Of all the days we spend in the USA today will be the one with the worst weather. Yes dear readers, we really do experience a few clouds here, and sometimes even the sun is behind one of them for a moment, terrible!!! Luckily it’s still like 25 degrees Celcius, so we can’t complain in comparison to the weather in Holland (is it really 14 degrees Celcius overthere? that must be pretty lousy! ;-)).
Today our plan is to visit Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park. Unfortunately for our dayschedule, we are on the road at 11.00 o’clock, so pretty late. Our first stop, Zion, starts with a scenic tour (by car ofcourse, the Americans don’t really like walking) to the top of a mountain. There we have a really good view on a beautiful but partly clouded valley. We now realize how important the sun is for making really nice pictures. Hopefully the weather will be better when we arrive at Bryce Canyon.
The second stop is at the visitor center, where we explore the always interesting bookstore with many great books about geology (those stores are really everywhere here so we have the time of our life, especially Leo who almost can’t resist to buy a book everytime we enter one). Now we are ready to explore the Zion Canyon, where a bus will drive us because cars are not allowed here since the year 2000. It simply became too crowded with all the visitors parking everywhere, a problem that exists in many “smaller” (at least less roaded) National Parks today where it is still possible to enter by car, like Yosemity park and Bryce Canyon. The bus takes us all the way up the canyon and we can decide to hop on and off at 7 stops. We go all the way to the end of the canyon and proceed by foot where the bus can’t go any further. There are many tourists here, also a couple of Dutch people, causing a less special USA-far-from-home feeling. But the canyon is impressive and on our way we see some very nice and not very shy squirrels, which we ofcourse try (and succeed) to photograph.
After our canyontour (and eating the biggest icecream ever, just 2 “scoops” but what feels like an impressive 0,5 kg. Ohw I forgot, we are in America, this is normal here!) it is already 17.00 o’clock. Driving to Zion and doing the canyontour took us much longer than expected. And since Bryce Canyon is at least a 1 hour drive from here we will not make it to see that park nice and easy today, so we decide to move that one to tomorrow. We end our day by driving back to Cedar City and on our way we stop at the Mammoth Cave (unfortunately just a hole in the ground and no story anywhere of a mammoth) and Cedar Breaks National Monument (where it is too dark to see anything). While driving in the dark we spot many many deer, both alive and death due to the cars that hit them. It is dangerous to drive here at night, before you now it there will be an animal on the road in front of your car. Luckily we just have to use our breaks sometime and arrive at the hotel safely.