In the meantime, the Corona Virus emerged from China and spread around the world. First the volleyball game was cancelled. But the hotel was staying open, and Booking.com wouldn't answer our request to cancel the room without a penalty. Then the Rod Stewart concert was "postponed." Then all the casinos in Nevada, including the one that housed our hotel, were shut down. All restaurants in Utah were also banned from sit-down dining, although take-out was still allowed. We decided that because we were going to end up paying for the Courtyard, we would go to St. George and enjoy the weekend.
Out first stop was the Red Cliffs Canyon Recreation Area for a little hike.
The weather cleared up for us. Earlier the area had rain and some snow. We passed through a snow storm through Beaver on the way here.
Spring began yesterday about 9:40 p.m. in Utah. Salt Lake City is still really in winter with only a few tulip leaves starting to poke out, and a few daffodils. In St. George, spring is in full bloom, with the trees already turned green.
This is a backlit tree on the trail to a waterfall from the Red Cliffs campground.
And a tree with really twisting branches.
This is the first waterfall. Okay, this isn't a Yosemite Falls, but this little stream, its little waterfalls, and the pools below the falls in the red rock are really pretty and calming.
Chieko is resting against this rippled rock.
Just some palm-tree-looking plants mixed with red sandstone rocks.
Chieko is looking down from a rock above me.
The cactus against the red rock is also pretty, I think.
Chieko is hiking toward the second waterfall, but there are some obstacles, like the need to cross the stream three or so times, and scaling the side of a rock wall above the falls.
If you look closely, you can see a guy in a red jacket coming down the rock wall with the aid of a rope.
Chieko is just starting up the rock.
This is the upper waterfall with a deep pool that swallowed my $2,500 lens when it jumped out of my jacket pocket.
This is Chieko coming down the rock using the rope. Climbing down is much harder than climbing up. At least it's scarier.
Here's a weird old tree stump.
This is looking from the Orson B. Adams house.
And a panorama view from the same place.
We were supposed to go to Rod Stewart's "The Hits" concert on Saturday night. Before that we would likely have eaten sushi at Sushi Takahashi. It is Chieko's birthday, after all. Well, the Rod Stewart event was cancelled, but we drove to Las Vegas from St. George and had the sushi anyway. We ate it in the park, because no restaurants are allowed to have sit-down guests due to the Corona virus (Covid-19).
This is what Las Vegas looks like as a ghost town.
We couldn't eat at Sushi Takashi as we had planned, but they were still open and doing takeout. So we took out to a park.
We thought going to the Valley of Fire would be a good place to spend some time away from other people ("social distancing" is one of the government-encouraged virus-avoidance strategies). I haven't been here for a very long time, and probably have never seen more than two or three other people when I was here. I also had no idea how big this area is. I thought it was about a two-mile stretch along a paved road that turned into a dirt road in a sort distance. Well, I was wrong on both counts. This place is really quite large, and a lot of other people had the same idea. Still, there weren't crowds, and we were able to stay away from others for the most part.
Here's Chieko on the edge of a cliff.
I'm on the same cliff. As you can see, this is quite dangerous. A slip could mean falling four or five feet to the rocks below.
Chieko in front of an interesting rock formation. I believe this is the same formation as Arches.
I've seen a lot of cairns directing the way on trails, and hiking to Bowtie Arch near Moab there is a large area that people have covered with cairns as a sort of artwork, I guess. Here, cairns are considered graffiti that should be reported.
Here's an interesting rock with strange striations.
This is along a hike down to a place where there's a piece of a Mexican hacienda built by a Hollywood studio for a movie in the '60s.
Here's Chieko and I hiking up the trail.
More purple striations.
A purple flower.
And a yellow flower. I think these were the only two flowers we saw all day.
A purple rock.
We drove around the loop to see Valley of Fire's only major arch. But we must have missed it. We saw only the arch, which is about five feet tall. And several more like this.
More purple rocks.
I thought this outcrop was interesting.
I also like the contrast between this white rock and the red mountain behind it.
This rock probably fascinated me the most.
Chieko is hiking down some trail.
We saw several crows.
These stairs go to "Atlatl Rock" just before the Arch Rock scenic loop.
The sign said these petroglyph on Atlatl Rock are 4,000 years old.
On Sunday morning we headed to Snow Canyon, where we've never been, but it seems everyone else we know has.
We walked the trail over the Petrified Dunes.
Every rock structure in Southern Utah is interesting.
I think these are small moqui marbles.
These look like moqui marbles still embedded in the petrified dunes.
This is looking south at Snow Canyon from the dunes.
Chieko.
Michael.
Next we headed over to Zions National Park. The lodges are closed and the entrance fee is waived due to the corona virus. The shuttle bus is also suspended, but there weren't too many people. Rangers stopped all the cars at the main lodge and would only let them through if there was parking available where they were planning to go. We wanted to go to Weeping Rock, but it's closed due to dangerous falling rocks. So we wanted to go to the River Walk at the end of the road. That was fine. They let us in, and there was plenty of available parking.
Squirrels are completely not shy.
And there were a bunch of them.
There are a few small waterfalls along the River Walk.
This is the end of the walk and the beginning of Zion Narrows. Also the end of our weekend trip.
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