I'm at Zion National Park, and for those of you who've not been here: put it on your list. To call it magnificent or inspiring or breathtaking is to minimize its shattering beauty. And I'm exhausted from our hike...too tired to attempt a description! Instead, just a simple reporting of what happened on a glorious afternoon turned so very sad.

After a leisurely morning hike, David and I stepped out of Zion Lodge at lunchtime for a second hike along the canyon creek. Stellar's Jays said hello from the branches of small evergreens; two red squirrels playing a game of chase nearly tripped us up as we walked a narrow path. We walked for perhaps 90 minutes, delighting in a huge herd of mule deer grazing and napping lazily near the water, and in the recognition that we heard absolutely nothing but nature: the brush of the wind through brittle branches, the dancing of the shallow creek over its rockbed, and the chatter of jays and crows.

We stopped for lunch among a flock of wild turkeys, and the 20+ birds ignored us as they went about their turkey business---searching for bugs, scratching in the dirt, preening, relaxing in the sun--with us in their midst. We were thrilled to have such unexpected lunch companions!

"Let's go this way," David suggested at the fork in the road. And that choice led us to the barn where "dude ranch" horses and mules were housed. And that's when our fun stopped. Their lives couldn't have been more different from the lives of Catskill Animal Sanctuary equines.

More tomorrow. I'm so-oo---ooo tired, so sad, so angry at humanity.