Saturday, March 18-Sunday, March 19, 2011
We left early today from the Lied Center driving in two vehicles to Zion National Park in Springdale, Utah. We decided to head out early in order to check out some nearby sites before pulling into Zion on Sunday night. My first thought is how exciting a trip this is going to be. The opportunity to see some of the southwest landscape will be a unique experience. It’s unfortunate that we were unable to get a single vehicle to drive there and got two…more gas, bad news. One of these is an Expedition, it was huge took $100 worth of gas on its first fill up…$100!!! I thought hybrid technology was supposed to help reduce cost and impact by reducing use but we had to fill up at least 3 times before we got to Utah.
Driving through western Kansas on I-70, I was surprised to see how much green we had appearing along the Flint Hills and appalled at the amount of junk dumped “out of sight” in the culverts the future west we went. We stopped for dinner in Colby, Kansas and after that we traveled on through the night, jamming to some tunes and getting to know each other before stopping during the early morning at Bryce Canyon to catch a few hours of sleep.
Sunday morning it was FREEZING! There was snow on the ground so we elected to do a scenic view from the various overlooks. We saw amazing views of the canyons, each one different from the previous. 
The variations of rock colors and shapes made it appear a little alien in nature, how these were formed by water and wind over millions of years simply amazes me.
We pulled into Zion early and it was so much more than pictures can hope to represent. The mountains went on for miles with snow-capped tops and waterfalls from the melt, there was green growth everywhere and the place looked alive. We came in from the east and had to drive through this tunnel through one of the mountains that was a mile long. One of President Roosevelt’s Civilian Corp. projects, it was cut by men in the 30’s and must have taken ages to complete. I am constantly amazed at these manmade projects that I know involved very little technology and a lot a precise planning.
Since we weren’t expected until 7p we had plenty of time to take in the AWESOME campsite view of the Watchman, set up camp, and get to know each of the other 9 people better. Andrew, Alex and I were the first dinner crew and we made monster burritos and set up our first campfire. This is going to be a great week.
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