounded good to us.

After driving a couple of hours we arrived at a sign that said RVs over 11 feet 4 inches tall would require a permit and have to pay an extra $15 to go through their tunnel. Oh, and you couldn’t be over 50 feet long. We are 12 ft tall and over 50 towing Maggie’s car. So, we stopped at a campground outside the park and unhooked the car and just drove it into the park. Good thing; I think we could have made the tunnel OK but the roads were very narrow and lots of steep switchbacks.

Val has been sick the last couple of days and decided to stay in the MH instead of going out in the 20-25 mph winds. Even at 50 degrees it feels pretty cool. So Maggie and I toured Zion without her. They have buses you ride. You cannot drive your car to the northern part of the park. It’s a good thing, there would be no place to park if everyone drove. As with the other parks in Utah, we saw lots of big rocks. This one was nice because it also had a river running through it. There was a movie by that name wasn’t there? Anyway, we rode the bus to the end of the line and took a 1.2 mile each way hike along the river. It was nice. The photos are of what is called the White Throne and the other is of a small waterfall. It was also nice to be out of the freezing temperatures. The winds have died down tonight. We’ll see if that holds.

May 3 – It was 26 when Maggie woke up this morning. We’re anxious to get out of the mountains and warm up a little. We arrived at the Grand Canyon this afternoon. It was the best day driving yet; little to no wind and clear skies. Had a couple of long and slow grades but we made it just fine. The campground in the park was full so we had to go to a neighboring national forest a couple of miles down the road. The campground just opened the 1st. There were plenty of spaces and we have a really good one where the picnic table is right outside the door. There are lots of Ponderosa and Pinon pine trees. The host running the place is very friendly and has a great golden Labrador named honey.

We took a look at the info we got when we entered the park and think we have planned our next few days. Maggie wants to ride the mules to the bottom of the canyon and Val wants to ride in the helicopter. We were told that most people make reservations for the mule ride a year in advance. Can you imagine? What kind of a person makes a reservation to ride a mule? Must be a bunch of city slickers. Anyway, the guy said they usually have a cancellation or two so maybe we’ll luck out.