Las Vegas is an Awful Place

Well, here we are.  It’s Friday, May 29, and it’s time to go back to Las Vegas, and then the next day, home.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, we got up early to try to see some things in Death Valley before it got too hot – so it was at this point we went to the Devil’s Golf Course and found the spot where my son posed in the steps of R2Ds, and then, on the way out, the Harmony Borax Works and Zabriskie Point.

Back in Las Vegas I stopped at a car wash.  See, I had this little incident..at the Grand Canyon…

It happened on that drive along Cape Royal Road, when we had parked and hiked a bit. We got in the car to continue on, I backed up and BAM.  Panicked that I’d hit another car, and I was very relieved to see that it was only a very skinny tree that had snuck up into a blind spot. About a two inch irregular patch of paint had come off, and of course there was a good bit of tar on the bumper.  I had gotten a lot of the tar off with some stuff I’d purchased earlier, but I still wanted to spiff the whole machine up before I turned it in and walked away, whistling, No, no problems, everything’s fine! 

As it was, there were already some scratch on that back bumper, although my damage did stand out a bit, even  in that context.  So I washed the car, just to be safe. I guess. I don’t know. It probably all stood out even more on a clean car.  But no matter.  The guy inspecting the car when I turned it in didn’t blink twice at anything, and no one’s demanded damages.  Honestly, I imagine that the volume of cars rented in Las Vegas is so great, with a good many of them taken out into the desert and to the parks, the loss of two inches of a paint job is probably nothing.

Okay. So, car washed, one more In n’ Out lunch consumed, and then to the Strip to the hotel.

This would be our last night, so I’d thought, well…might as well stay on the Strip. Let’s have that experience…

Preface that: Las Vegas has always been one of those places – one of the few places – I’ve had no interest in visiting.  Sure, I’ve been curious…what is it like??? But I could have died, fully content, without ever having been to Vegas.

But here we were.  We stayed at Excalibur – the castle-themed hotel, across from New York, New York and the MGM and near Luxor, the Egyptian themed hotel.  I figured it would have the most interest for the boys, Because Knights,  plus it was one of the cheapest.  Now, let me add that it wasn’t super cheap  because it was a Friday.  If we’d stayed during the week, I could have gotten a room there for under fifty bucks, but, of course, this was the weekend, so it was more.  Not exorbitant, but not cheap, either.

But since we got to Vegas before check-in time, we made a stop:

The Pinball Hall of Fame.  I had misunderstood what I’d read about it, and went into it thinking that all the games were just a quarter, but not so. The games that were originally a quarter were still that, but everything else was what you’d expect to pay for pinball and a few vintage video games.  It was a decent way to spend an hour. Nostalgic, for sure.

But this was the game that they played the most…..

Then to check in.  Oh, I don’t want to give an hour-by-hour account.  Because you all want to know why I’m so judgy about Vegas, right?

Here’s the thing. Well, here are the things.

• I’m not a prude or puritanical.  I’m super protective of my kids – more so, in fact, than some parents I know who are more personally prudish than I am.  Weird. But in terms of myself, it takes a lot to offend me or upset my equilibrium.  I tend to view life from a human interest perspective, not as someone who think she’s ( or would like to be) the Deity on the Judgment Seat.
• I had told the boys before we got to Vegas, “In Las Vegas, you are probably going to see adults at their worst.”  Wasting time, wasting money, drunk, hooking up (in so many words), just Randomly Satisfying Hungers. Prepped. Ready. Realistic.
• I was curious about the Strip – the architecture, the themed casinos, and so on.  And although I’ve been to NYC, Paris & Venice for real, and we’ve stayed in an actual castle, I was determined not to be snobby about all of that.  I was interested to see how the experience would be compressed for the Vegas clientele. Like Epcot, right? Even though I don’t like Epcot either. But still! Have fun! Look at the cool things creative and inventive humans do!

Ooooh, boy.

The plan was to check in, the walk up the Strip.  I wanted us to see the various casinos, and then end up at the Bellagio fountains, and see all that.

Here’s what happened:

We checked in, then walked down to the Luxor, saw that.  Walked back up to New York, New York.  Saw that. There’s a roller coaster that goes in and out of the casino, and inside the shops and restaurants are arranged in faux NYC neighborhoods.

I was so weirded out, this was the only exterior photo we took.

Walked across the street, went to the M & M Store. Got back out on the street. Walked half a block north toward the rest of the stuff…I paused. We paused.

My ten-year old looked up at me. He said, “I don’t like this. It’s creepy.”

Exactly.

Back to the room. Screw the Bellagio fountains. Get ready to go back home.

