Zion National Park

Before leaving the Salt Lake City area, we thought we ought to see the Great Salt Lake. We took about a one hour detour from our route to dip our toes in it. Curious about how salty it really was, I scooped up a handful and stuck my tongue in it. Wow! It was very salty – apparently several times saltier than the ocean.

There was a very interesting little pool of water on the beach that was full of large salt crystals.

I-15 out of Salt Lake City was under construction for miles. The existing road was some of the bumpiest we have seen since we left California :) Once past that, the road was smooth and the landscape was one of rolling hills – very pretty. This road was the first time we saw a speed limit of 80. The road was straight and smooth, but still, 80? In our coach Lannas moved it up to 60. Cedar City, Utah is a little bigger town than we were expecting – about 25,000 people. We ate at dinner at local restaurants (no chains) – Mexican, steak, and barbecue – all pretty good.

On Monday we drove to Zion National Park. We took Toby with us, as the trip would be too long to leave her in the coach. Zion has beautiful rock formations. You can see the layers of stone and where the land was pushed up and slanted.

Some of the rock looks like it flowed, like syrup that was poured on a table and dried, layer after layer. There is one rock named the Checkerboard that has amazingly straight lines (cracks) in the rock, both vertical and horizontal, that definitely give the impression of a checkerboard. We drove through a one mile long tunnel through a mountain. The tunnel had no lighting, except for four or five cut-outs to the outside. We drove the Ford, but for those that drove an RV, they had to stop traffic on the opposite side and make the tunnel one-way so the RV could drive down the middle.

We were not able to see all of the most famous rock formations, as Zion does not allow any vehicles on that route except their own shuttle, and they do not allow pets on the shuttle. Zion and Bryce were the most expensive parks we have been to - $25 per vehicle for a 7 day pass. Lannas was so mad about their policy that he wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Interior! He hasn’t heard back from him so far.