Court of the Patriarchs, showing Moses, Isaac and Jacob.
May 6, 2010
We crossed the desolate Arizona landscape, through bleak, tired Navajo and Hopi Indian reservations with cheap homes and endless collections of broken-down trucks and cars in the front and back yards and found little to stop for. When we came to Winslow, we parked in a Walmart lot and found, as the afternoon wore on, that a community of 14 motorhomes and trailers and assorted other RVs joined us in the lot. They ranged from simple boxes added to the back of a truck to a Prevost deluxe motor home with all its gaudy marble floors and $2.5 million pricetag. We never could figure why someone who can afford such a rig would opt to sleep in a Walmart parking lot. But it takes all kinds. Probably the owner would say, “How do you think I was able to afford such luxury if not by watching my pennies.”
In the night, Interstate 40 was the scene of a deadly truck crash. It closed the highway shortly before midnight and, when we awoke and turned on the TV news, the road was still closed. But we were promised it would open at 6:30 a.m. Oh, I should mention, that Arizona does not recognise Mountain Time as a standard and it moves its clocks forward an hour to Pacific time. Because we planned to be in the state for just two days, we didn't change our internal clocks, since Utah and Mountain Time still beckoned.
The highway north of Flagstaff, Arizona also was closed in the evening because of wildfires that had jumped the highway and created zero visibility because of the billowing smoke.
On Friday morning, we set out on Interstate 40 and rolled west for 45 miles before coming to a parking lot on the highway. The road remained slow, slow, slow. After half an hour, we came upon the wreck.
One of the tractor trailers, 53 feet long, was peeled back like a gigantic sardine can. The driver in that truck had died. The other truck was torn apart, though not quite so badly.
After getting past this, the road opened up and we made Flagstaff in less than an hour. We turned north and climbed for several thousand feet before summitting at around 7,800 feet. Then we descended to the town of Page, the site of the dam at Lake Powell.
The road got narrower and rose again into Utah. Now the landscape changed again – this time we were surrounded by multi-colored rock mountains. Ochres, bright orange, yellows, brown and even green (from copper) stratas entertained us. But we were tiring and when we found the turn-off to our campground called Lutherwoods, we were more than ready to stop. It is positioned midpoint between Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. What we didn't realize is that Lutherwood, run and owned by the Lutheran Church, is three miles up a gravel road at 7,550 feet. We made our way over several cattle grids and found, on arrival, we were the first people to visit this year. We were welcomed by the camp host who had arrived the day before from Las Vegas.
We washed the red dust off the car and motor home. Then we wandered over to a herd of deer that had come down from the snow-covered peaks to munch on the green grass 100 yards from our rig. They looked just a little nervous as I sidled up to photograph them. And when they caught my scent, they scattered but slowly wandered, munching, back into the juicy green area.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Brrr. We awoke to a chilly 26 degrees. The external water system had frozen. But we were able to use the internal tank on the rig to get water for tea and coffee.
We set off for Zion National Park, 36 miles from our home on a hill. We had read some National Geographic material about the park. But the place took our breath away. You feel you are in a spiritual, holy place. There is something quite comforting and protective about Zion. We drove in from the east, passing along a winding road that threw vista after vista at us as we came around each descending hairpin curve.
You come to the canyon floor and above you, thousands of feet above you, soar the majestic wonder of Zion. Great monoliths of sandstone rise up from the valley. Some are 5,500 feet above sea level. It fairly takes your breath away and you are humbled by the majesty of the place. There are no superlatives in our language that provide adequate descriptions.
The place has been inhabited for 15,000 years by the people who came 'way before the Pueblo Indians. The Paiutes lived here before the Mormon scouts came down from Salt Lake City. The word was sent back that a river ran through the canyon and farming was possible. Brigham Young sent several families south to colonize the place. They showed the Paiutes how the Book of Mormon described the Indians as the lost tribe of Israel and they bought the story. They lived in harmony with the new settlers.
I asked a ranger if Brigham Young ever visited the place and he told me the prophet was uncomfortable that the lead missionary had taken up tobacco growing (learned from the Paiutes) and it was not okay with Mr Young that this man should be smoking the weed. So Brigham Young called the place “Not Zion”. But that didn't stick.
No one in Washington would believe such a special place existed. Paintings were sent back but they were thought to be the work of a soaring imagination. When the photographs arrived, showing the astonishing rock formations, the government was moved to make the place a National Monument. The classification National Park came at the turn of the last century.
Jo and I used the propane-powered tram to carry us through the park. We could step off at one of many stops and hike the special places before returning and boarding again.
At Angel's Landing, we spent time with a ranger who told us about two condors that have been relocated to Vermillion Cliffs, about 50 miles south of Zion. She said she had seen them soaring over the park with their 9-10-foot wingspans. As she spoke, Jo scoured the sky overhead and quietly announced one of the condors was there. It soared several thousand feet above Angel's Landing. And the landing stood almost a mile above us. But Jo spotted her condor. There are so few condors in North America that each is identied and carried a number.
We caught the tram to the most northern stop, the Temple of Sinowava where we sat beside a 1,000-foot-high waterfall and ate our picnic lunch as the Virgin River gurgled beside out feet.
There is a 1.1 mile tunnel, blasted through one of the mountains, which we passed through in our car in total darkness. This had been built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. As the tunnel turned on its journey through the mountain, we would come to enormous windows, blown out of the tunnel and showing another mind-blowing vista. This was definitely an E-ticket ride.
May 9, 2010
Now we came to Bryce Canyon National Park. It is about 80 miles from Zion. But there is a completely different feel to the park. At Zion you are at the bottom, looking up and the majesty. At Bryce, you are on the canyon rim, looking down. And the view is different because the canyon is constructed of different kinds of rocks. They are much softer here and they have eroded in a strange and mystical way, leaving thousands of sentinels almost like the stone soldiers that were buried in China.
I was chatting to one visitor and he said he felt Zion of the male while Bryce was the female. There might be something to this for Bryce has a softness while Zion is formidable and massive.
We have no electricity in the national park but the price certainly is right: $7.50 a night. We can only run our generator until 8 at night. So we slipped off to bed at 9 p.m. And huddled under the comforter until 8 on Monday morning when we could put the generator on again and run our gas furnace.
Snow is forecast tonight so we have that to look forward to.
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