Zion National Park

Tai Chi on the brink of Bryce Canyon on Tuesday morning was unforgettable.  There were not many people out yet and I had it all by myself. 

 

Martha had awakened before sunrise, too, and she soon joined me on the brink of the Canyon where we watched the sunrise.  Some people were starting to arrive from their cabins and from the lodge, and I was struck by how reverent we all were.  If someone spoke, it was in a whisper, as it would be if we were in a church.  It reminded me of the way visitors to the beach often awake early to watch the sunrise in a similarly reverential place.

 

I had taken a photo of a deer grazing among the tall ponderosa pines on the way out to the Canyon.  Martha had spotted one, too, perhaps the same deer, and took this great video.  They were so quiet that some other folks walked by and did not even see them.

 

In planning this road trip many months ago, we had nearly neglected Zion National Park, a place we had read about but which seemed a little out of the way.  So we had decided to stay an extra night in Bryce Canyon and to drive to Zion today, westward in the opposite direction and back again.

 

As we left the Park, we passed the same group of lodges and stores that we had seen the previous day, RUBY'S INN AND GENERAL STORE (SINCE 1916), which literally had it all:  lodge, general store, and in the immediate vicinity Ruby’s RV Park/Campground, Ruby’s Guided  ATV Tours, Ruby’s Rodeo, even Ruby’s Helicopter Tours.  We wandered through the General Store stocking up on picnic essentials (energy bars, yogurt, and the like), and I noticed that there was no wine back in the grocery area near the beer.  I was told that the wine was sold in the lobby of the connecting lodge building, and when I checked it out I discovered a small but well-stocked Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services (DABS) outpost with wines at exceptionally low prices (I was told that the prices were set by the State of Utah), back behind the counter next to tequila and bourbon, as if there were no distinction between them.  In North Carolina wine and beer are sold in grocery stores and everything else in ABC stores.  Utah has some peculiar alcohol laws.

 

Down a hallway containing many other Ruby Enterprises, Martha discovered an Old Timey Photo place, and after much persuading (of me) we donned western garb and took home this souvenir photo.  “I had to lasso him in for this one,” Martha said when posting it on Facebook.  I was told I was a “good sport.”

 

Who was this “Ruby,” I wondered?  I pictured some hard-bitten women with an unfiltered cigarette dangling from her chapped lips and a lot of industrious sons and daughters.  It turns out that the place was indeed established in 1916 by Reuben C. (Ruby) Syrett, who brought his family to the area and saw a business opportunity here.  The various enterprises are still owned by the Syrett family.

 

There was light rain falling as we drove to Zion National Park.  I wondered about the name, a synonym for Jerusalem in the Bible.  A Google search told me that the area had been settled by Isaac Behunin in 1863, and he had farmed tobacco, corn, and fruit trees.  Behunin once said of the area, “A man can worship God among these great cathedrals as well as he can in any man-made church; this is Zion.”

 

It was a beautiful drive, with this spectacular stone arch serving as a kind of entryway to the first of many canyons.

 

We drove through Red Canyon first, with rock formations similar to those in Bryce Canyon.  The red color comes from iron in the rock, which as we all knows turns red when exposed to air and water, so you might say we were driving through rusty rock.

 

We came to a long tunnel, the Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel, over a mile long.  It was completed in 1930, and interestingly enough, there were openings here and there along the way through which you could glimpse fantastic vistas, none of which I managed to capture in a photo.

 

The landscape changed when we passed through the entry to Zion, the red rock formations replaced by towering mesas, like this one – Checkerboard Mesa, formed from horizontal layers of ancient sand dunes.
 

 

The visitor center was crowded, filled as many of the National Parks were this time of year with visitors from many nations, and I enjoyed sitting and listening to the music of so many languages.  Tall craggy mountains and mesas surrounded us on all sides.

 

I noticed some flowers that were unusually beautiful behind the Visitor Center, a white one that I had also noticed along the road in Red Canyon (where there were few plants, let alone flowers) which seemed to be growing out of cracks in the rock, long and graceful like an Easter lily.  The Plant ID app on my phone identified it as the sacred thorn apple, Datura wrightii.  The plant is a poisonous one, and I read that it is sometimes used as a hallucinogen by Native Americans.  I remembered the name Datura either from The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castañeda or an Agatha Christie book where it was used as a poison.  My photos were not very good, so I borrowed this from the internet.

 

 
The purple flower, also identified by my Plant ID, was the silverleaf nightshade, Solanum elaeagnifolium, also poisonous and related to deadly nightshade.

 

There was a river running behind the Visitor Center – the Virgin River – which was thick with reddish muddy water, and a bridge across it to some commercial buildings.  This marked the edge of the National Park, we realized – the buildings were actually in Springdale, Utah – and we were curious to see what was there.  Across the river we discovered Zion Outfitter, an outdoor store, and the Cable Mountain Lodge.  And, oh yes – serendipity once again! – Zion Brewery, where we sat outside and enjoyed a pint of very good IPA and some snacks.  (For a state with some peculiar alcohol laws, Utah has some very good breweries.)  The young woman pouring our beer came out to chat with us and told us how fortunate she felt to be living and working in such a beautiful place.  And we agreed wholeheartedly.