May 20 - United States: Cedar City, Utah

Change of Plans

We have reservations for Zion National Park and for the Grand Canyon.  However, there are a couple of days here and there that are still up in the air.  This is one of them.  The original plan was to go to Page, Arizona, where there's a canyon on Navajo land that's supposed to be beautiful (Antelope Canyon).  Unfortunately, plans have to change.

Two days ago, we were driving around the park and I rolled down the passenger window of the car and heard a "CLANK!".  Later, it became obvious that the window was off track.  Normally, this wouldn't be a problem.  But the style of this car doesn't have a rim on the window.  In other words, the top and the side of the glass are unprotected.  And when we shut the door, the glass now bangs on the side of the car.  Not a good thing.  If the glass breaks, we're screwed.  Jon tried to take the panel off, but there's some sort of star-shaped screw that requires proprietary tools.  It looks like we're out of luck handling this one on our own.  So we've decided to bag on the trip to Page and headed instead to Cedar City, with the hopes of finding a BMW Dealer.

Cedar City

We didn't find a BMW Dealer, but we did stop at a Chevy Dealer just to ask for their opinion.  They figured they knew what the problem was, and that they'd look at it at 3:00PM this afternoon.  We knew now that the closest BMW Dealer was in Las Vegas, four hours away.  So we figured we'd stick around for the night and let the Chevy guys have a look.

I spent the afternoon updating the journals and doing four loads of laundry.  After our days in Bryce, everything we own is covered in a layer of dirt and dust.  We even washed our fleeces!  Jon went to Wal-Mart for supplies and stuff and then waited for the Chevy guys to give him the verdict.

The good news is that it's just a little plastic piece that wore down and broke off with age.  (It is a ten-year-old car!)  And it will only cost $10 to replace.  The bad news is that we just missed the last UPS order and so we can't get the part until Wednesday.  But this is a small price to pay for the risk of a shattered window.  And there could be worse things than being stranded in a Motel 6.  There's even a movie theater which is showing Star Wars.  And it gets better: we actually got reservations in Page over Memorial Day Weekend!  This means that we won't miss out on Antelope Canyon.  Not to jinx myself, but things are looking up!

Jon says that the wind gusts (which were pretty strong last night) have picked up to about 45 mph.  He says that the entire canyon overlooking Zion looks like a dust cloud.  So we're glad we have a cheap hotel room and that we're not camping for the next few nights.  Who knew we'd be so happy to be in Cedar City?

Dinner at El Gallo

We found a little Mexican place called El Gallo that we decided to try instead of the "Appleby's" we were headed for.  And we were so glad we did.  The restaurant decor had very little character, but that was fine because the food had all of it.  The Gonzalez Family makes a great salsa and a mean shredded beef burrito.  Wow!  Our waitress (a Gonzalez daughter) was so excited by how much we loved the salsa that she gave us a huge container to take away.

There was an old-style ice cream place next door that Jon decided to go into.  I had no more room in my stomach, but the Bottomless Pit that I married managed to find room for a double-scoop sundae.  The people who worked there were a riot, too.  I think I really like Cedar City!  It's definitely treating us right.