What was it? A combination of things.

• The general depression that results any time you’re one of thousands of people milling around  noisy, brightly colored structures built solely for the purpose of manipulating you into spending mo money.
• The slot machines, everywhere, powered by slouching humans in turn fueled by cigs and drinks.
• Energy fueled by consumption of lots of cheap booze being consumed everywhere, sitting, standing, lying down.  It’s a different, distinct kind of energy.
• Folks chugging in the middle of the M & M store.
• Young women strolling down the strip in string bikinis. Young women in micro-minis with tops falling open to expose almost everything.
• Bros in packs. Enough said.

And then there were the porn slappers. I had heard about the porn slappers, and stressed about the porn slappers, and posted questions about the porn slappers on a travel discussion board that I frequent. This was of great concern to me.

“Porn slapper” is a term for people who stand on the trip with small cards advertising escort services. They hold the stack of cards and slap them against their skin, making a bit of noise, getting attention.  I had wondered how pervasive this was, how obvious the message of the cards were.  I got lots of answers which clarified nothing and led me to believe either that these escort service cards would constantly rain upon our heads or that it was an overblown problem and not an issue, and your kids see Victoria’s Secret in the mall, right? No difference.

The reality was somewhere in between.

The “porn slappers” were definitely out and about.  And since I was obviously not a potential client, when we approached, they held the cards still and looked another way.  But…here’s the thing…the cards littered the ground.  Everywhere.

And here’s what really made me sad.  These “porn slappers?”  All, without exception, middle-aged Latino men and women of indigenous stock.  Shorter than I am, stocky, Spanish speaking.  Probably illegal immigrants.  I was probably making a lot of assumptions here, but all I could think when I saw them was, “Okay, Catholic Church, defender of the immigrant…where are you? Do something to find these people are truly dignified means of work…somewhere.”

Oh, the whole scene was just so weird. It was such an odd vibe of wandering, waste and loss. It made me want to pull everyone together, close, and talk about what we all really yearn for, and if I couldn’t do that, to run away and shake it off, hard.

Vegas was terrible. But in that revelation, maybe Vegas was not so bad.

Insert Metaphor Here.

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Death Valley is Hot

I’m going to try to finish this up today, with a post on Death Valley, and then one on Vegas, baby.

(Which I hated. /spoileralert)

(Keep up with all the posts on this trip here.)

Death Valley is about two hours northish and west of Las Vegas. When Thursday began, we were in Saint George, which is about two hours east of Las Vegas. So this was going to be a big driving day, but also remember that because of the time change, it would, in the space-time continuum, be only three, not four hours between here and there.

There were times in the run-up to the trip I had regretted casually mentioned Death Valley, even though I wanted to see it.  Once I brought it up, the other two had decided that the trip wouldn’t be complete without it, but it was on the opposite side of all of the rest of the trip.  I wondered if we would have been better off with another day in Zion instead.  And that would have been great, but that said, in the end, despite the slight hassle, I’m glad we went.

Even though…it was…hot. 

Duh.  Of course it was.  It was late May in one of the hottest places on the planet! And I do like hot, and would not be too sad if I never spent time in frigid climes again.  But still…this was something else.

So that’ my first recommendation – if you do go to Death Valley, don’t go during the summer. Take everyone’s advice. They know what they’re talking about. If you go during the winter, you can probably stay outside and actually do some hiking, which is really almost impossible and not advisable in the summer.

Once we got to Las Vegas, I believe we hit an In n’ Out for lunch, and then drove on.  I took the northern route in on 95 instead of the more southerly route through Pahrump, mostly because I wanted to hit the ghost town called Rhyolite.\

Really interesting, and a valuable lesson in the reality of ghost towns. Rhyolite existed for less than ten years, but during its existence, it was quite a busy place after gold was discovered nearby….

The town immediately boomed with buildings springing up everywhere. One building was 3 stories tall and cost $90,000 to build. A stock exchange and Board of Trade were formed. The red light district drew women from as far away as San Francisco. There were hotels, stores, a school for 250 children, an ice plant, two electric plants, foundries and machine shops and even a miner’s union hospital.

The town citizens had an active social life including baseball games, dances, basket socials, whist parties, tennis, a symphony, Sunday school picnics, basketball games, Saturday night variety shows at the opera house and pool tournaments. In 1906 Countess Morajeski opened the Alaska Glacier Ice Cream Parlor to the delight of the local citizenry. That same year an enterprising miner, Tom T. Kelly, built a Bottle House out of 50,000 beer and liquor bottles.

