It was an easy 200 miles to Hurricane, Utah, on Wednesday. We left Pahrump before 9:00 and arrived at about 1:30, after losing an hour when we crossed into Utah from Arizona . (There is a 30-mile piece of Arizona thatI-15 cuts through between Mesquite, Nevada, and St. George, Utah. That piece incudes the 11 mile long Virgin River Gorge, an awesome bit of topography.)
We are staying at the WillowWind RV Park in the center of Hurricane. It's a nice place.
We stayed here one time previously, in 2005, I believe. The satellite-friendly RV spaces are all back-in, which is not our best suit. We needed help from a nice man, Robert, one of the staff members, to get in our site
. We were tired from the trip and the setting up, which seems to take longer each time we do it, so we crashed after a simple dinner. Thursday, by pre-arrangement, we met Ed and Cynthia Wong for lunch at the Painted Pony Restaurant in St. George. It's been one of our favorites for many years. Ed worked as a consultant with Becky at Sanwa Bank
many years ago. We last saw the two of them when we were in their home town of San Diego four years ago. They have a second home at Lake Las Vegas now, and were spending the day in St. George on their way to Zion National Park on Friday. They are a fun couple who have traveled to a lot of the same places we have been and we enjoyed sharing travel stories with them. 
Since we are Zion experts, of course, we gave them lots of advice about what to see. (Incidentally, Ed and I both had a nice Asian Chicken Salad for lunch. I washed it down with an Arnold Palmer or two.) Lunch was our main meal for the day, so we just noshed for dinner.
After dinner, we watched The Imitation Game
from the redbox. Interesting movie; not a barn burner.
For no known reason, Ramsey was a pain tonight and we ended up having to take a drive around all of Hurricane to finally tire him out. It reminded me of when my kids were young we sometimes had to take them on a drive after dinner to make them go to sleep.
Friday morning, I picked up a book from the park library, New Rules, a 10-year old offering by Bill Maher. I finished it Friday afternoon. It's not that I'm such a fast reader; the book has a lot of pictures and is not heavy reading. If you overlook his strong hatred for George W. Bush and his ilk, Maher can be very clever and the book is fun to read.
I picked up Moon River And Me, the autobiography of Andy Williams, as a follow-up.
In mid-afternoon, we learned that Robert, who had helped us on arrival, had just been fired by the owner for having the temerity to disagree during a policy discussion. Too bad; he seemed to be a very good guy and competent worker.
Saturday was the day to go to Zion National Park for our annual visit. We parked at the Visitor Center and I read while Becky took Ramsey and Kelsey for a walk on the 3.5-mile (roundtrip) Pa'rus Trail.
We then met Kelly Guymon for lunch at Oscar's, the most interesting sandwich (etc.) place in Springdale. We worked with Kelly at the Zion Lodge many years ago (he's still there) and he has been a good friend ever since. We had a good time learning all the current secrets of the lodge personnel. (I had a delicious chicken wrap at Oscar's.)
The Saturday night redbox movie was Tammy, with Melissa McCarthy and a host of well-known actors. Except for a very few high moments, it was perfectly awful. But it cost only 80 cents to rent so it wasn't a big loss.
After the movie, I watched the last nine minutes of the Kentucky/Wisconsin basketball semi-final game in the NCAA Final Four. I understand the entire game was as good as the last nine minutes---Fabulous!
Sunday was Easter, of course, and we generally relaxed. In addition to the mandatory dog-walking, Becky watched the Sunday morning news shows and Interstellar from the redbox, and I read---and finished---Moon River And Me. I have to admit that though I always liked Andy Williams I had no idea he was as big a star as the book explains.
Monday was our day to visit Kimball Forbes, our audiologist, for our annual hearing check. This time, we just spent the hour hearing about new devices and the vast improvements since we bought ours 11 years ago. We ended up ordering the new ones, which will be delivered Thursday.
Tuesday, Becky took the dogs to the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area across from the RV park we used to stay in when here. They had a long hike there and returned just exhausted.
While they were gone, I walked to the post office and picked up my medicine that had been forwarded from Pahrump. That was the last of the three packages that had been mis-delivered to Palm Desert and forwarded to Pahrump. Because I had no idea whether it would ever arrive, I had arranged for that last prescription to be replicated and sent to our Texas address. That package should arrive here on Thursday. I contacted the source to tell them the first one had finally arrived, and gave them three options: I could send this one back, I could pay them for the replicated prescription (which, because of their error, they sent for free), or I could do nothing and get the double dose for a single price. The fellow on the phone chose the last one, so I saved $240.00. Hurray!
For at least the 30th straight year, I sent in an application for an extension of time to file our federal income tax return on Tuesday. Since the six-month extension is automatic, I won't have to think about taxes again until October.
Becky had ordered the second season of House Of Cards, the deliciously evil Netflix series starring Kevin Spacey. It arrived on Tuesday and we started to watch it Tuesday evening. What way to end our first week here.
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