Huge, Variously-Colored Monoliths

Short Version:
We are a blockage! Huge, variously-colored monoliths.

Long Version:
We're getting our money's worth from our US National Parks Annual InterAgency Pass: Yellowstone; Grand Teton; Fossil; Arches; Bryce Canyon; and now, just down the road from the Thunder Mountain Trail, Zion. We spent enough time chatting to the chatty Ranger lady at the entrance that:
- We found out what we should see and do in the Park
- We found out how to get from there to our next actual destination, Gooseberry Mesa ("I'll tell you so long as you don't tell anyone else about it.")
- We caused a entrance gate queue to form from nothing and grow to at least six vehicles. Ha ha! [shakes fist] Did you feel that, vehicles?!?!?

Once into the Park proper, we found awesome things to look at on all sides; huge, variously-colored monoliths, looming to our left and our right. We spent so much time driving on the wrong side of the road that it was like being back in NZ, only with huge, variously-colored monoliths all over the place. Eventually we got a bit tired of all the adrenaline that we were getting from all the near-miss head-on incidents, and decided that maybe Nene should look at the cool stuff and I should make us not die. Then we reached the tunnel.

We've driven through tunnels before, in several countries and in a variety of vehicles, but we've not seen anything like this one before. It had corners, for a start. And viewing portals, through which one could see out through the cliff wall and across the ravine to whatever huge, variously-colored monoliths happened to be in line with the window. There were signs all over the place demanding that we refrain from stopping in the tunnel, and we obeyed them mercilessly. A bit. Not at all.

Pretty soon we were at the main canyon, where we joined the other vehicles - including several tandem bicycles, which all seemed to have a bloke at the front, pedalling hard, and a woman perched on the back, sitting up and smiling and looking around and taking photographs - driving from viewing spot to viewing spot up into the gorge. The huge, variously-colored monoliths were spectacular, and often bore little or no resemblance to even their closest neighbours in either size, shape, or color. Pointed red peaks stood shoulder-to-shoulder with rounded, bulbous cream entities; mottled red-and-black behemoths towered over narrow burnt-orange fingers. Threaded through it all were trees exhibiting a similar variety of hue in their leaves; colors from the vivid green of baby crocodiles to the red-brown of dried blood, and hit every shade of yello and orange along the way.

A stop at the Visitor Centre yielded encounters with stupid people, 3-dimensional topographic represeantations of the Park and its huge, variously-colored monoliths, and some rather nifty architectural features. But no internets, so it was off to the Publc Library we toddled! Apart from the fact that we didn't know where it was, and had so far overshot it by the time we stopped for a small amount of overpriced gasoline that we decided to just go play up on the Mesa instead.

Ranger lady had told us that rain was forecast for the morning, and that if it did come we should stay up there rather than trying to make it back down the access road, which she said was dangerous when wet. Turns out it was pretty gnarly when dry too, but the Reaper handled it with aplomb, even passing another vehicle on the way up. Admittedly it was a 1974 Mercedes UniMog which had been painted yellow and stuffed full of tourists, but it was still an uphill passing success. Once at the top we still had several miles of shitty dirt/rock road to negotiate to get to the trailhead, and to an excellent campsite, fifty metres away from the start of the infamous Gooseberry Mesa Trails. With views of the now-distant huge, variously-colored monoliths.