And then…bust.  The San Francisco Earthquake and  the 1907 financial panic brought everything down, and by 1917, the town was basically abandoned. A really good lesson in the transitory nature of life and achievement and….stuff….

Below are photos of the Bottle House

Around 1905, during the Gold Rush, Tom Kelly built this famous house in Rhyolite, NV. It was built with 51,000 beer bottles and adobe mud. Bottles were also used in the walkway to the house. Kelly chose bottles because “it’s very difficult to build a house with lumber from a Joshua tree.” It took him about a year and a half to build the three room, L-shaped building with gingerbread trim. He spent about $2,500 on the building with most the money for wood and fixtures. Some of the bottles were medicine bottles but most were Busch beer bottles donated from the 50 bars in town.

(Where did the town building go? People were frugal..they wouldn’t just leave the structures..they dismantled them and used the materials elsewhere.)

There’s an outdoor sculpture installation nearby and a tiny little museum staffed, the day we were there, by a retired history teacher.

I don’t remember in which town his school was located, but…BUT..he told us something quite exciting…while he was teaching in the 1970’s, several of the children from his school were used as extras in STAR WARS, which was filming in Death Valley.

Okay, now, we were all definitely on board for Death Valley. The search for filming locations was on.

First, the entrance.

And then you drive….down, down…down.  I saw a lot of fascinating sites on this trip, but this drive down into Death Valley was, oddly enough, near the top of the list, partly because went into this with no expectations other than “hot.”  I had never seen the television show “Death Valley,” and had never thought much about the place.  I had never considered that it is an actual, well, valley, and what that means.  From that north entrance, you head down into this vast, shallow basin surrounded by mountains, and it really is like you are driving into another world.

First stop was Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes, which are the only dunes in Death Valley, and where some Star Wars stuff was filmed.  It was..hot.

Then on to Stovepipe Wells, which is a tiny settlement and the location of one of the few accommodations in Death Valley. Stopped at the little store, looked around, saw a tiny bird outside on the sidewalk, wings spread, panting, got back in the car to drive to our accommodations in the Furnace Creek area. 

This is the most historically developed area of the park – it’s where the Borax mining operations were centered. (And yes, this is where your “20 Mule Team Borax” got its start.

We stayed at the Furnace Creek Ranch – the less expensive and more available of the two lodgings in that area.  I had absolutely no problems getting a room, and I don’t think I even booked it until a couple of days before we got there.  To Death Valley.  The Furnace Creek Inn is the fancier, more expensive, and more historic lodging – an interesting history is here. The borax had been mined out, but the railroad company didn’t want to waste the investment in had made in the transportation into the valley, so they decided to try to make it a tourist attraction.

As I said, the Inn is pricier and was always booked up when I checked, so we settled for the Ranch, which was fine – us an the Europeans – mostly Italians this time, which was unusual. For most of the trip, we’d been following Germans and Asians. I don’t know why Italians suddenly popped up at Death Valley.

The Furnace Creek Ranch is on NPS property, but of course it is privately managed, and I do want to talk about this for a bit. As I had mentioned before, we had stayed at the Grand Canyon North Rim Lodge, also on NPS property, and managed by Forever Resorts.  It was fine, and you can’t beat the Grand Canyon, but there were certain aspects of the experience – mostly the value-to-quality ratio of the food that you are forced to pay for because you are a captive audience. It was overpriced and not that good (in the restaurant, at least).

The Furnace Creek Ranch is run by a different company – Xanterra – and it was a different experience.  Just as the case at GCNP, there are no other options for dining other than what’s at the hotel, but here, the food was pretty good and reasonably priced.  In other words, I didn’t feel taken advantage of or ripped off, and yes, I made a point of mentioning this on checkout.  So thumbs up for the Furnace Creek Ranch. (Very nice pool, too…in Death Valley, anything cool and wet is a nice pool, though)

After we checked in and once it had cooled off a bit, but before it got dark, we set off to see a few things.  We also so a few things the next morning – as early as I could possibly rouse them, so we could try to beat the heat.  I won’t go moment by moment, but just offer some photos:

History of Borax and Death Valley

Badwater Basin, lowest point in North America. In the photo above, he’s pointing to a sign marking sea level.

In the steps of R2D2

The Devil’s Golf Course.  It’s all salt.  Hardened, dried salt. Would be very painful to fall on this!

Zabriskie Point.

Death Valley was fascinating, quite beautiful and haunting, and I would love to go back and hike in canyons and so on…in December.

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Zion…finally!

Okay, I need to finish this!

For those of you not keeping up, or who have forgotten because this trip report is taking me weeks to complete, let’s recap:

Over all plan described here  (For all posts related to this trip, click here.)

