The next day, the 4^th July, started bright and early, we went to the site office for our briefing for the Judges role.

 Wow, there were two clip boards, one for each couple, which were our instructions for what to look for and a pile of sheets that we had to fill in, one for each float in the parade.

We pretended that we had been in touch and that Her Majesty the Queen had given us permission to do the judging and so we set up a table on the road side, along with 4 chairs and a poster taped to the table to make it look official.

Everyone we met in this small town was so friendly and they were really pleased that two ‘strange’ couples had agreed to judge the parade, which was lead by some cowboys with their hunting/cattle dogs.

 

Unfortunately, like idiots, or at least like the amateur photographers we are, we set the table up on the side of the road facing the Sun, so every picture we tried to take had the sun directly into the lens – sorry, these are the few that were visible!

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The street was quite crowded and we think everyone in the town and quite a few visitors had turned out to watch.

All too soon the parade of 17 floats was past us and we set about trying to agree the best three floats, ($100, $50 and $20 prize money) very conscious that a lot hung on our decision.

Decisions made, we turned the paperwork over to one of the parade officials and carried our tables and chairs back to the RV’s.

Then we went up to the town church, where a sort of prize giving, a few blessings, a homemade movie and a few songs were sung – some of the speeches, especially one by a soldier were quite moving and all too soon it was over.

They even let us take Trouper and Millie into the Church!

The towns people went down to the local square and community hall for some games for the children, then they were meeting there again in the evening for a BBQ and a Movie on an outdoor screen.

We went back to the RV, because we had planned on doing a walk up the canyon behind the RV site in the afternoon.

After lunch we set off, it was a very hot but pleasant walk.

We kept climbing up the Canyon ‘valley’ until we hit a barbed wire fence, where we decided that we were suitably exhausted and turned around for the walk back.

On hitting the RV site, we all plopped down on easy reclining chairs and dozed in the shade for a couple of hours

Whilst we were dozing, the clouds built up until around 4:30, the heavens opened and it pours down for about 4 hours, only easing off about 8:30.

It was a shame, as we were looking forward to going to the evening BBQ, watching the movie and chatting to the townsfolk again.

The next day, Saturday the 5^th July, we set off for Zion again, determined this time to do some walking in the Canyon.

As we drove into the canyon, the traffic started to build up, cars were parked all over the edge of the road.

We kept on until we arrived at the Visitor Centre, where intended to park, whilst we went hiking, but to our dismay, there wasn’t a single parking place to be had – no problem, we just turned around and headed back up the canyon until we spotted a parking spot at the side of the road and as luck would have it there was a trail almost at the side of it jut through the bush.

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After following the trail for a while, we veered off towards the canyon side to have a look for wildlife and sure enough we spotted two beautiful ones just on the hillside above us, though we managed to get a few photos of the smaller of the two, the one with the really big antlers kept a bush between us and it, whichever way we moved!!

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Feeling a bit tired with walking in the high temperatures, we sat down at the side of the Virgin River, which runs through Zion canyon and in fact is the river that has formed it over the millions of years it has been flowing, to have some lunch and Cathy decided to have a dip in the muddy water to cool her feet!

After retracing our steps back to the car, we jumped in, initially intending to do another walk further up the valley, but the traffic was so bad we decided instead to go back to the RV, sit in the shade and have a beer/wine.

 

This July 4^th weekend, must have been the busiest day of the year at most holiday destinations and Zion is certainly one of those.

Really glad that we came here and saw Zion its majesty will stay with us for the rest of our lives we are sure.

Sunday morning, 6^th July, saw us pack up our RV and set off up north, back to Bryce Canyon, where we had booked into Ruby’s Inn, at the gate of the Canyon for two nights to explore it further.

We had just set the RV up, when Bob and Cathy appeared with Trouper and leaving the two dogs to keep each other company in the Air Cooled RV, we drove up into Bryce to do a walking trail.

The one we chose was called Sunset Point

What we thought was a short walk down into the canyon bottom, around a loop and back up.

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Although the scenery and the views were spectacular the walk down was along winding paths that followed the canyon wall, some parts quite steep and the temperature rose and rose, which coupled by the elevation, almost 8000 feet, soon had the heart beating, the sweating started and thirst growing.

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The walk down was followed by a walk along the canyon floor, before the trail started the climb back up – this was serious heart attack effort.

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We were all very short of breath, hearts bumping and taking advantage of every bit of shade as an excuse for a rest

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Made it!

After getting our breath back at the top we set off back to the RV, just a few minutes’ drive away this time, where we sadly said goodbye to Bob, Cathy and Trouper as they set off back to their RV to continue on their travels.

Who knows, we may see them again somewhere else before we all get back to Florida, but in the meantime we are going to read up on the rules for Mexican Train and Uno.