Day 40 Zion

        Kara dropped me off this morning and headed over to Glendale for one more visit with Clara before we finished this side of Zion Canyon. No sooner was she out of sight than the wind picked up and soon it was raining, with the rain hitting my face so hard it stung. I bundled up and headed into the wind. The rain didn’t last long, but the wind kept up for most of the day and for a while, I even got hail - blue skies to the left of me, and hail pelting me from the right. It was pretty strange.

        I walked past some buffalo, watched a herd of deer cross the road only a short distance ahead of me, and watched as the scenery changed from interesting to spectacular as I got nearer to Zion. Just before I got to the entrance, Kara returned and resumed following behind me. Inside the park, as I came to the checkerboard mesa, I stepped on a rock and twisted my ankle. I tested it out for a bit and decided I had not done any major damage and continued on down through the park, Kara driving from turnout to turnout.

        Highway 9, which runs through the park, has been under construction most of the summer. They were supposed to be finished by now, but delays due to weather have slowed things down. There is still a long stretch that is not complete and we were told we could not walk through the construction areas.  So, Kara drove me through the construction and dropped me off on the other side. She said she was going to go find a lady’s room and I told her I would meet her down the road. Not long after she dropped me off, I came to the bridge which crosses the river. I was watching the river as I crossed and was not paying attention to the road in front of me. Suddenly, my right crutch dropped into a hole I hadn’t seen. The hole ran all the way through the bridge, maybe for drainage, and my crutch sank into it almost to the handle. I pitched forward, bending my crutch, twisting my ankle again and pulling a muscle in my thigh. “Well”, I thought,” guess I’m done for the day.”

     I pulled my crutch back out of the hole and stared at it for several minutes. It finally occurred to me to take a picture. I should have taken a picture of it in the hole.  I figured Kara would be back soon, and I would just pick it up the next day. But Kara didn’t come. After several minutes, I got the idea that I
 could put my crutch back in the hole and bend it back and start walking again. As I started walking I could feel my thigh muscle pulling and my ankle was complaining again with every step.
        I continued on for a mile or so, and still no Kara. Eventually I got down to the campground just inside of the park. I could smell campfires and someone cooking – one of the best smells on the planet when you are camping, and it made me wish I was camping here myself. I passed the campground and saw the car up ahead off the side of the road near the exit. I wondered why she had waited so long to check in on me.

        When I got to the car, I could tell Kara had been sleeping. After she had found the lady’s room, she had pulled off the side of the road to wait for me to catch up. She was so exhausted from all she had been doing over the past weeks that she fell asleep right there on the side of the road with her window rolled down. Sometime after she had crashed out, a park ranger startled her awake. As he approached he had a strange look on his face that seemed to turn to relief as she sat up in her seat.

        “Someone called in and reported you dead.” He said, “You looked dead.”  It was a good time to end the day.

        I went back to Arbon’s with my “dead” wife and we all spent the evening watching the replay of the U of U / Air Force game. All, that is, except Kara, who passed out again sometime after the end of the first quarter.  For a while, Dave ran back and forth, pausing the game while running to the door to take care of trick-or-treaters. Finally we left the trick-or-treaters in Elise’s capable hands (she doesn’t like football) while we ran down to the big screen in the theater room to finish the game. It was a nail biter, but the good guys won in the end and all was right with the world.