Not sure what happened to this day. Had breakfast at the hotel and saw fighter jets flying overhead every few minutes, banking to head out north, and when we left we saw them coming back in to land. We didn’t seem to drive more than 45 minutes without having to stop - to change diapers, for petrol, for tourist pamphlets, for the post office, for groceries, for the view. It wasn’t much more than an hour of actual driving to arrive at St. George in south-west Utah. It was spectacular country. We stopped at the visitor center to pick up information on the area attractions and bought the kids viewmasters (which we used to compare Zion and Bryce National Parks).

On the way out of St George, we spotted a sign for “dinosaur tracks”, which with Ava in the back was pretty much mandatory viewing. They were where stone slabs had separated during excavations to reveal thousands of ancient footprints (as well as tail drag marks and scratches made as dinosaurs swam over the shallow sea floor). The whole thing had had a museum erected over and around it.

After spending an hour or so there, we gave up the idea of trying to see Bryce Canyon and many of the other parks and sights - more than I ever imagined - and settled on seeing Zion, mostly because it was on the road directly east, and when we arrived, we decided immediately to stay the night. The south campground, just inside the park, is just about the most beautiful spot I’ve ever seen. Zion is a valley/canyon on the Virgin River, with red walls and buttes rising on either side and the canyon floor kept a beautiful green by the trees and plants watered by the river running through it. We set up camp, threw stones into the river, and had a campfire with roasted marshmallows.