a little trip to St. George

This Easter weekend we went down to St. George with the family [Coby/Tiff and kids, Marse/Lance and kid, Mom and Dad] and although we spent very little of our time in St. George we had a good time.  We got down there at 6:45 in the first trial run with our new car on a road trip and had dinner, then Coby and I immediately took off to go camping with his friends.  We had to camp because in the morning we were going to ride gooseberry mesa and its a bit of a drive to get to it from St. George.  More on that here.  After the ride on Saturday we decided to meet up in Hurricane to have a picnic lunch and then drive into Zion.  It was PACKED!  it was Easter weekend and it was national park week, which meant free admission.  IT also meant that we had to park, then walk, then wait for the shuttle, then walk, then wait for another shuttle before we could even start our hike.  This wasn't a big deal except for the ones with little children.  They seemed to manage it pretty well though i thought.

Only Olivia was mildly concerned

But really, not too much trouble.  We decided to hike to emerald pools because it would be nice and easy.  It was actually a pretty nice little hike, though we didn't actually get to the pools

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Sammy and Corbin were a lot of fun.  

Jayden and Olivia were more on the sleepy side.

 

Jayden was fun to hang out with.  I could get him all excited about stuff and tried to help him learn the song "super freak".  He seemed to enjoy that.

That night we had an eastern egg hunt.  We put cameras on the kids [coming soon] that proved to be pretty funny.

After that is was a good nights rest, then Sunday brunch and back to home. 

Oh yeah, so I mentioned that it was our first road trip in the new car...it was a good one.  The EPA says we are supposed to get 30/42 city/highway with our car and we have been averaging about 33 all city so we were expecting good things.  We drove down there in 3/8 of a tank, then i took it to Hurricane were we met the camping folk, then back to St. George and home.  The plan was to try and make it all the way home on the rest of the tank.  Why not?  it was over half full.  leaving St. George the trip computer told me i could go 285 miles to empty and it was 280 to our house at that point.  Sounds like a challenge!  I like challenges.  The range prediction stayed about 5 under the whole way and it was looking good (those range computers are always pessimistic anyway)  at about 50 miles range left the computers forecast started taking a nosedive, despite getting a little better mileage on the computer than before.  We were dipping into the red zone in the gauge, and fast.  At about 10 miles predicted range left i was on empty and about 2 miles south of thanksgiving point (about 15 miles from home) and decided that i couldn't take the pressure.  To preface my choice for bailing I should mention that  when a gas engine runs out you just get more gas and your on your way.  When a diesel runs out it gets towed and have service preformed just to get it going again.  I just didn't feel like getting towed my last 15 miles {and paying to have it serviced...at least $100)  So we pulled in and put 14.54 gallons of D2 in the tank.  the tank holds 14.5 gallons.  WHEW!  Still, we made it 616 miles on 14.5 gallons for an average of 42.4 MPG.  Not bad.  We know know a few things about our little car; 1. its a very nice highway cruiser. 2. We can easily make it to St. George and back without fillup...if that's all we do.  3. Empty REALLY means empty.  So, yeah, kind of a long story about that and a brief write up on Easter.  Oooops.

On that note I want to express my gratitude for Easter, and what it means.  I remember going to be Saturday night and expressing in my prayers about what the Atonement really meant to me.  It was shocking to me to feel the power of my testimony on the matter, i guess it kind of took my by surprise.  Its good to be alive, its good to have purpose, and its great to know that we can make it in this life and beyond.

*Pictures furnished by Coby...my camera didn't get much use.