One or More Things I Did Today (Sundays are for Zion edition)

And Let It Be Known, that on July 17th, in the year of 2 thousands and 11, I was up to this:

• Woke up to the sounds of footsteps crackling in the ground as someone approached my hobo den. Sunshine Joe had come to Fairyland Point for an early morning photo session, waking me up 10 minutes before my alarm was scheduled to burst, and facilitating an early view to a gorgeous sunrise.
  
• Hit the road to Zion early, and arrived several hours later to find the crowd was even earlier.
• There are certain experiences that immediately reveal themselves as possessing a degree of splendor that makes them immediately forged into memories of the most precious sort.
• Zion was one of those experiences.
• I came in from the East, following the chain of cars down through the tunnels and sloping hills into the valley, a minor blessing that my car didn't leave the road for all of my gawking.
• Upon arriving at the campsite, I found my plot, dropped off the car, and made for the visitor's center.
• One of the terribly smart things about Zion: a top notch shuttle system that keeps the hordes of cars outside of the heart of the park. When you see the volume of visitors a park like Zion gets, this system makes an immense amount of sense. Tip of the cap to you, whoever thought of and implemented it.
• First up on the docket: Angel's Landing:
  
  
  
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/30124598@N00/sets/72157627117341603/

• Another thing to love about Zion: where else in this country can you be treated like an adult, subject to the consequences of your decisions? I'm amazed that its still an option to hike Angel's Landing, given the potential it offers to accidents and the litigiousness that follows. Tip of the other side of the cap to you, park managers.
• The hike, which gives the calves something to write home about, reaches its top form when you get to scramble across bare sandstone, where one misstep will send you into another world, and burly chains hold your hand like reassuring adults.
• Once I got used to the heights, it became somewhat surreal.
  
• From the finish point I could see the river bend hundreds of feet below. That made the descent easy, the goal of that cool water and washing the salt - brought to my arms and shoulders by the dry heat - off.
• And what do you know? The water was the perfect temperature, not nearly as frigid as I expected.
• Refreshed, I took the shuttle back to town, and hit the shuttle into S
• Bumbleberry pie? Check.
• Losing my cell phone? Check.
• Going for a fantastic jog at dusk, coming across what amounted to a little residential neighborhood within the park, and returning for some reading by candle and bug socializing? Oh, check check check.
  
• As I rolled out the sleeping mat and crashed for the evening, I had little idea I'd be spooked at about 3am and find myself putting up my tent in the dead of the night. But, sure enough, that's what happened.
• Picture of the day:

Be strong, young burly chain.

As they say, "It was a Day".