Utah 2019: Day 8

5/9/2019

May 8th, 2019
Zion National Park, Utah

Zion National Park

Humans first began to inhabit the region now known as Zion National Park around 8,000 years ago, with the Mormons showing up in the late 1850s. In 1909, President William Howard Taft named the area Mukuntuweap National Monument in order to protect the canyon from development. In 1918, upon the creation of the National Park Service, the acting director of this new agency proposed renaming the area as Zion National Monument because:

"The name change played to a prevalent bias of the time. Many believed that Spanish and Indian names would deter visitors who, if they could not pronounce the name of a place, might not bother to visit it. The new name, Zion, had greater appeal to an ethnocentric audience."

Finally, in 1919, the monument was elevated in status to Zion National Park by President Woodrow Wilson.

Pop quiz

Zion is the fourth most-visited national park in the United States. What are the first three (in order, of course)?

Music

Trombone Shorty is the stage name for Troy Andrews, a musician (and producer, actor and philanthropist) from the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans.

His primary instrument is the trombone (thus the nickname), but he also plays the trumpet, drums, organ and tuba.

I've included two videos here, one of Trombone Shorty's appearance on NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts and another in which he appears as a supporting musician. I realize that the second of these has been highlighted in my blog previously, but I enjoy it so much that I thought it was worthy of a re-run.

For those of you who live here in Virginia, note that Trombone Shorty will be performing in Lynchburg on August 21st of this year!