Day 12 - Zion National Park - I'm a bit "rocked" out now

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Now I'm going to put this bluntly - I'm now bored of looking at rocks & mountains.

Today was Zion National Park & tomorrow I have the Grand Canyon. I know they are beautiful but there is only so many rocks & mountains you can look at & photograph before becoming bored. I'm therefore not going to put you through the pain of lots of photos or descriptions.

The most exciting thing has probably been the wildlife & the tame (or some might say clever) squirrals which came & ate lunch with me. They must be clever as they know when it's lunch time & people come to the river for a picnic. I spent most of an hour talking with the squirrals, have them come sit on my lap or chasing them out of my bag! Now I will say for the record I did NOT feed the animals as this is illegal with a $100 fine but when my crisps fell on the floor it was amusing to see a squiral chomping on Original Walkers crisps!

Sorry....that was the most exciting part of the day. I did do a boat trip around Lake Powell later that afternoon which was OK but gave myself sun stroke as I sat on the top deck in heat over 100 for 1 1/2 hours!

We are now getting back to normal civilisation as we hit Page, Arizona! There are no cowboy hats, no one riding horses, no wooden sidewalks or anything which could be in a western movie! No....we are back to a town with major roads, ambulances or cop cars flying around, noisy bars & big supermarkets. It actually feels quite wierd & in someways the backward life of some places over here is incredibly simple & a bit less complicated (& that's just crossing the road let alone the people!).

It is so hot in Arizona. i don't get how you are drive and hour & the climate can feel so different & one minutes it's 1pm and a minute later you've gone back an hour to 12 noon! Very wierd - so I'm not 8 hours behind the UK vs. 7 when I woke up this morning.

We've arrived into Page, a town of around 8500 people to spend the night before we head to the Grand Canyon tomorrow. For evening dinner we decide to head into town but it is so hot none of us can face eating inside. Now in the US, Safeway still exists as a supermarket (some of you may remember these before they were taken over by Morrisons a couple of years back - sorry for the work reference). Everything in the US is HUGE, the supermarket, trolleys & the food (Did you know the Pringles can size is 185g so bigger than our 165g which we downsized! Sorry work reference again!) I saw today the biggest pizza I've ever seen. It was a bargain at $8 (£5) and must have been around 24 INCHES! In the UK you couldn't even fit it in a standard oven so I'm guessing they must have big one's over here! Anyway, surprisingly I declined the pizza and went for a good old Louise option of Quiche & salad which was eaten alfresco at the hotel. Very nice it was!!!

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Photos

Wildlife in Zion
I'm NOT going to bore you with mountain / rock photos today - you'll get enough tomorrow with the Grand Canyon!