"Z" is for Zion National Park

My husband, Jim, and I traveled this great country of ours for SEVEN years in our RV. We saw many wonderful sights, visited famous and not so famous cities, and wandered through many a National Park. I have blogged through all our travels. I've stumbled upon the "Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2013". I decided to jump on board this crazy train and share with all of you places I have seen in my travels.

Day 26 "Blogging from A-Z Challenge"! FINAL DAY!!! YIPPEE!!!!!

is for Zion National Park, Utah






The first thing I remember about this park is this. We turned down a road to get to the park (I cannot remember the specific road number), and drove about 5-7 miles before seeing a sign that read something like this: WARNING: Vehicles pulling trailers over 35 feet in length cannot drive any further. You MUST turn around and take an alternate route.

It turns out that there is a tunnel with a slight curve to it down the road, and any trailer longer than 35 feet would not be able to make the turn. Now that's all fine and dandy, but, seriously folks, wouldn't it make sense to put this sign back at the intersection? Not only were we in the middle of nowhere on a 2-lane road, but there was no turn around! Jim had to try to maneuver our 40 foot trailer into a kind of 3-point turn to get us going back the other way. We were NOT happy campers. Plus the detour added about 50 miles to our trip! But, what could we do?

So, we finally got to our campground, dropped the trailer, and set out for Zion National Park. There were lots of ooh's and ah's right off the bat.

And then we came across a tunnel.....no problem.

Some more pretty scenery....

View from our truck

And then we came upon another tunnel. 

Only this time, we got pulled over. Uh, yeah. This was the infamous tunnel that was long and had a curve to it and was why we had to take a different route. The ranger took one look at our truck and made us pull over to the side. In the words of my twin sister, "Here we f*cking go!"

photo taken at a different time - it wasn't snowing when we were at Zion Nat'l Park

The ranger made us pay $10 to pass through the tunnel, even though we told him that our truck fit into a regular parking space. He paid no attention to us. The fee was because they had to stop traffic BOTH ways and let us pass through the tunnel by ourselves! We were a little ticked off, but again, what can you do? Truthfully, I think Jim DID feel even more manly, if that is even possible, when driving this honking truck. Anyway, we drove into the tunnel which got completely dark extremely quick. We couldn't see very much even with our headlights on. Jim was worried about hitting the truck on the side of the tunnel. I quipped, "Hey! We PAID for the privilege to ride through this tunnel alone! RIDE THAT YELLOW LINE, BABY!" We sailed through that tunnel, okay, maybe sailed isn't the correct word when we were driving at about 20 mph!

All in all, the scenery is stunning and well worth the trip. Big truck and all!

And THAT, my friend, is the end of this crazy Blogging A-Z Challenge! I sure hope you enjoyed the trip! You've been good travel  buddies and didn't complain one bit! AND we didn't have to stop once for a potty break!

Welcome all my new followers!