St. George to Springdale

Roadtrips are always lots of fun, but hard to blog about because so much happens so fast.  I’m going to take it in installments and do a little bit at a time.  My photos of Denver and my opening in Fort Collins are on my small camera and I do not have the USB cord for it with me, so photos from CO will come in a few weeks.  From Denver my dad and I flew to St. George and then drove to Kanab, I’ll break the roadtrip up into two posts, starting with St. George to Springdale and then tomorrow I’ll post Zion to Kanab.

There aren’t any non-stop flights to St. George from Denver, so we had to stop in Salt Lake City.  The plane was a little delayed, but we and our luggage made it just in the nick of time, the plane from Salt Lake City to St. George was tiny and bumpy, but we made it in one piece.

The St. George Airport is adorably tiny, smaller than the airport in Svalbard! When my dad and I were in Panama we were told that scheduling and timing is always off because its “Panama Time,” things just move slower. Utah must be on Panama time. We spent half an hour of waiting for the AVIS man to give us our car and then we hit the road.

The drive isn’t too bad, took us about an hour and a half including pulling over to take picture time. There is actually a lot of fun stuff to see on the side of the road! When we pulled over to take a picture of a pretty vista I spotted two beautiful lizards and a few birds. There is also an ostrich farm worth visiting on the drive. It wasn’t open, but we still got to see the Ostrich through the fence. You can pay a few bucks (on the honor system) and feed them some food, but they didn’t seem interested, however I did almost get pecked by one of them while standing on a suitcase to shoot pictures over the fence. This was the first of many near miss animal attacks (ostrich, mountain goat, buffalo) more stories to come soon! The ostriches are fun to watch, they move really gracefully and the babies are cute.

There is a small town right at the entrance to Zion called Springdale. Not much to see in it, but it’s a good rest stop for a bite to eat. There is a movie theater there that plays movies about Zion and a museum with images of Zion, but my attitude is I’d rather see Zion then waste time with a video of it at the entrance! There is a great sculpture shop, which my dad and I have loved since our first trip here 10 years ago and we finally bought a piece for the house in LA.  The artist Lyman Whitaker makes beautiful copper sculptures that move in the wind.  Be sure to check it out on your way through the town. You can also check it out online at www.whitakerstudio.com.  Right across the street is Blondie’s Diner, which is a great place to stop for lunch before a drive through Zion.  Be sure to try one of their delicious milk shakes or their new product, cake in a jar!  It’s very American kitsch- perfect for a roadtrip.  It’s in an old house that the owners family used to live in and there are funny signs all around the store with cheesy phrases like “be nice to your kids, they’ll choose your retirement home!”

Part 2 on Zion coming tomorrow…