Day 2: Mon, 6/13: Zion National Park, UT

Day 2:  Mon, 6/13/16

The alarm went off here in Zion at 6 am and within 5 minutes so too did the many thunder claps and lightning bolts!!!  Darn it!  There goes our plan to hike Angels Landing (my Father’s Day gift L ).  Our back up plan if we didn’t do that hike was to hike the Narrows!  Darn it again—flash flood possibilities.  So at 8 am, with it raining and with 30% chance of thundershowers until 1 pm, we went with plan C:  Bike ride along the Virgin River in Zion National Park 4 miles round-trip from our campground.  Although it was sprinkling at the beginning, the sun slowly started to poke through as we rode under the incredible rock formations in Zion along the river.  Gorgeous!  We saw 2 bucks (deer) with big antlers about 20 yards from us.   We could see storm clouds ahead of us above Angels Landing and we knew we made the right choice cancelling that hike.   The ride was beautiful and relaxing. 

After lunch, the sun was out with blue skies and big puffy white clouds.  We had so much fun tubing the small rapids and the “lazy river” sections—it was beautiful.  If you ever come to Zion, come as early in June as you can so there is still enough water flowing in the river for you to tube down the river.  We brought our own tubes but you can rent them, tube down the river 2 miles and then get out at a park,.  You drop off the rental tubes there (we just deflated ours and carried them) and ride the free town shuttle back to the campground.  It was great fun—especially when Andrea/Ryan got within 20 yards of a beautiful deer right in the middle of the river.  He ran out of their way as they floated towards it.  Later, Sarah and I also saw a beautiful mama deer with her beautiful, spotted baby jumping along the side of the river.  We had pulled-pork for dinner outside under the gorgeous redrock cliffs of Zion.   We then rode our bikes around the campground and watched the colors on the massive rock cliffs change as the glowing sun set.