It was a very depressing beginning of the year involving unprecedented forest fires in Los Angeles, the first U.S. commercial airline crash in almost 16 years, and Trump managing to minimize the human cost of both of those events. Nicole’s soccer season just ended and I had a week off, so a much-needed vacation was in order. While French Polynesia was at one point mentioned as an option, we thought it might be nice to stay nearby and check out some places in the southwest during offseason.
We left for LAX at 1pm to board a 2pm flight to St George, Utah. It was a packed flight on a CRJ-200 operated by SkyWest. Luckily, seniority worked to my advantage for once and we were 1 and 2 on the standby list out of 6. Not everyone got on. It was a quick one hour flight to St. George with a scenic approach over the nearby red mesas. As one might expect, the St. George airport is not very large. We parked at its one jetbridge and picked up our rental car from Hertz. I got an SUV just in case we have to do any driving on unpaved roads.
There was one order of business to attend to before we hit the road. We wanted to try our luck at getting hiking permits for Coyote Buttes North aka “The Wave.” These permits require winning a lottery either months in advance, or really rolling the dice on last minute permits. Nicole and I have attempted the advance passes over the years without any success. The last minute lottery closes at 6pm every day and the online application requires that one’s mobile device be within the so-called “geofence,” which is limited to the area between Page, Arizona and Kanab, Utah. The application can somehow sense this based on your phone’s GPS. The St. George airport was more than an hour outside of the geofence. So when we arrived, we wouldn’t have been able to get inside the geofence and submit our application by the deadline. BUT, I was able to do a little GPS trickery and make my phone act like it was in Kanab whilst still in St. George. We submitted the app and headed toward our hotel in Springdale, Utah — the Hotel DeNovo, part of Hilton’s tapestry collection.
Because of Nicole’s still-existent Hilton honors Diamond status, we were upgraded to a suite. It is a multi-room affair with very large bathroom and expansive balcony overlooking the surrounding scenery. After settling in, we went to the Zion Canyon Brew Pub for an okay dinner outside under heat lamps. While we ate, we were notified by email of having been awarded two passes to “the wave.” How about that? As a result, we have to get up early tomorrow to drive to Kanab to pick up our passes in person (even though I confirmed everything online). It seems somewhat inefficient, but them’s the rules
Thusly, we have an early morning tomorrow as we head toward Kanab just to pick up our permits. Once we’re there, I’m not sure what we’ll do for the rest of the day, but there are numerous hikes, slot canyons, and parks in the area to explore. For now, we will just enjoy our suite for the rest of the night.
passports & pepto bismol 