Sixth Day: in southern UT

Thursday, July 12, 2007, 10:20 pm:

Jason, John and I went down to the neighborhood art gallery area which also has a coffeeshop/restaurant attached to it. I mean, this is right in the middle of the houses of the community. We had good iced lattes and Jason and I had the specialty Belgian waffle, which is covered peanut butter sauce, strawberries and whipped cream and is delicious. After breakfast we met up with Kristen and then we headed out on our great adventure in southern Utah.

Essentially, we visited three parks and monuments with some cool driving in between. (A national park requires congressional action to establish, whereas the President can create a national monument by executive order. I’m not sure what benefits parks have over monuments.) Cedar Breaks National Monument was the first stop. We drove up to the viewing station of the rock formations, and it was an amazing view. It was also very windy, to the point that I was surprised how cold I was and thought that it was the coldest I would be on the trip.

Then we drove over to Brian Head Peak, which is approximately the next mountain over from Cedar Breaks, but is not in a national park or monument. There is a neat building on top of the peak which was built during the depression by one of the New Deal organizations. We drove above the tree line to get to the top, which led to some interesting views as well, including of some tiny, tortured looking trees that were attempting to grow at altitudes that they just shouldn’t be.

From Brian Head we drove into what amounted to the back entrance of Zion National Park. We saw some gorgeous views of the mountains and rock formations in the park until we got to a parking area near a short hike. Though it was about 105 degrees outside, it was quite dry and a little breezy, so it didn’t feel too bad. We walked the trail for about a mile until we got to an amazing lookout point in the middle of the park. From this point you could see several nearby peaks, many of which were named for their appearances. There was a deep blue sky and puffy white clouds, all of which enhanced the views. Most of the other tourists we saw appeared to be European and not interested in talking or saying hello.

After the hike, we drove through the tunnel to begin exiting the park. The tunnel has several windows where the rock that was removed to form the tunnel was dumped out the side of the tunnel to the canyon floor below. We also jumped on a tour bus that took us around several other parts of the park. There were a number of great views of towering rock formations as well as entry points for many different hikes in the park.

We drove into the nearby town for dinner and stopped at a burger/taco place. Jason had a 39 oz. beer that didn’t give him a buzz because we figured, eventually, that Utah only has 3.2 beer. So it only made him over full and not buzzed. When we got back to St. George, we stopped off at Nielsen’s for frozen custard, which had been sold to us for an hour as being better than most any ice cream ever had. I was hard pressed to believe it, but it’s true. The frozen custard of Nielsen’s is smoother and tastier than regular ice cream. It was amazing.

We finally made it back to John and Kristen’s, where we talked for a little while before retiring to bed. I couldn’t get to sleep for quite a while because I was so full. Goodnight…