Beautiful Zion and Bastketball Too!

Looking at Zion from afar

 Thursday dawned clear and the forecast was for another 60 degree day, so we made a plan to head toward Zion National Park.   There was a remote road that we talked about exploring last year and just didn't get to do it.   Well, today was the day.   Headed out from the little town of Rockville, which is just outside Zion park itself.   The road became gravel (actually more like hardened red clay) very soon and it's a good thing we were the only ones on it.   The scenery was very neat, especially the view that Bob is taking back down toward Zion .    For those of you who have been here, the canyon at Zion is such a massive place that it is difficult to get far enough away from anything to get a good picture.   Neat for us to see it from a different perspective.

We drove for about 45 minutes and made it a whopping 8 miles!   Turned ourselves around and headed back down into the valley.   The two pictures above show the road and our route back down. 

We then headed into the park itself.   We stopped for our picnic lunch just outside the Zion Lodge.    Such a beautiful setting on another gorgeous day.  

After lunch we took a hike up out of the canyon floor to an area called The Emerald Pools.   There are three of the pools which are formed by water and snow melt coming down from the mountains into the Virgin River valley.    Bob is standing near the middle pool and it was so cool to see the mountains reflected perfectly in the water!

The last picture shows Bob on the footbridge crossing over the Virgin River as we headed back to our car.   Zion really is quite an amazing national park.   It is such a gift for us to be within an hour's drive from our condo to get there.     

We had already decided that we wanted to drive a bit from this area toward the eastern entrance to the park.   There are miles of switchbacks and two long, dark tunnels right through the mountains.  

It was another neat day here in Southern Utah!   

It was also a neat day back in Green Bay for our granddaughter, Emily.   Her 5th grade basketball team won its first game!    Bob had helped our daughter coach the team and left it in her capable hands (along with help from our son-in-law, Mark).    Hard for Coach Grandpa to leave just when the season was just getting started.  

That's Emily just behind the girl dribbling the ball.   They aren't supposed to keep score, but her brother Evan did, and reported she got five baskets!   Not too shabby to get 10 points when the whole team only scored 24.   She was pretty nervous about all of it when we left, but obviously it didn't keep her from playing a good game.    Way to go, Emily!



Toodles to Everyone.

Bob and Deb