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Published: July 21st 2007
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Day 13 To Zion, and an unintended adventure
This was a day of travel, a little bit of beauty and a fair amount of frustration. We left Salt Lake city and stopped at an IHOP where we (and everyone else) waited over an hour for breakfast. Then we were on on our way south on Rt 15 for about 5 hours. Utah in this region a lot like Wyoming and Idaho - dry prairie with mountains in the distance. No potatos or wheat fields here though - just miles of burned grass and trees - from the recent wild fires less then a week ago. Some of these were up to the road, clearly explaining why Rt. 15 was closed for several days. The beauty was when we visited the northern part of Zion National Park -- a part of the park called Kolob Canyon. It is isolated from the rest and much more popular southern portion of the part (our final destination). The huge red cliffs were awe inspiring. When we finally got to Zion, Lisa noticed as soon as she helped me back into the campground space that I had left the gas cap somewhere. When we
rented the RV the guy warned us that this is the most lost item on the thing and I had worked out a system that kept me from loosing it for about 21 fill-ups including three this day - but something had happened to throw me off the routine and it was gone. We immediately went back to the last fill-up place about 20 miles back but couldn't find it. That led to an unintended "adventure" to get duct tape to cover the inlet and then look for a place to get a new gas cap at 7PM on a Friday - after several places either that were closed or didn't have the right one - we gave up - and headed back to town frustrated and tired. By then it was too late to do anything in Zion so we ate and went to bed. -- Chris
Day 14 - RoVer has trouble containing his gas.
We had awoke overnight smelling smoke. Lisa around 2 am smelled the smoke first. She got down off the bunk and checked outside to make sure there were still other campers in sight. Chris about 5am did the same thing. At
8am Chris walked to the visitors center and found out that the park was like this every am since the 3 fires which were in the park started and that the smoke had been clearing by noon. He also had called the NAPA parts place to see about RoVers problem. He (Mr. NAPA) said that he had to measure the opening and that he usually can find something to take care of the problem. So we headed off down the road to Hurricane UT. We stopped for breakfast and then at the NAPA store. Mr. NAPA was able to solve our problem which made Lisa very happy. While we were sitting in the parking lot of NAPA Ben noticed a small book store across the street. "Can we check there for the new Harry Potter book?" We went over and even though this book store was mostly used books she had 5 copies of the new Harry Potter book. Maybe our luck was changing.
After a few stops to take pictures and find a letterbox in Springdale UT (the town outside of Zion park) we were off to pick up our supplies to walk in the Narrows of the
Virgin River of the park (also known as slot caverns). We each had to be fitted for shoes, socks, and a walking stick to walk in the rapids, and mostly stone shores. We had been told that we could only walk about 2 miles to the junction of two rivers since above that was the area of the wildfires. But the walk up stream was pretty hard going for us. We made it about 1 and 3/4 mile when Lisa and Alea felt the need to turn around. On the way back Ben and Alea decided to swim in all the deep parts of the river, getting entirely wet. Ben found himself drug into the rapids several times, one time being hit against the rock fairly hard and ending up with a bruise on his stomach. The entire afternoon we could smell the smoke and hear/see the helicopters trying to fight the fires. After the exhausting trip back to RoVer, we were off to supper. Chris and Alea read the local paper and found that it was 3 fires that had been started by lightening in the park that had burned over 8000 acres and was threatening nearby residences that
had been evacuated. We hope they gain the upper hand soon. We took RoVer back to the campsite and all enjoyed a good night sleep.
--Lisa
Fun Fact for the Day: Gas caps are worth alot more then the $15 dollars they cost t buy
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The Royces
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Gas Caps
We had to laugh.... we lost ours too in Memphis.