Day 4 - Cedar City to Zion NP  

We went to a small winery in town last night called Iron Gate Winery.  They and using the initials IG and transitioning to the name Instant Gratification -- interesting.  We were able to see the wine master and general manager cleaning out the barrels form their last bottling through the glass window in the tasting room.  We were the only ones tasting and after a while the manager came out with a Tupperware pitcher.  He offered us the "left overs" of their Tempest wine just bottles.  It was very good for barrel dregs.

The wine was excellent and the tasting host was very interesting.  He was a journalist until he got the wine bug and started working for IG.  He does their marketing.  They have three tasting hosts, one wine master, and one general master.  They are outgrowing the house where they moved in 2012 and looking for new space. Made for a very pleasant and interesting evening.

We left this morning and took a side trip on our way to Zion to Snow Canyon State Park near St. George.  It was great.  We did two trails and another one where we got lost and made our own.  The park has a variety of rocks and geology, from petrified sand dunes to several types of lava from ancient flows.  And of course all that red rock was all around.

We made a stop at Kayenta Art Village and had a great drive through Santa Clara on our way back to the Road to Zion.  The drive to Zion was beautiful, the rock formations are multicolored and hadr to describe.  I thought check in time was 3:00, but turns out it is 4:00 so we had to wait.  Good news/bad news -- Teresa locked her keys in the car. A park ranger helped us get in, and it took almost exactly the amount of time we had to wait to check in.

We will be in Zion for 5 days.  The Internet access here is very slow so I will probably group our Zion stay together and post again when we get to Moab on Friday.

We are staying in the Sentinel with a beautiful view from our room. We are on the first floor almost exactly below the room Jim and I had before.  There are a lot of folks milling around, but nothing like the crowds in-season.  Most of the folks disappeared by Monday and we ran into very few people on the trails.

          Looking forward to some hiking tomorrow.