14th April: KOA to Zion

From Wd

Gavin's diary—6.30pm 14th April 2007, Zion NP

We arrived at Zion today via Las Vegas and a Wal*Mart in St. George, Utah. Erika (my daughter) would have found the latter heaven; I found it pretty good, and bought an $18 sleeping bag to supplement the ageing goose-down bag I brought with me.

Jinny's Blog

We drove through Primm Valley where we stopped for a break. The group had been talking about Indian curry, you know, subtle hints about how much they loved Indian curry. So after convincing Chuck (who was vehemently against making anything other than hotdogs and beans), I decided to make rice pulao and chicken curry and have the boys do the chopping.

As we cooked that night, James (19 years old) was quite keen to learn how to chop veggies and after going at it for about 40 minutes got his well deserved cigarette break. Bev offered to chop since that was his specialty. Chuck struggled with a garlic clove or two and refused to refine his technique even after I showed him how to crush it a little with the back of a cup so the skin would come off easily.

He grumbled several times “I told you we should have made something easy”. I was amused at his intense dislike for cooking. Most of us had abandoned the beer bought by Ron for wine we bought ourselves. I landed up having about three glasses of wine while cooking, Gavin brought out his radio and played some music. The food was great though the wine was not such a good idea since it dehydrated me a bit that night. I went to sleep at 11.00pm with more alcohol than was good for me, given I was hiking the next day.