Zion National Park – Utah’s 5 part 1 of 4

After we left Vegas (quite uneventful, we were so excited for a warm, un-timed shower and a clean BED, we didn’t even go to The Strip until the morning), we headed northeast to Zion NP.

Zion was our first real experience at a National Park. We’d been to Yosemite before, but just kinda walked around with family. And before Vegas, we went to Joshua Tree NP (post pending!) but we just drove on the main road (twice!) and looked at all the cool stuff out of our windows. So going to Zion, we actually got off at the stops on the shuttle (which is totally cool btw), hiked some trails and took loads of photos.

View from our campsite at north Zion, called Lava Point.

Emerald Pools, named from the algae that forms on the bottom.

On our way back to the shuttle, we noticed that us and the couple next to us were the only ones left on the bus. The woman looked over at us and noticed D’s hat, and said “Uh oh, we got some Yankees fans here!” in a BOSTON ACCENT. Great, I thought, now we have to throw-down with some older retired people because of D’s unwavering loyalty to a sports team. The woman reached down into her shoe, and pulled out . . . Her sock?! She pulled her sock up over her ankles so we could see, and yep, she’s a loyal Red Sox fan. Shocker. Turns out though, she’s a total sweetheart, and in the 20-30 minutes it took us to get back to the parking lot, we learned about her family, her home, and that her and her husband travel somewhere they’ve never been before each year. Yeah, they’re actually following through with their Bucket List. Last year was Alaska, this year it’s the Southwest. Kinda. They went to Big Bend NP in Texas, then the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and now Zion in Utah, and then northeast back to Massachusetts. We shared our story; how we quit our jobs, sold our stuff, had a shotgun wedding after 5 years together, packed what we could into our Isuzu, and set out for all the NP’s we could possibly afford. They were very encouraging and loved hearing our stories. I think meeting them was one of our best memories from Zion.