Day two we headed south to see the north rim of the Grand Canyon at a place called Toroweap. It's very remote and not a lot of people make it out to see it. It's 60 miles of dirt road off the highway and there's no cell phone service, gas, water or electricity. The roads are very good when it's dry with only a few silt patches here and there. We did tip over in one and became two human powdered donuts.
We passed a dead snake in the road (this one was not poisonous).
The views there are amazing. 3,000 foot vertical drop straight to the bottom! You can hang your feet right over the edge.
On the way back, we came through Zion national park. The park nazi's wanted me to pay another $12 even though it's a public park our tax dollars supposedly pay for and even though I'd already purchased a pass the day before. It was because I had a passenger on the back.
My friend Zach said let's check out this trail down this road so we followed him for a mile or so before he stops at the side of the road. He said a tram driver passing us motioned for him to turn around. I said that's probably correct since I saw a sign saying we were supposed to have some "red permit" to be on this road. So we did the right thing and turned around. But on the way out, another tram driver passed us with his hand out the window giving us the "thumbs down." See, we were being publicly shamed for daring to ride a motorcycle on a paved road in a public park. So naturally I gave him my own gesture but it was a different finger and it was pointing up, not down.
We rolled past the lodge on our way out of this "forbidden road" and we saw a ranger pull out and put his red/blue flashing lights on. I noticed in my rear view mirror that a tram pulled out blocking him from pursuing us so I accelerated away to hopefully begin a high-speed chase. We were able to peacefully ride out of there without any problems but I'm sure they'll tase me the next time I try to go through there.
I really should never had to pay anything because we weren't staying inside the park, nor even stopping. We had to go through the park to get to the other side where we were staying and it takes too long to drive around. Death Valley national park is similar but they do not charge you if you're just passing through, because it is on an "interstate highway." When you do buy a permit for a motorcycle in Death Valley, it's only $10 and doesn't matter if it's one or two riders on a motorcycle.
If I sound bitter, it's because I am. We had our own little government shutdown to deal with because politicians couldn't decide how much money to be spent in the budget and unfortunately the National Park Service was just a bit too eager to put the screws to the public for it. There were cases all over the country where NPS employees went out of their way to punish the public. In one case in South Dakota near Mt. Rushmore, the NPS (even though they're supposedly "shut down") manned a roadside pull-out telling cars passing by they couldn't even pull off the public road to view the massive sculpture from a public place. Another park closed a privately-run restaurant and inn because it was on a park road. In DC they closed a war memorial and turned away 90 year old WWII veterans who had made the trip from around the country. At Yellowstone, they scared a group of European tourists saying they had to get back on the bus immediately and could not use the public restrooms. The tourists said it reminded them of Nazi Germany. We've had government closures before but they were quite a bit more punitive this time at our "public" parks.
Topic: Zion (Read 1891 times)
