We drove from San Diego, leaving around 1pm on a Thursday, with hopes of being in Zion before sleeping that night. Going 95 mpg along I-15 toward Las Vegas, we amazingly avoided getting pulled over (despite flying right by a pair of cops who pulled out after we went by) and arrived in Vegas around 6pm, just as the sun was going down and the lights of the Strip were taking over. In the City of Decadence, we hopped on a roller coaster, ate, got gas (for the car), gambled, flirted with the nice hostesses (Dave! and his 20-minutes-too-late pickup lines), and finally went to the Hilton to catch The Star Trek Experience, a worthwhile bit of decadence even for non-Trekkies.

Back on the road, we traveled only an hour or so before we saw a $19 hotel room that was much more appealing than the back seat of a Honda Accord for accommodations. We caught 30 winks - having to get up at 4:45am - had a 2-for-1 breakfast for $6, won $26 bucks in 3 games of blackjack, then returned to our car trek, realizing as we walked out that the hotel just paid us $1 to sleep and eat there.

Driving into a cloudy Friday morning sunrise, we pondered the logistics of our planned trip. Our planned hike was down the Virgin Narrows, from north to south about 25 miles through winding river beds with towering walls to either side. The logistical problem, which had troubled us for the past day, was figuring out to get to our car when we got done with the hike. The previous day, we had found out about a shuttle that went to a trailhead - not our trailhead - and that left at 9am. On our drive from the hotel, we realized that we’d probably miss even that because we would be crossing into Mountain time at the Utah-Nevada line.