TFGW|Days 10 & 11 Kanab, UT Part 2

Author’s Note: Steve says the slide shows I’m posting are a little boring and that I should snazz them up a bit. See below for my first attempt. You can watch one of two ways. Click on the video itself or for a full screen viewing click on the link to YouTube.

April 19 – Day 10: We visit Zion National Park. One of the most popular National Parks, parking is limited and a shuttle bus takes you on a tour of the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive. The canyon is beautiful but even with cloudy skies, the drive through the park itself is impressive. See for yourself.

Perhaps the most entertaining part of the day was Steve’s experience with the Zion – Mt. Carmel Tunnel. A 1.1 mile long tunnel that connects Zion Canyon to the east side of the park, it was built in the 1920s when vehicles were a lot smaller than they are today. The tunnel is arch-shaped and if your vehicles is taller than 11’4” and wider than 7’10, you can’t travel in a single lane through the tunnel. The rangers have to stop traffic and escort you through the middle of the tunnel where the clearance is higher.

Bottom line, it’s a long narrow tunnel and Steve is a not a big fan of tunnels. We’re in a long line of cars when we enter. Steve is surprised that the truck headlights don’t’ come on since they are set to “AUTO”. He turns them to “ON” and flicks his bright lights on and off.

S (frantically fiddling with the lights): My lights aren’t working. I can’t see s*@t.

M: What do you mean? I can see fine.

Steve continues to fiddle with the lights and is getting increasingly “agitated”. I’m about to crawl in his lap and drive us through the tunnel and then I notice something.

M: Perhaps you could see better if you took your sunglasses off.

S (ripping his sunglasses off his head and spewing an expletive or two): Perhaps, you’re right.

April 20 – Day 11 If you’re an animal lover like me, you cannot visit Kanab, UT without touring Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. If you’re Steve, you go because you love your wife.

Located in Angel Canyon, Best Friends goal is to make our country no-kill by 2025. Caring for about 1600 horses, pigs, goats, sheep, birds, cats and dogs, it’s an impressive operation. We take a 2 hour tour of the entire sanctuary. I choose that tour because it includes hands on time in both Cat World and Dogtown. Yay! What I don’t understand when booking the tour is that there are many different cat “worlds” and dog “towns”. There are the “worlds” and “towns” full of cute kittens, puppies, cats and dogs. And then there are areas for the senior and special needs cats and dogs, the ones who are hard to adopt. Guess where we go for our hands on time? That’s right. Best Friends pulls a fast one on us, hoping that one of these cats or dogs will tug on the heart strings of one of the tour participants and find its forever home.

I enjoy the cat area. The cats all seem to be living a pretty good life.

The dog area is tough. Most of the dogs we see have behavior issues, many triggered by neurological conditions. Some of the dogs are eligible for adoption but a lot of them have purple collars, meaning that their forever home is the Sanctuary.

Best Friends believes in a better world through kindness to animals. While it’s hard to believe that the doggy world of these purple collar dogs is good, it is a little better. And knowing that, my world is a little better, too.