Rainbow is a nice place to fly from and have nice aircraft (with the odd student hammered 152 you now wonder how it gets airborne
), I have racked up nearly 150hrs in their aircraft over several holidays!
The A3 and the 172 SP Skyhawk tend to have all the toys in them, a couple of mates and myself took the SP upto Vegas from LGB for the weekend. Even with 3 guys, luggage and full fuel we have no problems with performance and easily made the 12k MEA for the IFR crossing over the top of the LA basin. At the Grand Canyon we encountered a particulary hot day and still it performed admirably getting us off the ground.
As EA says, go for the block insurance rather than paying by the hour, I think $70 was for a years insurance though. Whatever it was it you going to do more than 14 hours you may as well buy the block rate.
Julian.