Majestic Zion

It's hard to believe we've been on the road for close to three weeks already! We've bonded with the trailer and settled into a nice living style. On May 24, we arrived at Zion to an RV park full of motorcycles, ATVs, kids, and dogs. This was quite a shock after only meeting up with retired folks on the way here. Then, we remembered it was Memorial Day weekend. Everything settled down by Monday, although we are seeing more families now since school is letting out.

The daily temperature has gone from around 60-70 degrees at Mesa Verde to 85 to 95 here at Zion.
This just means we're up and out at the park in the morning and swim in the pool in the afternoon. Tough life, huh?

Zion is absolutely beautiful. The Virgin River has cut through layers of sedimentary rock over the centuries to create a sheer-walled canyon of immense size. The morning sun lights up certain canyon walls with shades of beige and brown. The evening light brings completely different lighting effects.
Doug's artist fingers have been twitching all week. He's been painting every day (see below for his latest) and had a student join him for a workshop this past week.  Sue has been hiking a different trail every day taking lots of pictures. This one is called "Rivendell".  To see more photos, visit Sue's Facebook page.

One day, we took a side trip to Bryce Canyon. While at Zion, we drove through the bottom of the canyon, looking up at the peaks and walls. At Bryce, we were at the top of the canyon looking down into it. The vivid orange and white colors of Bryce were very surreal and the vast landscape made it seem like we were on a different planet, 

DOUG'S PAINTINGS

Zion is amazing!  A deep canyon cut by the Virgin River.  I painted near a maintenance area for the city of Springdale this morning and a city employee told me the river cuts 3 - 4 inches deeper every year.  The towns here are set in this canyon ringed with rock.  He also relayed that in 10 years 5 homes have been destroyed by huge boulders breaking loose and rolling down.  So this canyon is a story of erosion and time.  The rock faces are often sheer and vertical, with subtle flavors of earth colors woven though the layers of rock.  When I went to the Zion Park Museum, in front they have a large informational sign with an enlarged representation of one of Thomas Moran's watercolors of the canyon looking up to the narrows with the Virgin River flowing down the center.  It showed Moran on a horse next to a wagon entering the park area.  How different it is to arrive today (thank goodness), but how timeless the view - essentially unchanged from his day.  

The paintings I am including are only a few of those I have done.  We have included a photo of me standing next to some of them under the shade of our trailer awning as a sampler.  The first is called "Heart of Zion".  I saw this sheer wall lit up by the morning sun and I knew I had to paint it. The second is called "Zion Splendor".  I painted it at dusk when the evening sun lit up the face of this amazing mountain.  It seems to extend out like a ships bow with all the earth tones lit up.  I know it looks surreal with all the vibrant colors, yet this is how it is.  My third painting is called "Virgin River Flow".  You can see this river looks much more benign than it really is.  A ranger said this river in flood has uncovered many new bluffs buried long ago.

Sadly, but with great anticipation, we leave Zion in two days for Lake Powell for some great times with my sister Deb and husband Mike on their wonderful boat.  We will share the experience of four people sharing the trailer, and all the fun we have.