Zion

Kanab, Utah

The ‘Treasure Trail’ motel, right beside the large brick church, has been the nicest so far. Our room is huge, a corner room in this motel complex that looks a bit like a seniors lodge from the outside. For $45 cash it has been the cheapest, too. When we checked in last night the church bells slowly and melodiously chimed seven times, and, after a short break, proceeded to play ‘How Great Thou Art”. We are still in Mormon country.  

Entering Zion National Park

 

Lying in bed later, close to sleep, the red-gold afterglow of the beautiful place I had seen today lingered, even behind closed lids. Zion National Park is truly as amazing as I had hoped it would be.

It is so hard to describe, however!  How, after all, do you describe beauty and majesty? I only know what I loved about it. 

I loved the peaceful spring-like scene of the Virgin River running quietly between the huge columns of rock closing in on either side on our Riverside Trail walk, elm and cottonwood trees with just the slightest hint of green waiting to break forth from still-closed buds. I loved the weeping rocks along the way, little hanging gardens of ferns and other moisture loving plants fed by the water continuously seeping from the sandstone. I loved the way the sunlight lingered on a hillside, cast a path of light on the river where it entered between two stone giants. I loved the swirls in the trunk of an ancient pine bent low over the abyss beside me when we hiked up the Canyon Overlook trail late in the afternoon, unconcerned with all the drama and beauty around it, just hanging on, surviving. I loved the criss-cross pattern of the layers of rocks, the amazing variety in colour, texture, shading, and shape. 

I loved how I felt both humbled and elevated, a grain of sand and part of the whole, both dwarfed by these monumental rocks and safely surrounded. 

The sun was just setting when we left Zion on highway 9, driving south-east. Hardly anybody else was on the road, the forests on the way downhill stretched out into the distance, the sky behind us contained the colours we had just left behind, and more. The world was at peace, and so was I.