Day 4 – Flagstaff to Hurricane, UT

We got up at 6. But was that Mountain Daylight Time, Mountain Standard Time, or was my watch still on Eastern Daylight Time? Ack, I'm so confused. OK, let's sort this out. First, Arizona and Utah are both in the Mountain Time zone. The confusion arises from the fact that Arizona is one of the few states that does NOT observe Daylight time in any way shape or form. Utah, on the other hand, does observe DST along with the vast majority of states. During this time of year then Utah and Arizona are on different times. Now on this trip we are going from Arizona to Utah, back to Arizona and then back to Utah. So which time do we observe and how do we keep them straight?

Anyway, we got the motel’s free breakfast and headed out the door. It was raining, lightly, but raining. We head north on US 89 and start to descend. Trees disappear and the scenery becomes decidedly, uh, earth tone: shades of browns, grays, and reds. We are driving through a reservation. The residents there set up roadside stands to sell stuff. We are very early, so most of the stands are empty. For some reason, my wife thinks they are picturesque. She is developing a theme page idea for her scrapbook of the trip. More power to her. She thinks stopping and framing shots of these deserted stands in fun. This is a vacation so I’m cool with that.




About 2 hours into the drive, we began to notice an odor coming from under the hood. I stop the car, pop the hood and can definitely smell something not usually there. Oh, man. We are two hours from Flagstaff and have just turned onto US 89A headed to Jacob Lake and the area known as the Arizona strip. Not much there. We turn the car’s A/C off and drive slow. After and hour, the smell has diminished, but we are still concerned. We stop at the first gas station we have seen in an hour and they say that the nearest mechanic is in Page, over an hour the wrong direction. Since the smell has weakened, we plow on and drive through some beautiful country in the Kaibab National Forest and reach Jacob Lake, elevation 7950 ft. There is a gas station there but they tell us that there is a full service auto shop 37 miles further in Kanab, UT. So off we go. The country is amazing but I don’t stop for anything. We get to the auto shop, explain the situation. They are busy and we have to wait. 2 hours later they determine that the A/C is functioning fine and that the smell came from a loose positive battery terminal (slightly corroded). It had built up more heat than it should and produced the smell, which Bonnie and I agreed, was slightly electrical in nature. They clean the terminals and tighten the connections and off we go.

We soon came to the first National Park of this trip: Zion. It rained some as we entered the park, but it is staggeringly beautiful. We drive through a canyon that has towers, sheer cliffs, rock structures that are unique, and man-made tunnels that are an engineering marvel. Every 50 feet we were stopping to take a picture. Everywhere we looked, another amazing and delightful sight assaulted our eyes.














We were in the park for at least 2 hours on a road 12 miles long. We are going back tomorrow to see a different part of it. We exited the park and drove to our motel. So now you know that there are Hurricanes in Utah. Well, at least one.

262 miles today.