All you need is a National Park - Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks

Today we were on the road by 7.30am; we had a bit of a drive in front of us. It didn’t take long and we were driving in the outskirts of Las Vegas with loads of road works just like home! The city just kinda of sprung up out of no where. On we drove and over the Hoover Dam. The Hoover Dam is on the border of Nevada and Arizona, is 726 feet high, and the dam was completed in 1935. It cost $175 million to complete but unfortunately approximately 96 -112 men died during the building of the dam. It was very impressive and styled in the art deco form.

From there we headed to the South Rim Entrance of the Grand Canyon National Park. It is 277 miles long and almost a mile deep. It was carved by the Colorado River some 6 million years ago. We took a look at the visitor centre of course and brought our cloth badge and got our map. On we went with all the other hoards of people to have a look and take a few photos. We stopped along the rim and looked out at a few different viewing points.

Unfortunately I didn’t find the Grand Canyon very impressive at all. It is really just so big it kind of loses something. When you look over the edge it's like looking at a mountain range. But unlike a mountain range there is no warning that it's there, all of a sudden there is a massive hole in the ground. Also there are so many people there.

But on we drove. We stayed in Page for the night.

Page is another small town in the middle of no where with the world’s greenest golf course. The greens really contrast the red sand and rocks that made the scenery amazing. The drive was also breathtaking; we passed over many more canyons, through a Native American reserve, over beautifully coloured mountains and down steep cliff side roads.

The next day we were off to Utah and Zion National Park and maybe Bryce National Park, that all depends on time. You may be thinking at this point why are they going to see so many national parks. That’s because they are so beautiful, the landscape is different at every park and the wildlife is outstanding - you can get up so close to them all.

We started later in the morning, and headed off toward the Zion National Park. But first we drove through the Grand Staircase Escalante National Park. It’s a huge park that are a series of step-like layers that start at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and end above the snow line in Utah.

Zion was amazing, we drove in and the white, pink and red rocks were stunning. It took a little while to get to the visitor centre. The road winds and winds going through canyons and a massive tunnel which went through a mountain. Called the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel it is 1.8km long, and was build between 1927 and 1930.

We spent a few hours there exploring the park and doing a few hikes. We took the Zion Park Scenic Drive with everyone else - there were so many people and so many cars parked on the side of the road. We decided to head all the way to the end of the drive to the Temple of Sinawara, had a salad sandwich, and on we went stopping along our way to get some great photos. We stopped off at the Emerald Pools Trail and took a short walk to the pools. From there we drove the car back the way we came on Zion-Mount Carmel Highway. We were making great time and decided to head to Bryce National Park.

Bryce Canyon National Park is where it all culminates at this point. The pink cliff formations are full of wonderous pinnacles and points, steeples, spires and hoodoos. It was amazing and I hope the photos capture that. Unfortunately we did miss out on getting a map from the visitor centre, because without knowing it we crossed a time zone and it was closed an hour early that we thought. Bad luck Stephen - no map. We later got a badge from a giftshop just outside the entrance so it still counts. We were able to take our time exploring the park as much or as little as we wanted. We went to both Sunset and Sunrise point and drove to the Inspiration Point which looked over the canyons. It was simply beautiful.

From there we drove through Red Canyon. As the name hints at the canyon was made out of fire red rocks. The sunset with the red of the rock was just amazing. It was starting to get dark and we needed to cut through a highway to get us back to the interstate and on our way to Vegas for the next day.

Since Stephen and I were getting very sick and tired of the winding roads we decided to take a slightly longer route and hoped it would be less windy. At least that was the way it looked on the map. We made it but it was very daunting at the start when there was a warning sign, tell us it reached 9910 feet in elevation and the inclined reached between 8% and 14%. The road could have been icy and covered with snow and impossible to drive. We figured we get as far as we can and we’ll just see what happens. Lucky for us it wasn’t too bad, because we were just going down hill more than up. We didn’t climb very much, so we must have been high already.

Today started in some excitement, we were driving to Las Vegas!!

Stay tuned for the tales.

Michelle and Stephen.
xoxo

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Part of trip: A Journey Around the World

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