Zion Adventures

All of our fun at Zion National Park started with breakfast at Oscar's . . . . Sorry that I haven't written on my blog for a few days--it has been a busy and fun weekend, and there has been no time! Mom and I just got back from the most fun and productive trip to Zion of all time. Last Thursday Mom and I took Grandpa and Grandma F.T. back to St. George after their Christmas stay in Sandy. We had a fun trip with them, and we made it all right despite the frequent snow storms we kept encountering along the way. After taking them home, Mom and I went on over to Springdale to kick off our Zion National Park book research extravaganza. Even though we were there to do work, we still had a lot of fun. On Thursday night we ate at the Spotted Dog Cafe which is part of Flanigan's Inn--right across the street from Aunt Elsa's old house. It was quite the fancy restaurant, and we sat by the fire and had some especially delicious tomato basil soup--which warmed us up since it was FREEZING there!! Few are the times when I have been to Zion and have had to wear a coat; but I had on my fleece, my coat, my hat, and my gloves this time! Mom and I stayed at the Pioneer Lodge, which I have always thought of as being the same as it was when I was younger and we would go over there to swim in their pool when we were down staying at the cabin. So I expected it to be a little old and run-down, but they have recently renovated everything, and I was pleasantly surprised by how very nice it was there.

On Friday morning, Mom and I went over to try breakfast at this restaurant we've always wanted to try: Oscar's. It is in a funny little house just off of the main drag through Springdale, and we had the most delicious eggs, potatoes, sausage, oj, and hot chocolate of all time there! It was a great start to a great day. On our way to breakfast, Mom and I walked past the Zion Park Motel and looked at the little waterfall they've always had out front. I remembered that there used to be huge goldfish in the little pond there, but thought that surely with it being so cold the fish would not be in there. But nope! There were all of the goldfish in the frozen pond! It looked like they were all dead, and it kind of grossed Mom and me out, but when we went by again later, some of the water under the top layer of ice had thawed a bit, and several fish were swimming around. It was so weird! We were sure they had been dead, but then they just popped back to life.

After breakfast at Oscar's, Mom and I went up into the park. Unfortunately the park museum was closed, which I had been hoping to visit to gather information, but as you will soon read, we found many other sources of info. Since the museum was closed, Mom and I went to the visitor center and then went up through the Zion tunnel. We were in search of a particular park ranger, Valerie, who is a friend of my good friends Nathan and Kate down in Natchez. They told me that their friend Val works at Zion, and when we asked the rangers there, they said she was up monitoring the tunnel. So we drove up there and found Val at the east entrance to the tunnel. She is super nice, and she even says some of the same words I do such as "That rocks!" and "Right on!" (Maybe that is ranger language?)

After driving through the tunnel, we went up to the head of the Narrows trail and walked back to see the beautiful frozen waterfall you see pictured at the top. It was so pretty! The waterfall that usually comes down the mountain was totally frozen, and then there was ice on the little waterfall there in the river. The river was crystal clear, and there were deer all over the place. It was nice and quiet up in the park, and the snow on the mountains looked beautiful!!! As you can see from the other scenic photo there at the top, West Temple received a light dusting of snow earlier in the week. Mom and I took a picture of ourselves out in front of the Zion Lodge, which is the third picture you see up there.

After going up the canyon, we went to meet with Della Higley, the cutest, nicest lady I've ever met! She is 94 years old, and we went to speak with her about old photographs of the park and her memories of growing up in Springdale. She gave us some great pictures and a lot of good information. While we were there, Mom and I heard a noise out in front of the house, and then we heard a loud "POP," and then a geyser of water erupted right in front of Della's window. Her back was to the window, and she didn't hear the pipe break, but Mom and I certainly noticed it! We pointed it out to her, and then I went outside looking for the valve to turn off the water. Della called her son in law who lives right behind her and then came out and found where the water valve was located. We finally got the water turned off, but it had been coming out with such force that even though it was only erupting for a few minutes, there was already water clear down her driveway and almost up to the front porch of the house. It's a good thing we noticed it and stopped it as soon as we did! The broken pipe was laying there in her flower bed, and her son in law found a giant chunck of ice that had blown out of the pipe. It was about an inch in diameter and about four inches long--quite an ice bullet that shot out of there! Luckily the son in law said he'd fix the problem, so hopefully Della will be okay. She is such a sweet lady, and we had a good time visiting with her.

For lunch Mom and I went back to Oscar's to try the sweet potato fries we had heard about. I decided when I was in Mississippi that sweet potato fries are my favorite food, and Oscar's were awesome! What I can't figure out is, why aren't all French fries sweet potato fries? Sweet potato fries are so much better than regular French fries, so why don't they just make all fries with sweet potatoes? Anyway, after our tasty lunch, Mom and I went over to another lady's house. Her name is Nellie Ballard, and she lives in Rockville. She didn't think she would have much information that would help me, but her house ended up being the gold mine--the Zion jackpot! She had all kinds of great pictures and information. She seemed a little reserved at first, like she didn't trust Mom and me with her information and pictures, but as soon as we said that Elsa Ruesch was my dad's aunt and my great aunt, we were Nellie's new best friends. She thought the world of Aunt Elsa and was more than happy to lend us anything we needed. So we took a stack of pictures back to the hotel and scanned all evening.

Today we started out at Oscar's again with granola pancakes (yum), and then we met with another cute lady, Flora Ruesch, and scanned some of her photos of the early days of the park. She had some great ones too, and I feel like my book is really starting to come together. Now I just have to find time to gather the last few photos I need and to write the text! Maybe I can write the text during my pretend free time that I am theoretically supposed to have in the evenings once school starts again. :-)

After meeting with Flora, Mom and I had a delicious Navajo taco for lunch at the Pioneer Restaurant. Then we started heading home. After leaving Springdale, we took Nellie's pictures back to her house in Rockville. (She was gone to a funeral but left a note telling us to leave the pictures inside the front door, which we did.) After Rockville, we stopped at this funny little book store in Virgin City, which has always looked kind of intriguing, but a little scary, too. We had planned on maybe just going as far as Beaver tonight because there was supposed to be a nasty snowstorm around Fillmore; but when we got to Beaver, all was clear in the sky, so we got our usual ice cream at the cheese factory, and drove on. The weather ended up being fine until we got into Utah Valley and it started to snow. Luckily we beat the bad weather. Well, I'm tired and am going to sleep now, but will write more tomorrow.