{"id":411,"date":"2014-09-04T00:53:03","date_gmt":"2014-09-04T04:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rootbeertogo.com\/?p=411"},"modified":"2014-09-04T01:02:41","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T05:02:41","slug":"hiking-photography-birthday-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rootbeertogo.com\/?p=411","title":{"rendered":"Hiking, Photography & Birthday Celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning was an opportunity to photograph the features near the Museum in Zion National Park at sunrise.\u00a0 The alarm went off at 5:25 AM and we got dressed and drove to the museum parking lot to get their early.\u00a0 We were the first to arrive!<\/p>\n

Tripod, camera and cable release set up and beginning about 6:15 started taking photographs of the well known features at this location including West Temple,\u00a0 Sundial and Altar of Sacrifice.\u00a0 One can sense the Mormon influence in the naming of the features in this park.\u00a0 Also, the Beehive formation later as sun touched the rocks.<\/p>\n

Breakfast was put on hold until about 7:30.\u00a0 The Best Western Zion Park Inn had arguably the best breakfast included in the room rate.\u00a0 Full buffet and good coffee!<\/p>\n

We decided on a couple of hikes for the day.\u00a0 First up was the Menu Falls (about 2 miles) \u00a0located between the Big Bend and the Temple of Sinawava shuttle stops.\u00a0 The bus doesn’t let people off at that location, so we had to walk (hike) up the road from Big Bend about\u00a0 mile to get to the short walk up to the falls.\u00a0 They were pretty small this time of the year, but will make a good image when we get time to download, categorize and process the images from this entire trip!\u00a0 After photographing the falls, we walked up to the Temple of Sinawava shuttle stop for a ride back down the canyon to the Zion Park Lodge.<\/p>\n

At the Lodge we took the hike to the Emerald Pools–both the lower and middle. (\u00a0 We were disappointed at the findings at the destinations (2.5 miles), but the hike up was very nice.\u00a0 Saw a couple of falls, although they were smaller so late in the summer.\u00a0 Have some interesting photos of the spray from the falls being blown by the wind.\u00a0 This was considered a moderate hike.\u00a0 Since it was close to noon, we had some crackers and water for lunch.\u00a0 This after that great (big) breakfast earlier in the morning.<\/p>\n

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After this hike, we caught the shuttle to the park history museum where was soaked up the air conditioning, got some water refills and watched the 22 minute video about the park.\u00a0 I think my oboe teacher from Salt Lake City (Holly Gornik) was the oboe and English horn player on the music in the film.\u00a0 The credits were for winds from the Utah Symphony.<\/p>\n

Gary needed a nap after all this effort and the early morning!\u00a0 We retired to our hotel room for a few hours.\u00a0 We had made dinner reservations at the Red Rock Grill in the Zion Park Lodge to celebrate Joyce’s birthday.\u00a0 We arrived just in time and were seated outside on the deck.\u00a0 Great views and nice weather!<\/p>\n

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After dinner we attended the Ranger talk on the night sky.\u00a0 This was so different that expected.\u00a0 She talked about light pollution, where we could still see the night sky and how some places are working toward becoming a certified linternational dark sky community.<\/p>\n

This was a great day in Zion NP.\u00a0 Tomorrow we plan a few early photo ops and then a Ranger led walk Kayenta Trail starting from the Grotto trail head.\u00a0 Then we’re off to Salt Lake City!<\/p>\n

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This morning was an opportunity to photograph the features near the Museum in Zion National Park at sunrise.\u00a0 The alarm went off at 5:25 AM and we got dressed and drove to the museum parking lot to get their early.\u00a0 We were the first to arrive! Tripod, camera and cable release set up and beginning … Continue reading Hiking, Photography & Birthday Celebration<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-route-66"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4GgIT-6D","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rootbeertogo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rootbeertogo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rootbeertogo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rootbeertogo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rootbeertogo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rootbeertogo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":414,"href":"https:\/\/www.rootbeertogo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions\/414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rootbeertogo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rootbeertogo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rootbeertogo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}