What an incredible day! We spent time in four states (Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada), visited two national parks (Arches and Zion), drove over 700 miles, and spent the night in a $28 hotel on the strip in Las Vegas (Circus Circus)!
Grand Junction is right near the Utah border; we crossed over about 30 minutes after we left our hotel.
First adventure on the drive was Arches National Park! There were many signs everywhere warning that "Heat Kills!!" but the weather was actually cool and rainy.
Lookout point - lots of of cool rocks and boulders around now.
Venturing on to the trail. Annika has been using our camera to take lots of pictures - she is all pumped up on 4-H for next year. (And has requested that since she is the only person using it right now, she can call it "my camera.")
We drove a little further and saw some of the very impressive Balancing Rocks.
Our big adventure at Arches was hiking out to the see the famous "Delicate Arch." They had a hiking trail you could take to hike up to see the "upper lookout point" (although the arch itself was still at least a mile away from this vantage point).
The kids had fun climbing on the rocks here for an even closer look.
Back at the Visitor's Station, the kids were insistent on riding the goat. The only warning signs were, "Caution! Metal Statutes Are Hot!!" which we were able to ignore with the weather. ;)
Our trusty map app on our phones said that it was 5 hours, 39 minutes between Arches and Zion National Park, our next adventure. Will and I are united in our view that Utah has to be one of the most beautiful states.
Very desolate scenery and landscape, but absolutely beautiful.
Neat rock structures.
In southern Utah, the landscape changed again.
Zion National Park is close to another famous national park, Bryce Canyon. We seriously thought about hitting this stop, too, but once we crunched the numbers, we determined we could only visit one (since we had a reservation in Las Vegas for the evening). Below is near the turn-off for Bryce Canyon and gives you an idea of the terrain.
Entering Zion National Park!
We got out to explore - many of the rocks and soils are quite reddish, but looking up closer you could really see that it was a desert.
Twins!
This is an unflattering picture of me, but one that Will snapped while he was exploring with the kids a bit further down. "Wilderness Woman!!" I'll have you know I was deleting duplicate pictures from all of the shots I had just taken on my camera, aka phone. :)
We saw big horn sheep up close and personal!
Lots of sheep just hanging out together.
It was getting closer to sunset and the light was just striking in places.
Our big adventure at Zion was hiking up a big Canyon Lookout Trail (about a mile round-trip, but mainly vertical going up).
Cool cave along the way.
Absolutely breathtaking views looking out over the canyon into the valley.
It's hard for me to capture depth with a camera, but this was absolutely majestic with the huge peaks and drops.
Looking at into the canyon!
We made it to the top!
Annika had a ball taking pictures at the top, too.
More shots of the canyon below.
Then, at the very top of the mountain, disaster strike - Daniel had a massive bloody nose that freaked him out, poor guy. (I almost included a picture of him with all of the blood, but thought that might be mean.) Will ended up taking off his shirt to capture all of the blood and then carried him down. About halfway down, we met a VERY nice woman (I think she was German?) who gave us a package of tissues, which was a huge help. I am happy to report that by the time we finished our descent, Daniel's nose had stopped bleeding and he was much calmer. ;)
This is a view of the arch that we were on top of while on the canyon trail!
After our Zion adventure, it was time to drive through the night to meet our final destination...Las Vegas! We went through Arizona for around 20 miles. I remembered from our visit to this area before that we drove through an absolutely breathtaking canyon with very impressive rock walls, but in the night everything just looked like Black and Blacker.
Then we made it to Nevada! Sadly, this is the best "Welcome to Nevada" picture of the multiple shots that I took.
And finally, we arrived at our destination on the Las Vegas Strip...Circus Circus!! We had made a reservation back in February when we first planned this trip and had scored a room for $28 a night, so of course it was important that we stay here tonight. ;)
Finally made it up to our rooms! The hotel room itself is very nice, and much bigger than the room we stayed in our first night.
View out of our hotel room this morning!
After all of the fun adventures yesterday, we are all looking forward to just hanging out on the Vegas strip today and not having to drive anywhere. We are planning to hit some of the different "family friendly" attractions and stay here tonight, too (since I can't let this cheap room go to waste....). Tentative plans include the Circus Circus Adventuredome, M&M World, World of Coca-Cola, gondola ride at Venice, forum shops at Caesar's Palace, and more!
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