We woke up early Sunday morning to get to Mass.  We were 45 minutes away from the closest Catholic Church in Kanab, Utah.  Let’s talk about the hilarity and difficulty of going between Utah and Arizona while Utah is on Daylight Savings Time and Arizona is not.  This puts Utah one hour ahead of Arizona, but only during half the year.  Not all of our clocks were automatically updating as we drove between the two states, but some of them were.  It was difficult to know exactly what time it was supposed to be where we were in Arizona and trying to make sure that we made it to Mass at the correct time in Utah.  Needless to say, we did get it figured out, but when technology only works some of the time (and you aren’t always sure if it is working properly or not), it can be quite confusing. 

After Mass our main goal was to find an urgent care center for me.  We were headed to Hoover Dam, so we decided to stop in St. George, Utah, for an urgent care.  Charlie and the kids headed to Costco for some shopping while I went to the urgent care.  Fortunately, I tested negative for strep, but they were pretty sure I had some kind of secondary infection since I had been dealing with this for about two weeks.  Although I don’t love taking antibiotics, at this point in time, I was desperate to start feeling better. 

We took a look at our schedule, adjusted a few things, and decided we had time to drive to Zion National Park since St. George isn’t too far from there.  After going to the Visitor Center and experiencing how busy Zion was, we all decided we didn’t want to deal with the crowds and still weren’t up for much hiking.  We were perfectly content to drive the scenic drive that had initially captivated us ten years ago.  There are soooo many different and colorful geological structures to see on this drive! 

We left Zion after a few hours to head toward Hoover Dam with a campground in mind so that we could be at Hoover Dam for the tours first thing in the morning.

On our way to the Las Vegas area to go to Hoover Dam, we drove on I-15 coming out of St. George, Utah and into the area of the Virgin River Gorge.  In my opinion, the Virgin River Gorge was every bit as beautiful as driving through a national park.  We were coming down in elevation quickly, since we had hit 2000 ft above sea level, and we started out the day at over 8000 ft.  I was so mesmerized by the view that I didn’t even think to take pictures until it was too late.  

Rebecca