I am hoping that today's blog will be better than yesterday's. Firstly, because we have had a much better day, and secondly because I am not so tired. We have been really tired every night (apart from the early jet lag nights), to the point of not being able to keep our eyes open after dinner, which was when I wrote last nights blog.
Our journey from the Hacienda three-in-one hotel/casino/truck stop to Zion Canyon was OK. Nothing much to say about it really, apart from to comment on the wildly varying prices of gas (petrol) from state to state. We've been to four states so far - California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah, and we've paid prices between $3.80 and $4.30 a gallon. I'm not sure how that compares to UK prices. It's cheaper to fill the tank up for sure, but I don't think the car is very efficient. It's not as cheap to travel by car as I thought it would be.
They do have a far more sensible system for paying for petrol here. You pay first, by preauthorising a maximum amount. If you don't use that much then you only get charged for what you use. If they did that in the UK it'd save me hours of work with bored petrol station attendants and unsolvable crimes.
Bizarrely, Utah is in a different time zone to Arizona and Nevada. So when we arrived here, we immediately lost an hour of our day. The scenery gradually became more impressive as we got closer to the national park entrance. We decided we were going to love it before we'd even arrived just from the approach.
Zion is very well organised, and geared up to encourage people to make the most of the area. You have to pay a $25 entrance fee per car, which is for a 7 day pass. And then you're free to come and go as you please. There are free buses inside the park so there are no traffic jams or fumes.
It was about 3pm (Utah time) by the time we arrived, so we decided to take a gentle stroll and get a taste of the park and then do some proper walks tomorrow.
Zion canyon consists of one main canyon with the Virgin river flowing through it, and numerous other smaller canyons in the sandstone plateau on either side. We walked along the main canyon, which was amazing, so we can't wait to see the less accessible areas tomorrow.
The canyon floor is quite green as you can see. It's nice to be somewhere where things are growing on their own without someone watering them with a hosepipe. There is loads of wildlife here too. We've seen some very tame squirrels, some elk, weird green beetles, and some horrible grey furry caterpillars.
The caterpillars come out of some creepy nest things which look like they're made of spider's webs. Then they crawl high up in the trees and munch away on leaves, which eventually fall out of the trees looking like jigsaw pieces from all the bite marks. A lot of the caterpillars seem to fall out of the trees too, probably from eating too many leaves.
Here is a photo of a cute elk to take your mind off the caterpillars:
There are also mountain lions, condors, and hummingbirds here but we haven't seen any of them yet.
In comparison to yesterday's experience at the Grand Canyon, today has been a hundred times better. It's restored our faith in American national parks. Aside from the administrative issues, Zion is a much nicer place to spend a day in our opinion. It's easy to get to, and is much more varied than its bigger brother. The temperature is better, and there's much more to see.
We'd originally planned to spend a day here (today), before moving on to Bryce Canyon tomorrow. Then we decided to spend an extra day here, and a bit later decided we might even spend three days here and miss Bryce Canyon altogether. We'll decide for sure tomorrow.
We're staying in a nearby town called Hurricane. It's about 20-30 minutes drive from Zion and is cheap with a Dominoes takeaway close by. I'll be surprised if I can fit in any of my clothes by the time we go home.
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Location:Zion national park
You sure do have a purdy mouth.
ReplyDeleteOh, can we have a picture of the caterpillar please?
ReplyDelete