Totally crossing this one off my 101 in 1001 list:
094 – Do a National Parks road trip.
We drove through Yosemite and spent time in Bryce Canyon and Zion.
That counts, yes?
    Hello people of the internet! Thanks for stopping by. I think San Francisco is one dirty city, but I love it here. I'm a 9-5er with a mission to eat, drink, and travel as often as my resources allow. Documenting it is part of the fun. |
Posts Tagged ‘road trip’
On the long trek back from Utah, we stopped in Las Vegas for the night. We took advantage of the Bloggers In Sin City discount code and got a room for about $30, which was significantly less than our “only okay” lodging in Hatch.
We hadn’t eaten much for breakfast or stopped for lunch on the way, so we were ready to wreak havoc on a buffet. I sent out a Tweet re: which one to take RV to and ended up at Wynn. He’d never been to Vegas [Believe it or not - he's in his mid-20s and had only driven past Vegas on a family trip when he was younger], and that’s just one of the things you do there – indulge! Of course, we ate our $$ worth and then some. After the third round of dessert, I was ready to admit defeat at the buffet and start the rest of our night.
The rest of the evening, we wandered along the Strip to see the sights, stopping whenever something of interest caught our eye. Along the way, we picked up a yard of mango+rum. Yum! But upon continuing our stroll, the Eiffel Tower of pina colada caught RV’s eye, and then we were on a mission to get one. It wasn’t easy though. We were tipped off inside the Paris Hotel, and as we proceeded towards the little sales window, the man at the window looked over and declared, “We’re closed,” and shut the window. We stood there in disbelief.
Crushed, we decided to try our luck at some penny slots. I put in $5 and ended up with $13. *happy dance*
We continued our stroll along the Strip and when we were tired of walking, we decided to head back towards the hotel. In doing so, we passed by Paris Hotel one last time. And then it caught my eye – a stand outside with the Eiffel Towers of pina colada! Even though we were tired and ready to call it a night, we couldn’t let this opportunity pass us up, so we bought one of those too. I used up the penny slot winnings, and RV was beaming from ear to ear. He finally had the Eiffel Tower in his hands.
After getting through less than half of it [we barely made a dent, as evident in the photo], we were too full to drink anymore, and it was time to call it a night.
Our drive back to San Francisco the next day would take ten hours, so we had to rest up.
Zion National Park is a different type of beautiful, a different sort of majestic – that’s what anyone who has been to both Bryce Canyon and Zion will tell you. At first, we thought we would only have time for one, but we managed to visit both national parks.
Your focus is above and around you at Zion, while at Bryce, you’re looking down and across unless you’re hiking into the canyon.
Having driven through on our way to Bryce, we knew what we were getting into and how we were to go about our actual visit. Even though the “FULL” sign was up at the parking lot, we took a chance and swung by anyway. In about five to ten minutes, we found a decent spot. YAY!
We boarded the free shuttle that takes you through the park and took it to the very end. At the end of the line [which is really a loop], we hiked as far as the trail would lead us [which was more like a quick and easy stroll], took some photos, and then hopped back onto a shuttle. They run about 5-6 minutes apart, so we knew no time would be wasted on waiting for shuttles.
You wouldn’t normally find me taking a random photograph of the shuttle driver, but the reason for this photo is that he is the voice behind the recording playing on all of the Zion National Park shuttles!
We originally hopped onto a different bus, and the driver played the recording which gave all the nifty facts about the various sites at each stop. Well, somewhere in our shuttle shuffling, we ended up on Dennis’ bus. When he began speaking [they don't play the recording on the way back], it all just clicked. His voice was SO familiar! He was the voice!
It was great though because he threw in a ton of other random tidbits that I’m certain the other drivers would have just skipped over!
This photo was most definitely not posed. I was trying to sneak a photo of his name tag and the back of his head, but he turned around just at that moment. Lucky shot, I suppose! Thanks, Dennis, for such an informative ride through Zion National Park!
This particular flower is a part of the various hanging gardens that grow along the canyon walls. I hadn’t seen it before this trip, but then of course soon after I take this photo, I notice this flower in other places as well. It’s almost like looking up something or overhearing about a person or place, and then you see it/hear about it EVERYWHERE.
More Zion National Park photos: here!
After several hours in Bryce Canyon National Park, we took Highway 12 for about 75 more miles eastward to Boulder, Utah. We passed by quite a few scenic spots along the way, which is probably why they’ve dubbed this particular highway “Scenic Highway 12″ in all of their maps/brochures. There wasn’t much in Boulder, except for a rather disappointing hot dog / root beer float experience.
Here’s the route we ended up taking:
As you can see on the map, there aren’t very many towns along the 75 mile stretch that we drove. Originally, our final destination would have been Escalante, but we reached it a little earlier than expected, so we continued the drive to Boulder. That stretch was probably the most eye-opening since we ended up over a ridge on a narrow road with major drops on both sides. If you added a little wind to that equation, we would have tumbled to our deaths in my little green machine!
There was a coffee shop right outside of Escalante that we wanted to stop in at, but we reached it about ten minutes after closing time. The views from their parking lot were pretty amazing too.
After reaching Boulder, we turned back around and headed back to Escalante. Of all the towns we passed through, it seemed the best option for dinner since it was a little larger than the blinks of other towns. We decided to wait for the sun to set before heading back westward, so as not to be blinded by the sun before it sank beneath the mountains and were rewarded with this view:
And that was pretty much the only full day in Utah! The next day, we would be going through Zion National Park and making our way to Vegas for the night.
No photos can really do such a majestic/magnificent place justice, but I gave it a shot anyhow. We spent a few hours driving through, making stops for photos, and then a hike down to the supposed “Hat Shop.” During the hike, we debated whether the shop was real, and if so, how they would bring all the hats down into the canyon – pack mule perhaps? As it turned out, the “Hat Shop” is not actually a shop… So when I did a search for photos online, I wasn’t as disappointed that we didn’t make it all the way there. We had to turn back as I decided peeing on the trail without toilet paper just wouldn’t do.
We did, however, see ones that resembled sombreros. See ‘em?
The hoodoos reminded me of the Terra Cotta Warriors in China – so uniform in nature. What a crazy geological phenomenon!
Now imagine the photo above stretched all the way across the screen. Looking down on something like that, knowing that if you were to hike down there, you’d just be a tiny speck in the vast landscape – now that’s something!
More photos of Bryce Canyon National Park: here!