RANGER ZACH

When I first got here, I read where the Rangers did a 90 minute interpretive tour in the canyon twice a day.  You could either do the 9:00 a.m. tour or the 6:00 p.m. tour.  Mr. W and I went to the Visitors' Center to sign up but they weren't starting them until today.  So we signed up for the 6:00 p.m. tour and were looking forward to our interpretive tour by a Ranger.

I've been to many Ranger programs and some of the Rangers can be......well, BORING. (She said yawning...)  But our Ranger was Ranger Zach.  Ranger Zach was young.  I'd say in his twenties.  He had been an intern at Zion National Park last year and Zach is graduating in 4 days with his degree in Parks and Recreation with a minor in Environmental Science.  I like to be around young people because I don't usually find them boring.  Ranger Zach did not disappoint me.

Ranger Zach - He wanted someone to take is picture and then email it to him so he could send it to his mother.  He said his Mom had not seen him in his uniform and she was dying to see him in his uniform. Another lady volunteered for that job.

Ranger Zach talking to all of us on one of our stops.

We all hopped on one of the shuttle buses and Ranger Zach took us to places that are not on the ordinary stops throughout the park.  A lot of his talk was on water in the canyon.  He also talked about the environmental changes that are happening in the park due to man and how all of that is having a domino effect on the trees and animals.  The National Park Service is trying to figure out what to do about some of these things but they are still unsure what the answer is.

The whole tour lasted 90 minutes and by the time we rode the bus back from our last stop, it had been 2 hours.  We ended up sitting on the bus by 4 other young Rangers who were trying to remain incognito but we sort of ratted them out.  One of the guys had already helped us at the Visitors' Center several days ago and since the 3 girls were all kind of hanging out with him, I asked if they were Rangers too.  But, we had time to visit with them on the bus and they gave us some great information that will be useful in our last few days in the park.  They all have to start doing these interpretive tours this week so they were riding along to see what one was like.

I know I have mentioned how cold the weather has been.  The other day we decided to drive up a scenic road known around here.  I had read where the road was having work done on it and was going to be closed most of the summer.  However, on Friday, the road is open, with no workers, anytime after 12:00 noon.  So, we decided to take a drive.

This road is the Kolob Terrace Road and it is about 30 miles long and it ends at the Kolob reservoir.  The road goes from paved to unpaved back to paved back to unpaved.  You are getting the idea.  In some places it is very steep and very rough.  It also has many places that have no railing, no nothing to keep you from falling off the side of the mountain.  Not my kind of road.  Mr. W kept saying, "Look at that." or "What's that down there?"  Well, I have no idea because I'm watching the road because he obviously isn't.  I don't care what's down there as long as it is not me in this truck down there!

It had rained on us Thursday and the front had blown in.  As we drove higher and higher on Kolob Terrace Road, the temperature kept dropping and we started noticing the cars coming down had snow on them.  Sure enough, we got to a certain point and snow was everywhere.  People, we are talking 10 days before Memorial Day! We are out swimming in our bathing suits in Texas on Memorial Day. What is going on here?

 

I've heard from several that it snowed more than this at Bryce National Park and they are expecting more snow for Bryce tomorrow night or Tuesday.  Well, everywhere we've gone they have all said that they had hot weather in February and are now having snow in May.  I may be buying more sweatshirts if this doesn't stop.  Wait, shopping..........this could be a good thing after all. :)