Zion and the annular eclipse

Next on our itinerary was Zion National Park. Our plan was to do a day trip from Panguitch (near Bryce), which was a bit of a drive but made it so we didn’t have to pack up and move out of our great little cabin (see photo). Well, it turns out that Zion is absolutely massive (especially compared to Bryce), and by the time we arrived (at the north entrance) and drove through the park to the south entrance, we learned that we still had an hour on a shuttle bus to get to the walk that would take us to see the first part of The Narrows. It was also 39 degrees celsius! So, we decided to bail on The Narrows! Instead we took advantage of the popular tourist destination to walk around the parking lot in search of license plates that we had yet to see (and take a photo of, seeing as Mig decided to turn our game of collecting all 50 U.S. license plates into a photo project). Thus, the photos we have for you are taken from the drive. The views were still pretty impressive, we thought! To top things off, I noticed a herd of bisons on the side of the road. Naturally, there was a bunch of photographers already there shooting away with their massive lenses. We had fun taking a few shots, and vouched to come back to Zion better equipped and prepared next time.

We also have a photo of a solar eclipse, which happened at the end of our day-trip to Zion. Once again, we found ourselves in the right place at the right time for photo opportunities, because southern Utah was part of a narrow section in North America from where one could see it (see gallery below). There was a lot of hype about this eclipse because it was, in fact, an annular eclipse, which means that at some point the moon was going to be perfectly aligned with the sun, creating a “ring of fire.” Mig got a pretty cool shot of it, in my humble opinion.