Left Birmingham on 5/19, flew to Vegas.

5/20 – Hoover Dam and then on to Saint George, Utah.

5/21 – Snow Canyon and then on to Bryce Canyon

5/22-23 – Bryce Canyon (here and here)

5/23 – drive down to Kanab, Utah – Red Rock Canyon and Coral Pink Sand Dunes on the way.

5/24-26 Grand Canyon North Rim (Here and here)

5/27-28 – Zion National Park

(Still to come, Death Valley & Vegas)

***

I enjoyed every single spot we visited, had my breath regularly taken away, and was impressed by the national and state park infrastructure at every turn.

However, I’d say that Zion National Park is the one to which I’d return. We barely scratched the surface on our visit, and there is much more to do and see than we were able to even begin to try.

There are two main entrances to Zion National Park – one to the west, and one to the east, north of Kanab.  We were coming from the Grand Canyon, so toggling west would be out of the way and take longer, but I was given pause by guidebooks’ descriptions of the SCARY WINDY CLIFF-HANGING nature of the east entrance.  I mean, I’ve driven some windy places before – Sicily and the Pyrenees, for example, but still.  This sounded treacherous!

Well..it wasn’t.

(I eventually went for the east entrance because, I usually do end up choosing speed over everything else.)

The one thing I would say, however, is that going this way requires you to go through a narrow tunnel, and the line of cars can get backed up for that.  We didn’t have to wait too long, but I imagine that during the height of summer, the wait is considerable.

But windy roads…you don’t scare us!

And more than that, the prize for going in that east entrance?

Mountain goats.

Much delight.

After surviving the not-scary drive, we made our way to Springdale, which is the little town at the west entrance of the park and where the closest accomodations are located. We found lunch at a Mexican restaurant, then checked into the hotel, which was Flanigan’s Inn, which I liked very much – it had an eastern, spa-like vibe, but the price was decent for the area, and the employees were probably the nicest of the trip – and on a trip through Utah, that’s saying something – because everyone is nice there.

Not our hotel, but iconic.  This is how close Springdale is to Zion. Basically in it. 

Springdale is right at the entrance to Zion, so what’s great is that you can walk everywhere, including to the park, and there’s a shuttle system that runs up and down the main drag of Springdale itself and to the park entrance.

(The shuttle within the park itself is mandatory during the summer months – traffic would be crazy if it weren’t.)

Please go to Zion.  Well, go (almost) everywhere we went on our trip, but Zion – yes. It’s beautiful and well-managed and rather varied in landscape. In case you’re wondering about the origins of the name:

When Nephi Johnson arrived in what would become Zion National Park in 1858, the Paiute Indians occupied the canyon. Isaac Behunin became the first permanent European-American settler in the canyon when he built a one-room log cabin near the present location of Zion Lodge in 1861. Behunin named his new home Zion, remarking, “A man can worship God among these great cathedrals as well as in any man-made church – this is Zion.”

After we had eaten and settled in, we walked to the park entrance, flashed that membership card, and entered. We took the shuttle up to the Zion Lodge, got off, and then hiked for a couple of hours – it was a great loop up the Emerald Falls trail, then over to the Grotto and back.  It’s all paved, it’s easy, I imagine it’s super crowded at high season, but it was gorgeous at every turn, and at the highest pool, we found friends:

Then back down to the shuttle which we then took to the end to the Riverside Walk and The Narrows.  On the way, we looked at Angels Landing – one of the most famed hikes in the country, and one which I will never do – and saw several rock climbers ascending sheer cliffs, along with their cliff-tents thumbtacked into the cliff face.  Sheesh.

(The Narrows is also famous – it’s a hike basically through water to get to some great scenery. It’s recommended that you rent special shoes and pants for the hike, and a lot of people of every shape and size were doing it.  It wasn’t anything we were going to do this time, and I was also given pause by the stories I overheard from hikers who had cut their hike short that day because of the presence of a dead, decaying deer in the water.)

So we did our exploring, had a great time, and went back on the shuttle. Ate dinner, etc.

The next day was going to be biking.

Since there is no car traffic on the Canyon road, only the shuttles that come by every few minutes, the road is open to bikers during the summer, and considered safe.

We first did the Pa’rus trail, which is just that – a walking and biking trail that runs along the Virgin River.  It also runs along the campgrounds, and although I’m not a camper, I’d say that if you are, camping at Zion, with that scenery, would be gorgeous.

Then we hit the road!

