Day 9: Marching to beautiful Zion

We left Jim and Sondras house and ate at another local cafe for breakfast.  The weather seem to be a bit more promising today when we started out, with some clouds but mostly sun.  We went about 20 miles to Zion national park and were amazed at the beauty of all the rock canyons.  Right when we entered the the park one of the trailer tires went flat so we fixed that with some fix-a-flat.  Then a mile down the road or so Steve's tire also went flat so we started to fix that along the road.  We were all happy there was a nice view and it wasn't raining when we fixed the tire.  While fixing the tire Jeff, another cyclist, stopped to check in with us to see if everything was going okay and to chat.  Once the tube was patched we started to ride with Jeff through the park.  Its always nice to meet someone new and be able to talk to them for a bit.  Once we came to the end of the scenic route we decided to eat lunch under a pavilion, and said our thanks and goodbyes to Jeff.  As we ate the rain started to come down with pretty good consistency.  After eating we suited up for the rain and went for it, backtracking to the road we needed to take to go through the park.  While getting soaked we found that the trailer tire was again flat and so we pulled off at one of the bus stops so we had some shelter to work under, which feels amazing when your cold and soaked to the bone.  We decided to take the trailer tire off and found there were tubes in the trailer tires, which was a good thing because we could then patch it.  Once that was done we climbed up some switchbacks to a tunnel where we had to wait for a truck to come and shuttle us through because it is too narrow for bikes.  We waited for about 30 min for a truck to come and take us through to the other side.  We then proceeded to bike out of the park and stopped and a rest spot where the man behind the counter gave us all a free slice of pizza!  We were all very thankful for the warm food. We then set out to Mt. Carmel where we ate subway for dinner and then rode up to Orderville where we decided to get a motel for the night for it had been a long, cold, and wet day.  The room we ended up getting was the "falling in love suite" and it was perfect...and it came with a couch.  Thanks for all the prayers and support during our trip so far, we feel them everyday.