St. George

We had the most wonderful weekend getaway in St. George! I'd only spent one night away from Jack in his life, and that was for Jared's interview in Elko. And Jack turns THREE next week. So this was long overdue. It can be tough to keep the spark alive when you're parents and your spouse is giving their soul to residency training for 60-100 hours a week. Also no family around, and also covid. So quadruple thanks to my family who helped watch Jack/stay up with him half the night while he had a meltdown. Yikes. Nothing quite whispers "cut your getaway short a night you monster" in your soul like hearing your child is falling apart and depriving all your loved ones of sleep. Oops.

I've only been to St. George maybe 2 or 3 other times in my life, so I was excited to do some exploring. We spent a few hours hiking in beautiful Snow Canyon. The weather was in the high 60s the whole time we were there, which made me very happy, especially when I'd check the weather in Casper and see that it was literally 70 degrees colder there. February was a great time to escape the winter.

 ^^Jared's artwork in the sand at a Snow Canyon dune. 

When we weren't hiking, we were doing the St. George Parade of Homes, which luckily happened to line up with our trip. I'd only ever been to the Utah Valley one and expected this one to be similar. It was in some ways, but the trending home styles down there are actually pretty different, particularly on the exteriors. There were lots of flat, low-to-the-ground, brown adobe-looking homes. They blended in with the landscape really well. I expected them to feel dark and cramped on the inside, but they absolutely did not. They were really cool.

The Parade of Homes was a great way to get to know the different areas of St. George. I wish we'd had time to go toward Hurricane and Toquerville, but we were able to hit Ivins, Santa Clara, Bloomington, and St. George proper. The home above was a Split Rock home (one of our favorite builders we see in the Utah Valley parade). It was a beautiful mansion backing an enormous man-made beach and swimming pool in a community called "Desert Color." I think the house was an extended family's vacation home because there were several big bunk rooms and the kitchen was actually pretty small compared to the size of the house. My favorite area we explored was a cliffy gated neighborhood overlooking St. George (two pictures up). We also loved the first house we saw, tucked up into a red-rocky foothill. 

The only thing negative I have to say for our experience is that I expected to have the homes mostly to ourselves since we went during a weekday, but we failed to take into account that St. George is a pretty hoppin retirement community. We had lots of company--mostly older couples. I'm glad we didn't go on the weekend though. That would've been way more nuts, especially since it was President's Day weekend.

^^Our AirBNB was the guest house of a beautiful big home in Santa Clara. It was above their garage and really nice. Also, somehow it was cheaper than all the motels we were looking at? We were only able to book it for one night because everything was taken for President's Day weekend. We planned to just stay at a Motel 6 the next night, but even the Motel 6 was more expensive than our AirBNB. Probably due to a combination of St. George being a bit of a tourist town, and also it being a holiday weekend. That's another reason we cut our vacation short a night. 

The weekend was a big success and got us pumped for future getaways together. This was our first vacation ever where we were able to kind of do and eat whatever we wanted (within reason) and not feel guilty. We would have started to feel itchy if our stay/spending had gone on for longer than a day and a half, but this felt like a great step in the right direction! Our favorite meal was in a restaurant tucked up near Snow Canyon in Ivins called Xetava's Garden Cafe. It was fancier than I expected, and we were probably underdressed. Next time we'll request to eat out on the patio, but inside was beautiful too. There was a little fire pit going outside the window next to where we were eating. I ordered a burger with insane french fries and a slushy mint-coconut lemonade that blew our minds. Jared got a loaded chicken sandwich with an insane side salad containing the first blue cheese I have ever liked. I must be an adult now. 

After dinner, we went to our first movie theater since well before covid. We saw "News of the World." I always love Tom Hanks movies, and it was really well done. However, Jared and I both started to feel a bit anxious when there were like 10 highly intense, life-or-death scenes in a row. They could've taken it down a notch or two. Otherwise it was great! We followed our movie with a short hike to a viewpoint on top of a rock overlooking St. George. It looked to be a popular hang with the college kids. We felt kRaZy staying out until 11:00. Until next time, St. George! Thanks for being so good to us.