Zion National Park, Utah

On Day #11, we made it southern Utah. Finally. We greeted the "Welcome to Utah" sign with a high five. Utah was not all that welcoming, however.  The campgrounds at Zion National Park were full (it was Saturday afternoon, our bad timing) so we headed south toward St. George to a campground charmingly called Quail Creek. It turned out to be on a large lake, surrounded by some of those rock formations we had come to Utah to see - and they had an open spot for us. It was also 100 degrees. I'm not exactly sure how much it cooled off that night, maybe it dropped below 70 at some point before the sun came up, but at 9:30 the next morning it was already 93 degrees. That was too much for this Seattle trio, so we decided to do the short scenic drive through Zion's Kolob Canyon, then head for higher elevations. Kolob Canyon was impressive, but we were pulled over by a gun-toting ranger who busted us for not paying (but there was no kiosk and we have an annual pass!) and for not having a current insurance card. Ouch. Utah better make it up to us in the next few days or we're outta here.