After having breakfast at 9am this morning, we checked out of the lodge at 10am and headed over to hike the Emerald Pool trails. The hike started out pretty nice, but quickly started to show us just how out of shape we've gotten. Finally some motivation to start doing cardio every morning again. We also learned pretty quickly that early September is still too hot for hiking in Zion. It was over 90 degrees by 11am, so we were sweating like mad. After finishing the hike (and only taking a few pictures), we took the shuttle down-canyon and did the Pa'rus trail. It is a very easy walk on paved sidewalk, but the scenary is very pretty.
About 1:20, we got to the end of the trail, which puts you at the visitor center. We took the shuttle back to the lodge, picked up the car, and headed over to the Novel House Inn. Novel House Inn is a nice bed and breakfast in Springdale which is run by Ross and Norma Clay. We stayed here a couple of years ago in the C.S. Lewis room and were so impressed we decided to always stay here when we are up in the Zion area. This time we are in the Rudyard Kipling room, and it is gorgeous. The jungle safari theme is fun but not overdone, and the bed is extremely comfortable. Ciaran, Ross and Norma's son-in-law, checked us in early so we could go ahead and take everything up to the room and relax. While checking us in, we learned that Dolce Vita Boutique (Ross and Norma's daughter Roslyn) had changed to Dolce Vita Gallery.
The last time we were here, we had some desserts and hot chocolate at Dolce Vita. Everything was extremely tasty, so we were looking forward to going there again tonight. We did still go into the gallery and have a look around. There are several excellent examples of Ciaran's work (he is a painter) in the gallery. AM also found a small purse she thought was cute and bought that to use when we go out to dinner on occasion.
Our next stop was a new gallery in town for David J. West. He is a landscape photographer who has been doing that as his primary job for the last 3 years, but just moved to Springdale 5 months ago. While we were in the gallery, we talked to him and learned that he used to shoot film, but switched over to a Nikon D2X. His prints are absolutely amazing and I hope I can get shots of that quality and originality some day.
When we left David's gallery we still had a little over an hour to kill before our dinner reservations. To pass the time, we walked down the main road (Utah route 9) and checked out a few more of the shops. In one of the shops, the owner had a huge German Shepherd named Cooper. Cooper is a very sweet dog that is apparently ticklish everywhere. No matter where you start to scratch him, he starts scratching as well. We also looked that the "farm" type place that had penned deer, bison, and oxen. The deer are gargantuan, and some of the stags' antlers had to have been at least 4-5 feet in length.
After we finished looking at the "wildlife", we headed back to the inn and dropped off the purse AM bought. We then started walking to dinner at the Spotted Dog Cafe. We had eaten there on our last trip to Zion and decided we had to try it again. We started with a baked brie appetizer, some bread, and a piece of roasted garlic. After we polished those off (rather quickly they were so good), AM had a pork loin with cheese polenta and apple rosemary fennel cream sauce. The sauce was excellent, and I wish I had ordered that myself. I ordered the asian pear salad with chicken. While this was good, I did prefer the pork loin. Oh well, some times you just have to give in to your cravings.
Since Dolce Vita no longer does desserts, AM and I decided to try Bumbleberry's bumbleberry pie. It is basically a blueberry pie, but it is pretty good. It is completely stuffed with berries (not much sauce filler), and there isn't a hint of bitterness.