Today I slept in a little later than yesterday, getting up out of bed a little after 7:30. The breakfast house at the hotel was quite busy, and about halfway through breakfast a couple from Michigan sat down at my table with me. It was nice to have some company, and we chatted about a variety of things as we ate. Once breakfast was done I went back up to my room to get a service job booked for my bike, I'll get that done in Henderson, NV on Thursday morning. I'm thinking I'll need to replace the battery, which seems to be degrading.
I took I-15 down to the highway 17 junction, and then proceeded to ride that to highway 9, which took me into Zion NP. It was already busy there when I arrived, but not too bad. I rode highway 9 all the way to the east entrance, then turned around and went back. The 1.1 mile tunnel is pretty cool to ride through, and the scenery is amazing as well. Zion is so different than yesterday's experience at the Grand Canyon in that in Zion all the mountains and rocks tower above. The colors are so vibrant in the rock, mixed with the colors of the vegetation.
The scenic drive in the park is available only via shuttle bus, which take people to the 8 stops on the drive. Parking anywhere in Zion was impossible, so I parked the bike in Springdale (which is right at the park entrance) and took the shuttle bus all the way to the end and back. I stopped over at a few of the points, hiking up to Weeping Rock. It seems like I'm still not totally adjusted to the high elevations as I'm constantly out of breath when I hike (could also have something to do with the fact that I'm very out of shape). It was already very busy at Zion today, the busses were quite packed for the most part, as well as lots of people everywhere. I can't imagine how crazy it gets there once tourist season fully kicks in. It was also really warm today, the warmest day of the vacation so far, temps on the bike's gauge showing almost 90 degrees!
Once I was done in Zion I hit the road back up to Cedar City, looking forward to getting a good meal and some rest. It sure was nice to be back on the bike instead of a crowded bus. I had a pretty bad headache all day, and for the first time in almost a week I actually had an appetite at dinner. I treated myself to a great steak dinner and it felt nice to actually eat a full meal. After getting back to the room I took my pills and let them work as I just kicked back and relaxed. I surpassed 5,000km on the trip today, the total will be well down from last year's trip.
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