Moonrise and The Wave

Our day started with a fun challenge - to catch the moonset over the mountain peaks of the entrance to Zion.  Granted our timing was a tad off - it would have been better just a bit before full moon or a bit after full moon, cause the sun is not as intense and the moon is at its most intense which means its a more balanced light, albeit still pretty uneven.

OK - after that event in detail-ism...here's the upshot of our moon over the peaks of Zion.  And this doesn't really tell you what happened....of course a big HUGE cloud came over the moon just as it was setting and cleared about 2 seconds before this shot.  Where's the cloud?  Well, we realized our location was off a tad, and we had to move and in the process, while the moon was setting, the clouds burned off and there was no evidence of the problem clouds - just like those ole nasty clouds!

So we decided that since we didn't win the lottery to make The Wave hike, (NOTE:  You have to go to the Kanab, UT GSENM Visitors Station to sign up and fill out a form and then there's a lottery.  These days about 90b folks are standing in line for The Wave, and so you have a 1 out of 9 chance of getting picked as the 10 to get permits into The Wave - we did our best, and really did a great job schmoozing with the head ranger.  Our number was 3 - they called 2 and 4 but no three!!!!!  Bummer), so we decided to do our own dang Wave, who needs that wave anyway......as you can tell Walt did a fine job finding his own Wave.

 Actually these rock formations are so amazing, that he just couldn't resist.

And you'll be glad to know that to protect these rocks from any further erosion we are NOT giving away this location!

 But wait.....who else should be on the Walt Wave:

 As we were dilly-dallying around, Claire sees a herd (are Bighorns in herds - well I hope so), galloping down a wash coming toward the road right behind our car and screams: STOP!!!

 Then they make it across the road and you know their life isn't exciting, and a car and two humans with the long clicking thingies in their hands are just too interesting to pass up.  If this gang were up in Yellowstone they'd be used to those silly humans with clicking long black thingies in their hands, but alas, they are from Zion and just country bighorn - not big-city bighorn (like Yellowstone).

 But you know you can only take so much excitement, then you have to move on.

Thus endeth a very good day in Zion - ANIMALS, at last!!!!!!