“Our pictures are our footprints. It’s the best way to tell people we were here.”~ Joe McNally

We left the peaceful beauty of Bryce Canyon and headed on our last driving day to Zion Nation al Park located in Soutwestern Utah. The prominent feature of the park is Zion Canyon. It is the most visited National Park in the US. For the first time in its history, Zion National Park welcomed more than 5 million visitors in 2021. I think that they all visited this weekend. There was no parking to be found as we traveled one of the windiest roads I have been on, and I would have paid extra for guard rails!

After a harrowing drive on Zion Mount Carmel Highwy that I hope to never recreate, we found the parking for the shuttle was full and so we made the best of it and found a lovely place for lunch, for as Gary Persico says, “You gotta eat.” Here are my photos from the parking lot of Zion. It was certainly breath taking (especially the drive), and if you choose to visit, I would go very early in the day.

“National parks and reserves are an integral aspect of intelligent use of natural resources. It is the course of wisdom to set aside an ample portion of our natural resources as national parks and reserves, thus ensuring that future generations may know the majesty of the earth as we know it today.”
~ President John F. Kennedy, World Conference on National Parks, 1962

Our travels via the “Beast” (our van) has been wonderful. We have been blessed with good weather or as we refer to it another “Peggy Sunshine Day” for the entire trip. It has been interesting and educational and more impactful than just a check off the old bucket list of things to do. It has been fun, we laughed. we have met our step goal every single day, and we have made memories, really lovely ones.

“We all treasure memories because they allow us to relive delightful times in our lives. Memories become stories that we tell hundreds and thousands of times throughout our life. The beautiful thing about our memories is that, not only are they beautiful to us, they are also beautiful to others.” ~ Author unknown