Day 12: Zion National Park

The day today could not have started worse because the coffee machine at the Wild West Motel was broken. Can you imagine anything worse? Well, I can't. So today I had crispbread with water instead of coffee for breakfast. But coffee is more than 90% water anyway, so it's practically the same.

Afterwards, I went on a very pleasant 160-kilometer drive from Big Water to Springdale, compared to the last three days where I covered a total of 1,500 kilometers.

Well, that's technically a lie again. After about 5 km, I realized that the next gas station towards my destination is about 90 km away and it could be a close call with my remaining fuel. So I turned around and drove 10 km past my hotel again back to Arizona to refuel. Quite annoying, but anything is better than being stranded in the middle of nowhere at 35 degrees, right?

My credit card was accepted directly at the pump for the third time in a row, but this time a zip code was also requested. At first, I tried my German zip code without much hope. Naturally, it didn't work. Since I didn't have internet, I searched my Google Maps history for the first American zip code I could find and finally entered one from Las Vegas (without ever having been there). Surprisingly, it actually worked. So now I officially live in Las Vegas instead of Neustadt. Goodbye Germany, I am available for filming.

With a fully fueled Engelbert, I finally headed towards Springdale. After 120 more fairly lonely kilometers, I already reached the entrance to today's main attraction: Zion National Park.

First, a beautiful winding road led me through the northeastern part of the park:

Zion means 'sanctuary' in Hebrew. I think that's a fitting description for the characteristic reddish-beige mountain ranges that extend in all directions at all times.

To reach my hotel in Springdale, I had to briefly leave the park again. I couldn't check in yet, but I was kindly allowed to use the parking lot. Then I took two free shuttle buses back to the park entrance and then all the way through the main valley.

When I finally arrived, I ventured on the over 2-mile-long flat hike called 'The Narrows', which leads along a small river to a narrow point in the canyon.

Since I started sweating heavily on this little hike solely because of the high temperatures (and not because of my currently improvable fitness level), I decided to leave it at that and take the slow ride back with the shuttle buses. You can concentrate better on the beautiful surroundings while sitting anyway.

I returned to my hotel and could now check in. I had been looking forward to this hotel the most out of all the hotels before the trip. It has the dreamy name 'Majestic View Lodge' and lives up to its name with the best view I've seen so far. And for the first time, I have a balcony. The room is furnished with many wooden items and is the second best so far after the room in Lake Havasu City.

And of course, there was also an ironing board and an iron. This was missing in the hotel in Big Water yesterday (I forgot to mention it). So the current score after 8 out of 12 hotels is 62.5%. Some of you may already smell big betting wins, but a lot can still change in the last 4 hotels.

The Majestic View Lodge also has its own steakhouse, and for the first time on this trip, I decided to spend a little more money and go out for a proper meal. The 10% discount for hotel residents convinced me in the end. A very oddly made-up waitress who pretended to be nice in a forced way and held way too long and uncomfortable eye contact eventually served me my well-deserved spare ribs. They don't quite match the ones made by my cousin Silvan and his girlfriend Lena, but they were still an 8 out of 10.

Well-fed, I wanted to end the day and only one thing could still slightly (slightly means a lot in this case) worry me:

How is a normal person supposed to sleep normally now? Well, I will try. Good night and see you tomorrow!

Leart