Musings
Short hiatus
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After a nice ride through a few rollers on Highway 9, I’ve reached the entrance
of Zion National Park.
The view sans my fat head.
The family and I just returned from a short trip to Zion National Park and we didn’t even go into the park proper. Hey, we can’t believe it either.
There are just so many things to do in the area and trust me, when you have kids and a pool at your disposal, they are not going far from the damned pool.
Anyway, I was at least able to get away from the crowd (we were traveling with another family) and take a fairly leisurely ride from our cabin to the entrance of Zion. Once I got my gear assembled, hydration set up (it was in the low 70s and very sunny and dry), and lathered in sun screen, I took the Orbea out for the 25-mile round trip on a few of the rollers on Highway 9.
The shoulder is narrow at points, particularly as you approach the towns of Rockdale and Springdale, but is otherwise satisfactory for not getting swiped by any errant RV sideview mirrors. There are a few rough patches on the pavement, but hey, the scenery more than makes up for any pedaling inconveniences.
An hour later, I hit the entrance to Zion, took a picture with my cell phone and turned around. On my way back through Springdale, I saw my wife and kids in the truck with the other family in tow. I guess they couldn’t wait for my return. It was apparently time for lunch.
For those of you who have never been to Zion, your dining choices are limited to expensive and palatable food to not-so-expensive and “I paid how much for this luke-warm piece of crap?” Those choices, however, were better than what was waiting for me back at the campground. Then again, in hindsight, maybe not.
Anyway, since I wasn’t expecting to meet them in town, I had no shoes and was walking around in my brightly colored cycling team kit and barefoot. I had to find some footwear quick but was stymied by the fact that I was stuck in the middle of a money gauntlet for the foreign touristas. To make a long, and painfully embarrassing story short, after 30 minutes of combing nearly every store on the main drag, I purchased a$28 pair of women’s sandals so I could join the rest of my group in the restaurant.
What we sacrifice for our sport, eh?
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I’m taking a short hiatus from publishing this week, although I do hope to get some more great content put together over the next few days so the entire week won’t be completely dry. I’m also dangerously behind in my calculus homework and need to invest several days in what could turn out to be a quixotic attempt to get current…so updates may be a bit sparse.
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Dang shame. Zion is hands-down the best national park in the US. But yeah, you definitely need to watch for the RV mirrors, especially on the switchbacks. The tourists in their renta-RVs don’t realize how wide they swing at times.