Zion - cool.

Check out the view
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At about 5 O´clock or so, we arrived in Zion.  Before entering the park, we priced some motels in Springdale, a small town just outside of it.  They were all around the same or a bit more that what we had been paying.  Mike and I were quite keen to camp, giving us an opportunity to make use of our new tent and save muchos dinaros.  Rick and Nikki werén´t so sure about the idea, cause they were both knackered.  We agreed to drive down to the park, and ´enquire´about camping.  Parked up and got the shuttle around the park.

The Weeping Rock
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Zion´s a really cool National Park.  I´m not so up on my geology, but it´s lots of rock formations with really distinct layers.  Actually Caroline if you could just mail me a brief description of why it´s like that, that would be great.

We only had a couple of hours of daylight left, so we hopped off at one of the first stops, Weeping Rock.  This bit I understand - it was a layer of Sandstone on top of a layer of an impermeable rock (I can´t remember which one), so the water filters throught the sandstone, but not through the lower one, so seeps out, creating something of a waterfall effect, making the rock appear like it´s weeping.  I´m not sure you can see the water in the photos.  Oh well, you´ll have to take my word for it.

Putting the tent up
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We also saw a couple of deer around there, before getting back on the shuttle and heading back to the car.  We managed to persuade the others to pitch the tent and see how they felt about it then.  That done, Rick and Nikki settled into our new home, and Mike and I drove back into Springdale to get some food.  We even managed to get some bevvies, despite Utah´s super-strict laws - you have to hold some class of permit to buy drink.  Back at the camp we sat around our picnic table eating our really tasty beef and potato salad sandwiches, the the questionably-named ´Spunkmeyers´cinamon buns.  After a couple of beers and games of Yatzee, the official dice game of the trip, we headed to bed.

That night, I learned two things from observing my fellow campers (just the three in my tent, I wasn´t being a weirdo and looking into randomers´tents):

1. In order to sleep on really hard ground in a tent, it appears that you need to sleep on your front.

2. I can´t sleep on my front.

So we all had a bit of a rubbish night´s sleep, but I think mine was the worst (sympathy please).  On the plus side, I seem to suffer the least of the four of us from lack of sleep, so I was probably the most wide awake the next day, much to their annoyance!

Over brekkie we moaned about how tired we were, then packed up the tent and headed off.  The drive went largely without incident, except for one minor occurance.  We asked Rick to change the clock in the car, since we were now on Mountain time.  He seemed fine with it, and by all accounts realised that by putting the clock forward an hour, it would be an hour later.  That was all fine, and he changed the clock.  He looked at it when it was done though, and seemed to get a massive shock when he realised that it was now an hour later!  That boy really makes me laugh.  That story probably didn´t make you laugh, but it´s another one that I want to remember so tough.  If you don´t like the stories, don´t read the blog.