Thursday 10/06. Zion National Park. Interestingly, to get into this park at the SE entrance, you have to drive through 2 tunnels in the mountain.  The second one was a little scary. It was 1.1 miles long!  Every quarter mile there was a "window" so you could see out.  However, you are not allowed to stop to look out.  Anyone who is clautrophobic should not do this tunnel!  Another strange thing about Zion is that you cannot drive your car through most of it.  You must use the shuttle or a bike.  The good things about the shuttle are that you get narration about each part of the park as you drive from one stop to the next, you can get on or off anywhere along the the way, and it is free. Lots of walking to shuttle stops.  Zion is beautiful, not as jaw-droppingly awesome as Bryce, but it had some very different scenery.  Some of the massive rocks looked they were melting.  Some looked like they had been painted with swirls by a giant paintbrush.

We had planned on 3 hikes, but only did 2.  We hiked up to the Weeping Rock first.  The top part of the rock so porous Navaho sandstone that water can work its way through.  But the bottom half is limestone and the water can't get through.  It is forced out laterally and creates this "weeping" rock.  The second hike was up to the Emerald Pools and waterfall.  It was only .8 of a mile to the lower part, so we went.  However, it was, as usual, mostly uphill.  Sucking wind again!  Then when we got there, the pool was only as big as our koi pond and the "waterfall" was only a small stream.  Wrong time of year, I guess.  By the time we got back down, we were tired and skipped the last hike. We picked the dog up and headed back to the camper.  Got back about 7:00, had a light supper and crashed.  We did have over 15,000 steps on the step monitor!