May 21 – Hurricane/Zion N.P.

Up early to phone call. Strange, but nice, being back in daylight savings time. Sunrise at 5:15 am in Arizona is ridiculously early. Head into St. George to have brakes done. Saw the large white Mormon church.

Dealer took an hour and a half to tell me the brakes do need to be done, on my dime, tune the tune of $290 plus tax. Also there is an oil leak – the rear main seal. That’s covered under warrantee but will take two days to replace. I did not want to go all weekend without my truck so scheduled to drop off truck Monday morning with a hopeful pick up of Tuesday afternoon.

Visited Zion National Park late this afternoon, much later than I had been planning. Still had enough time to stop by the visitor’s center to get an idea of what activities I want to do and how the bus system works. Being late in the day and having Sunny with me, we drove the primary access road which passes through two tunnels and has numerous pull offs/overlooks to view the incredible rock formations.

After seeing all the overlooks, we drove the Kolob Terrace Road north along the west side of the park about 20 miles to the Kolob Reservoir. Beautiful drive skirting in and out of the park. The reservoir was quite large and very full. I understand it had been frozen solid less than a week ago. We saw several deer along the way including three bucks that posed for a picture. Tried to go to the Lava Point overlook, which I understand is phenomenal. I was told at the visitor’s center the road was still closed due to a foot of snow on the road. Since the reservoir had thawed and I did not see very much snow in the area, I figured we would give it a shot at getting to the overlook. We made it about a half mile towards the overlook before dropping into a wash and finding the road washed out, at least beyond where I was willing to drive. We stopped and walked around a little. Sunny walked across the washed out area and before I realized it, stepped onto a cattle guard. I knew we were in trouble as soon as she did since I tried to show here how to cross a grate with no luck at Jacob Lake. Of course, two of her paws slipped into the grate. The water I had to cross to get to her was flowing quite fast and there was not a ‘good’ crossing point. The whole time (3 seconds or so) I’m plotting my path through the water, I had a little tension on the leash. Apparently it was enough that along with Sunny’s agility, she got out of the grate and came back across the water to me. Whew. Time to head home...