Advertisement
Published: June 27th 2010
Zion National Park
Pictures don't do this place justiceAfter the glitz, glamour and bright lights of Las Vegas, it was time for us to begin the next leg of our journey. The epic road trip across the southern United States. On Tuesday morning we picked up our car from the airport. After much "negotiation" with the lady behind the counter, we managed to rent the Chevrolet Cobalt that we thought we had booked and paid for, instead of the little Toyota Yaris they thought we had booked an paid for! So we got a midsize car for the price of a compact. Bargain! Another lesson learnt... its better to book direct with a company than through an agent.
After packing up and checking out of the Venetian we headed to Walmart for the first major mission of our road trip... stocking up! We spent an hour and a half inside the supermarket which was the size of about four Tesco superstores at home and bought amongst other things: fold away chairs, torch, a map, ice, a cool box, fruit, yoghurts, engine oil, water and handheld fans! Needless to say we felt like we were loading the entire world into the car before we set off across the desert
Stocking Up
Half of Walmarts stock in our trolley about to be loaded into the car to Zion National Park, our first destination.
Its hard to describe the nothingness and seemingly endless nature of the baking hot Nevada desert as we drove out into the unknown. The air con was on full blast, the radio on with our road trip CD full blast (thanks Barry! Although seeing the video I've put up, I'm not sure whether my choice of songs was the best!) and the thermometer in the car was nudging 110 degrees fahrenheit at one point. We passed through Arizona briefly before we hit Southern Utah and the scenery got more interesting, the heat a little more bearable and the road trip CD ended and local radio was back on the stereo.
To reach our lodging for the next two evenings we had to pass straight through the main part of the National Park along a very narrow road which was closed during the day for major roadworks and was only open from 4pm until the morning to traffic. It was pretty treacherous driving along there and not many safety barriers to stop us plunging down into a canyon! Thank goodness Rachel is such a steady and patient driver!
The secenery as
The Car
This is going to be our home for the next 41 days! we drove through in the evening sunshine was breathtaking. Nothing like either of us had ever seen before. The rugged and beautiful terrain seemed to change colour and form as we drove along, with whites, reds, browns and greens contrasting against the brilliant, cloudless blue sky. Absolutely stunning.
Just on the east edge of the park was our accomodation for the next two evenings, Zion Mountain Resort. It was completely perfect. Nestled between two meadows (one for horses and one with buffalo), a lake, forest and mountains, it was completely tranquil and quiet. We were staying in a one floor, 2 room small lodge with a little balcony looking out over the meadows. We spent the evening walking around looking at the resort, the small on site shop and restaurant and sat by the small campfire they light every night.
On Wednesday morning (after watching England scrape into the last 16) we got in the car and drove in a loop around and through Zion National Park. We drove east and then north, steadily climbing to around 10,000 feet above sea level through some more breathtaking scenery. As we passed round the east and northern sides of the
Nevada desert
It just seemed to go on and on and on! park it seemed almost as if we were in an alpine setting. The pine trees and lakes were magnificent and the meadows seemed never ending. After a couple of stops in Duck Creek Village and at Navajo Lake, we started to pass through the more desert like area of Kolob Canyon. Again the views were brilliant. Huge red, craggy mountains and green shrubs and cactus were contrasting to make almost every inch we drove a photo opportunity! We ended up back near 10,000 feet as we arrived at Kolob Reservoir, where we passed fields of bison and settled near the reservoir to have our homemade wraps for a very late lunch. It was very picturesque, as well as the bison there were huge birds of prey flying above us (those wraps must have smelt nice...or they fancied one of us two for dinner!) and people kayaking on the reservoir. The change in altitude also brought vast changes in temperature. It was 20 degrees celsius up at Duck Creek Village and over 30 degrees down in the National Park.
On the way back to the lodge we stopped in a couple of places to have a nosey round and buy
Desert heat
Quite mild for Nevada! a few postcards, as well as get some directions and we came to the conclusion that despite the Americans reputation for being loud, rude and brash, the people of southern Utah were lovely. So helpful and interested in hearing why we there and what we had been up to. We spent the evening taking in the view from our balcony and enjoying the tranquility of the area. We had an early night ready for Thursday's journey to the Grand Canyon, which I will put up all the details of on here soon.
By Wednesday evening we had driven 412 miles on our road trip and had added another three states to our list since we arrived in the US which now reads: New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Pennslyvania,
Nevada, Phoenix and Utah.
PS - Scroll all the way down to the bottom for the photos, they take up two pages this time!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.145s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 19; qc: 72; dbt: 0.0869s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Maggie
non-member comment
Stunning!!
The natural wonders of our beautiful planet-the photos probably don't do it justice!!! Love you both xx