[You may view a map of Zion National Park in PDF form.]

I got up around my normal time and my left foot wasn't ready to be walked on after hiking with the too-small hip waders yesterday. I handled some email while J slept some more. After J woke up, I had my usual breakfast then started to work up a blog entry. Our friend RB came over around 9:45 to visit for a while before he headed back to the Denver area. RB left around 11:15. I finished the blog entry then downselected the images from yesterday.

I had lunch around 12:10 and processed three images for the blog. My feet were feeling much better after giving them a rest this morning, and we left in the Jeep around 2:30.

We headed up the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive and checked out the area around the Weeping Rock. There weren't any nice pools there like we were expecting, so we could cross it off as something to do in the morning when the light would be better. Then we headed up to the end of the road near the Temple of Sinawava and stopped to photograph some of the fall color against the steep red rock cliff (left).

When we reached the end of the road near the Temple of Sinawava, I photographed some of the fall color right near the parking lot, including the yellow cottonwood (below left). Then I put on my gum boots and walked up the East Fork of the Virgin River beginning near the parking lot and photographed some of the fall color from the river. The gum boots were much more comfortable than the hip waders! They were not only the correct size, they provided a lot more support for the bottom of my feet than the hip waders, so it was no problem walking in them. After the river swung back near the Riverside Walk, I took the Riverside Walk almost to the end and photographed some things along the way. Then I returned to the parking lot and photographed the fall color there some more. I was inspired by some of J's compositions and tried something more abstract than usual with the yellow and red leaves (below right).

We returned to the RV around 6:45. I downloaded the images I took today then showered. I started to downselect the images I took while J showered.

We had dinner around 7:40 of leftover J's Quick-Cooking Chicken with Mushrooms and Onions over fresh angel-hair pasta and green beans.

I finished downselecting images and did some things online. I started to make a batch of coffee concentrate at 8:35 using a 12-oz (340g) bag of ground Starbucks Italian Roast coffee (The Sol Foods Market in Springdale didn't have any whole bean coffee.) and some of my regular LavAzza Gran Filtro Dark Roast coffee to make up a full pound (454g). The Starbucks coffee was much darker than my regular LavAzza Dark Roast and was ground much finer than I usually grind the LavAzza. The ground coffee didn't mix as well with the water, and it mostly floated on top of the water. Even after I patted the coffee down at the end to try to get everything wet, the top looked like it was still dry. Then I selected and processed three images from today for the blog through Capture One (C1) before going to bed.