Day 24, Still in Zion National Park.

So much for the plan to be on the 0545hrs bus!!! All because it got to be overcrowded in our van last night. On the “threes a crowd basis”, our van is no place for a third party!!! Especially when one of the 3 is a ,,,…. MOUSE!! In that weeny space, it was making way too much noise to put up with.. so by about 3am, I finally managed, more by luck, to evict Mickey, and then try and get to sleep again.. so decided to kill the 5 am alarm, and besides it was still really windy, so didn’t entirely fancy calmbering up the side of a cliff with gusts trying to blow you off!

So instead, got some camp chores done, and then walked up to the park museum and listened to a rangers talk on the Californian Condor.. very interesting.. didn’t realize they were ancient.. as in they were around when mammoth carcasses would have been available. And they declined until there was only one female left (at least I think that’s what she said) much like our Chatham Island Black Robin. Then watched a free (great word that) movie on the park, jumped on the free ( J ) shuttle and headed “up canyon” for lunch on the lawn of the Zion Lodge. Nice spot. Ridiculously stunning scenery!

Another shuttle trip, and off to the end of the trail ( “track” in NZ) and a hike (tramp inNZ) in to the Virgin river for a walk. Yep, we got wet.. but it was really a lovely walk, into an ever decreasing in width, canyon.. and we turned around b4 it got really narrow.. oddly enough.. at that point, it is called “The Narrows” and is apparently super stunning.. but we’d started late, and decided to head down stream. Late enough to have weeny bats overhead.. they are really cute. Am really ebjoying all the lizards too.. they seem very plentiful around here.. lots of geckos and skinks, nothing very big.. but fun anyway., still hoping to see a decent sized snake, as all Carol could arrange in Ten Sleep was a tiny little excuse for a snake about 10 inches long. Maybe there just aren’t any here! That maybe be tempting fate!! Now we’ll probably end up with a rattler coming in to the van! Anyway.. with luck, 2morrow, we will get to the top of Angels Landing, and will report on that..