Zion

St. George, UT

Well it's been another couple of hectic days. Yesterday we drove from Byrce down to Zion. On the way we heard one of our computers beep. Which isn't totally out of the question... when it's hot out. The computers yell at us when they're too hot. But when it's 65 and was probably in the 30's the night before, it should not be over-heating in the back of the truck.

After a little investigation we figured out that there was no air coming out of the back air conditioning. So we decided to take a trip to the Ford dealer. We were pretty lucky that one was close to Zion actually. Got there and we lucked out again because they were able to look at it immediately. It was a "door" that controls the air flow in the back of the van, basically when you have the AC on and the back vents blowing, the door will be "open", otherwise it's "closed". Well it was stuck closed, so the AC was blowing right into the "door".

Guy said it'd take until at least Monday to get a new one, we didn't like hearing that. So he suggested that he could just tape it in the "open" position. We were all for it. Cheap/quick fixes are our specialty.

So while he was fixing it, we went and got lunch (nice little break). Got the van back, headed back up to Zion and collected until about 530. That's when we figured out that our power supply that we had switched out of our Laser computer the day before, really was bad. Because now in the computer we had moved it to, that too was now just shutting off randomly. So we needed a new power supply.

These computers are old, real old; like they're still running Windows NT old (that's before Windows 98). So we were slightly worried that we wouldn't be able to find a power supply that would work. Luckily power supply technology, unlike every other technology related to computers, doesn't change that much. We went into Best Buy and showed them the broken power supply and asked if the one we had picked out would work, and they assured us it would.

So lo and behold.... two pretty major problems (no AC/no power to one of the computers) in one day and 2 major problems fixed. Well the mechanic did say the tape could come off, but we figured... eh we'll risk it.

Then today... you think more problems? Negative. Finished up Zion with some time to spare. It was busy, but we got it done. Another park I'd like to spend a couple of days in, but it was nice to drive around that's for sure. They have a tunnel that kinda just cuts through the side of the mountain for 1.1 miles. It was completed in 1930... think about that... a 1.1 mile long tunnel in 1930, in the middle of nowhere.... Not too shabby.

We got a little delayed trying to get through it though... They were only letting one way of traffic through at a a time; we figured it was for the larger campers to get by. But as we got into the tunnel, we noticed a camper pulling a car, just stopped. We later learned that something happened to the transmission and it was basically stuck... in the middle of a tunnel. I guess someone has worse luck than us.

Plus... Plus... The Badgers held onto the ax (sorry to ruin the Big Ten opener in the new place Gophs; "maybe next year"), the Twins are within reach of the playoffs, and Brett Favre is about to beat the Packers in the Metrodome... Things are looking up. Twins win tomorrow and Tigers lose and nothing the van does tomorrow can keep me down.

Here's some pics from Zion... these don't really do it justice. It's pretty magnificent...

This is the Kolob Canyon in the NW corner of the park. Only about 5 minutes off of I-15 and you really don't see any of it from the interstate. Worth the price of admission for sure.

Just a pic within the Zion Canyon.... pretty average view from within the park.
View from just outside the tunnel, looking towards the canyon.

Just a pretty sunset on the way back from Zion to the hotel.

Onto the North Rim of the Grand Canyon tomorrow. Hopefully the day's not too long. Already at 69 hours this week.