October 10, 2010

The alarm clock went off at 06:30 this morning and everyone was a bit slow in getting into gear. By 8am we were all packed and took the shuttle to the airport.

We told the shuttle driver we were flying with SkyWest and he dumped us off at terminal 3 at the airport. At check-in they were wondering what we were doing there, since our plane was leaving from terminal 1! Thank you, driver. We walked over to terninal 1 and got some good exercise. Luckily we had lots of margin since we had decided to have breakfast at the airport.

Our plane was a CRJ900 from Bombardier. Here’s the mandatory photo, Marius.

Flying conditions were excellent and we had some great views of Salt Lake City on our way in. We killed a couple of hours at the airport by having lunch and also took a picture of Gabrielle’s teddy bear

and the kids posted postcards from San Francisco to their friends.

The next plane bringing us to St. George in Utah was a beautiful Embraer EMB 120ER Brasilia.

The boys were all excited to fly in such a small airplane with propellars. We sat just next to the motors and the noise was terrible. It felt like I had been to a rock concert when we arrived. Note to self: Bring earplugs for everyone on the next flight.

The airport in St. George is spectacular. The landscape around it is breathtaking with typical grand canyon like very steep hillsides and deep valleys. The airport itself is on a flat “island” from a long gone sea floor. with the city deep down in the valley below it.

Bagage claim was not vey large. This is all of it.

Once at the rental car counter there was no one there from Hertz. The friendly lady at the Enterprise counter told us that “she has just gone out for a while to prepare a car for someone. There is only one person working there. She will be back in 5 to 10 minutes.” 20 minutes later the woman arrived with a dry “So, what can I do for you?” Welcome to rural America.

When we at last got our car we started the hunt for gluten-free bread. I had already spent a couple of hours in vain last night around Millbrae. On the second try Hélène came out of a grocery store with a big smile on her face and 3 loaves of bread. Saved!

It was now 6pm. We had already spent 2 hours since landing and needed to get going. We had 2 1/2 hours driving to do before reaching our hotel. As always when you travel with children, if you run late you will run even later. The kids were now too hungry for us to make it to the hotel without eating. I looked at the map and we decided to take a small detour and go through Zion National Park. That way we could see parts of Zion, which I really wanted to do, and also go to one of the restaurants at the entrance to the park.

The views on our way to the park were very nice.

The sun was on its way down when we arrived, lighting up the mountain sides with an orange-red glow.



After a good meal we drove up to the entrance to pay the fee to get in. It was now pitch dark. So much for seeing parts of Zion. Great thinking, Eirik! But it was going to get worse.

It would have taken us only a few minutes to zip through the park and continue to our hotel from the other side. It was 8:01pm and the guy in the booth with the uniforn and the ranger hat abruptly informed us that the park closes at 8pm and that we could not drive through. Double bummer!

There was only one option. We turned around and drove almost all the way back to St. George. Nearly 5 hours after landing we were back at square one. Everyone was grumpy and the kids were constantly nagging each other in the back seat. Iseline became totally unbearable and ended up screaming “I don’t want to travel any more. I want to go home and be with my friend Johanna!”

We arrived at the hotel at around 10:30pm (Hélène can drive fast when she wants to), exhausted after a transportation day that lasted at bit longer than expected.

We are now on a high plain at 2450 meters (8000 feet) altitude. Tomorrow we will attack Bryce Canyon and do some more hiking. I’m really looking forward to that.

Eirik

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