Saturday, April 9, 2011 - Zion National Park, Springdale UT
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Five pm at South Campground, Zion National Park, April 9, 2011
Just in time
Just in time the Feds agreed on a budget late last night and Zion is open. But nearly everybody left the campground yesterday and today. It's about 5 pm and this campground is usually filled by now. Not today. Question: so was it the atrocious weather or the threat of a shutdown that sent them packing? Anyway, I'm pleased not to have to travel up the hill over the weekend before the storm clears.
Just in time I shot the above picture not 5 minutes before a blustery snow squall blew through - complete with thunder and lightning. It had partly cleared earlier and it was nice to see the mountains again. Not nice enough to get me out with the camera though. Darn.
Night camp
Site 112 - South Campground, Zion National Park, Springdale UT
- Verizon cell phone and EVDO service - good signal
- Go to Zion National Park website
- Locate Zion South Campground on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather here
Sweet, Rich Hickory Milk
Hickory was another favorite. Rambling through the Southeast in the 1770s, the naturalist William Bartram observed Creek families storing a hundred bushels of hickory nuts at a time. "They pound them to pieces, and then cast them into boiling water, which, after passing through fine strainers, preserves the most oily part of the liquid" to make a thick milk, "as sweet as fresh cream, an ingredient in most of their cookery, especially hominy and corncakes." Years ago a friend and I were served hickory milk in rural Georgia by an eccentric backwoods artist named St. EOM who claimed Creek descent. Despite the unsanitary presentation, the milk was ambrosial - fragrantly nutty, delightfully heavy on the tongue, unlike anything I had encountered before.