How do I make my plan for a round trip that depart from Las Vegas through Grand Canyon and Zion NP?

I’m planning to have a road trip that focus on Grand Canyon and Grand Circle in the end of Aug for 3 days. I’ve booked one night lodge in Grand Canyon Village. I’ll depart in early morning from Las Vegas heading for the south rim first, driving through Powell Lake and Zion NP in the following days, and back to Las Vegas before 19:00 in the third day. My problem is where is the best place to stay for the second night (National Park lodge or motel in which town), while I prefer having enough time for sightseeing or a short hike. I need advice of how to allocate my time in the Grand Circle since that it costs lots of time on the road from Grand Canyon through Lake Powell to Zion NP. Should I just make a short stop in Lake Powell and save my time in Zion NP? How long would it take for each of the route? (South rim – Page; Page – Zion NP; Zion NP to Las Vegas). Please kindly give my some advise. Thanks

if you get out of Vegas early you will miss traffic on the Damned Dam. once you get past the Dam and clear the uphill run. the trip into Kingman is fast
Get gas in Kingman
It’s 120 miles on I-40 from Kingman to Williams { get gas } Jct of 64 into GCN NP
spend the rest of the day at the Canyon
make sure you take East Rim drive out to Desert View hitting all the over looks on the way back -Lipan Pt is my favorite
Next day out of the park on East rim drive and then a really fast down hill to cameron -
6 mi before the jct of 89 there are indian jewelery stands at the little colorado river over look- use them
get gas in Cameron
decision time
If Lake Powell isn’t mission critical try this
89 N to Jct of 89 A make the left
over navajo bridge- side trip to Lee’s ferr y then uphill to and through Jacob Lake and downhill to Fredonia AZ. -watch out for the cops when you get out of the trees.
at Fredonia you have two possibilities;
you could go straight onto Zion and enter the park from top – my first choice just because the downhill run is so spectacular
or you could make a left on 389 head through Colorado city and set yourself up in a motel in Hurricane UT and head east to the park. – good idea
you can actually get in a lot of hiking 4-5 hrs on day 1 same on day 2
As long as you leave Hurricane by 1600 you wil have no problem