Utah, Glendale - Sunday, April 24, 2016 - Zion National Park

I took this shot during one of only two stops we made as we drove through part of Zion National Park today.  We pulled over to the side of the road to put sunglasses on after going through the tunnel.  Our plan today was to just drive through to the visitor center, get some information we could look over to plan another day later in the week for some more sightseeing.  The park was really busy today.  It was the last day of the “get into the National Parks free week”, it was a nice day and it was Sunday.  Most everything shuts down around here on Sunday including gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants and gift shops.  I personally think that is as it should be but it happens so seldom we were a little surprised.  In fact, I took the grocery list thinking we could pick up a few things since we were headed to Kanab, the closest “big” town after we went through Zion.

This is the Checkerboard Mesa.  The first of many beautiful views.  I took this while we were off the bike.  As it happened this pull off point was the only one that had a space where we could park, everything else including the visitor’s center was full.  The rest of the pictures posted were taken from the back of the motorcycle.  I didn’t do any cropping or editing of the pictures, I wanted to remember the splendor of all of this just as I saw it.

This is my normal view as we go down the road.  I have to work to keep him out of the pictures.

I don’t have any idea what any of these mountains are called, I just call them beautiful.  The road we are on is called the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway.  It runs about 24 miles from US89 to the visitor center.

There are two tunnels on this road.  This is the small one, if you are in a large vehicle you don’t need an escort through this one.

This is the long tunnel – 1.1 miles long, about a mile longer than I liked.  If you are going to take your motor coach or other large vehicle through here you will need to pay a $15 fee for an escort through.  They shut down the traffic from the other side so you can ride the middle line.  I have no idea why you would even want to consider taking you motor coach through here but a few did.  I know ours isn’t going through there.

More scenery shots:

I think I took at least six pictures of this mountain.  There was a series of several hairpin turns and I think every time we came back around I liked the view so much I took another picture.

This is what happens when you have to wait for a large vehicle to come through the tunnel.  We are heading out of the park now.

One last scenery shot.  I ended up taking 195 pictures today, it was hard picking out my favorites.

From the park we headed south another 17 miles to Kanab.  The wind was beginning to pick up a little.  It was cool, low 60s when we started out this morning.  The ride would be really nice if the wind would slow down a little.

As I said earlier most of the restaurants in town were closed.  We knew there was a local Mexican restaurant that advertised it was closed on Saturday so we went looking for it.  Escobar’s was a delight.  They have outside and inside seating.  When they brought our food Greg asked if I had brought the camera.  I said, “No, I’m not documenting that we are getting ready to eat all of this”.  It was delicious!!  That’s the first time we have gone off the plan since we left Mesa, supper will be meager tonight.

Before we left Kanab we stopped at the Little Hollywood Museum and Trading Post to play tourist for a while and to walk around after eating lunch.

They had some buildings, sets and props from movies and television series that were shot locally in the Kanab Canyon.  Kanab Canyon was a popular movie ranch, the location for One Little Indian (James Garner/Jodie Foster Disney comedy), The Outlaw Josie Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976) and the Lone Ranger series among others.  We’ve been to other western movie set sites that are bigger and more interesting but it was a nice stop.

This was the Outlaw Josie Wales movie homestead and barn.  The land where it originally sat was sold and the buildings were going to be destroyed.  The owners here got permission to move them to their current location.

This set was first used for the movie One Little Indian.  It was built in Kanab Canyon along with a barn that is still used by Best Friends Animal Society at its original location.  Best Friends is the largest no-kill animal sanctuary in the world.