Utah - Zion & Bauer’s Campground

 We finally entered Utah to explore Zion and Bryce. I booked us one week in Glendale by Zion, and one week at Ruby’s by Bryce Canyon. 

Well our one week at Zion turned into four days as bad weather was moving in and heavy snow was in the forecast. It was already cold at night for the days we stayed there but the days were pretty nice. Snow however is not something we want to deal with unless we have to and we figured we don’t have to. 

So we had two full days at Zion which was beautiful indeed. The wonderful part was that the areas that are accessible by car are stunning and we had fun pulling over and enjoying the scenery on day one. The next day we figured we try to get into the  canyon via the shuttle service, as that is the only option. But the first challenge was getting a parking space at the visitor center. That alone took a good 30 to 45 min. There just isn’t enough parking available for the crowds that decent on this National Park. And there are not many disability parking options either. Well we finally got a parking spot and then realized that the wait for a shuttle bus was 2 1/2 hours long. The one part of Ron being on Disability is that he has access to the services provided so in that sense we got lucky and we did not have to wait in line but for on the bus section that provided seats for that purpose. We rode the shuttle to the end of the canyon and then had a picnic at the River Trail and I hiked it up to the narrows. The Virgin River was freezing cold to say the least but it was so much fun and peaceful. The only hiccup was I over did the hike a bit and that evening my heart rate was up to 107, 123 at one point. 

My take on Zion is that it is beautiful but I dislike how hard it is to access if one wants to do the hikes. The Shuttle Service is really not to our liking as one can’t stop and take photos. Also the Park seems almost to small in comparison to how many people are there. This is just spring time and I can’t imagine how it can be even more crowded come Summer. 

We were sad to miss out on Bryce this time around but we are also thrilled to know we can make our schedule the way we like it and how we can follow the weather we like. So after canceling in Bryce we planned to head to Death Valley, but then this plan changed when on our planned travel day we got a message that a friend of Ron’s was working in Page AZ. Looking at the weather map we realized that just 2 hours south east would do the trick and we booked us for a week at the Roam America Horseshoe Bend RV Resort. It is gorgeous here but that will be mentioned in my next post.