I didn’t have a plan. We would just go as far as we could – I was hoping we could make it to the end of the road (the Narrows.) What I hadn’t counted on, however, and really hadn’t considered, was that the road into the canyon is mostly uphill.  It was a bit more challenging than I had expected, so we stopped at The Court of the Patriarchs, waited for a shuttle, loaded our bikes on it (you can do that) and took the bus down to the end – it would be downhill all the way back, and that might be fun, right?

It was!

(No more photos, because it’s not safe to take photos WHILE BIKING on a road with even occasional buses coming by.)

We made one stop – at Big Bend, where we parked the bikes and walked down to the river, then coasted all the way back.

It’s very safe – I wouldn’t do it with a five year old, but if a kid is steady on a bike and understands that the minute you see or hear a shuttle bus, you are to pull over and stop, it’s fine.  We really enjoyed it!

But then…it was time to move on.  See? Not enough time.  We’d definitely return and explore more.

The next stop would be back to Saint George, explore a bit around there, and then on to Death Valley – a pretty long drive – the next day….

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Hoover Dam

First, a digression about research and preparation for this trip.

On my part, it was the usual mix of following discussion boards on Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion and Death Valley on Tripadvisor, Frommer’s and Fodors, as well as a few other sites, especially those related to family travel in those areas.  I read the history and scientific/geological background sections in a few guidebooks, brushed up on my Mormon history and read Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell’s 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy through the Grand Canyon. I had the boys read a few shorter books on the national parks, and one on Powell’s journey.

I had great hopes of watching this American Experience episode on the Hoover Dam, but never got to the right library to check it out.  In retrospect, though, it all might more sense to us now having actually been there.

So…

After I had risen before 7 and gone through the contortions to get the car (hotel shuttle to airport, airport shuttle to car rental center), the boys had breakfast, and we set out on a short drive, first just up and down the Strip – a first for all of us, I’ll add.  We were all sort of stunned in an ambiguous way, and found the stretch of road, even this initial brief introduction, to be very strange and not compelling.  On this first exposure, what surprised my 14-year old sports fan was the proximity of UNLV to the Strip.   I mean…it’s hard for me to imagine sending a kid off to college just a few blocks from that environment.  An education, to be sure.

Hoover Dam is only about 45 minutes from Las Vegas, and therefore a popular day trip.  We were there on May 20, and the crowds weren’t bad at all, but I would imagine they’d get worse as the summer wears on and tourism to Lake Mead increases – this really only being an issue for two reasons:  the line of traffic through security, and the ability to get on the dam tours you want without eating up your whole day. There’s one tour you can book ahead of time, but the other, you can’t.

The drive to the dam takes you through Boulder City, which came into existence for the thousands of workers on the dam. It’s a nice little town, scattered with statues, both of contemporary art and historical nature, the latter depicting various types of dam workers.

Once you arrive at the dam, there are a couple of options for parking.  First, there’s a pay garage on the Nevada side. But if you drive over the dam, there’s a free open lot on the Arizona side (seen at right)  – and since you’re probably going to want to have the experience of walking over the dam anyway, you might as well.  That’s what we did.

Walk over the dam, find the border between the two states, admire the Art Deco design.

There are two different tours of the interior of the dam:

The Power Plant Tour is the shorter of the two. It lasts about 45 minutes, takes you in a group of about 40 into a short introductory film, then down into the dam to view some of the huge intake pipes and then the power plant.  You can purchase tickets for this tour ahead of time. 

The Dam Tour is longer, and takes you to just one or two more stops. This is the one I had wanted to do …because..longer? So it must be better?  I guess.  But you can’t buy these tickets ahead of time, only on site, and when we arrived (around 11), the next available Dam Tour was at 2:30, and the ticket seller basically told us on the down low…hey, it’s not worth the wait.  You really don’t see that much more.

So Power Plant Tour it was.

It was interesting, and the guide was fine, but honestly, I am so tired of jokey tour guides. They are everywhere.  Caves, historical sites, what have you. The jokes are invariably lame and awkward, and everyone sort of chuckles nervously and wonders why we’re being talked down to like this and can we please move on.  The fellow at Hoover Dam wasn’t the worst, by any means  – those, I repeat, then to be at show caves…they don’t tell you a blasted thing about the geology, but shine their flashlights up to a formation and say things like, “I call that up there my cupid. If you look at it from here, can you see it? Watch out, or my cupid might shoot you! Oooh…did you feel it?”  And other stupid nonsense.  And it’s always my Whatever Formation with those cave guides, like they own the rocks.  I don’t get it.

Back to the dam. This guide had his share of awkward jokes, but he was also informative and, most importantly was able to answer the intelligent questions tossed at him by engineering/historian types in the group.

After the tour, you’re spilled out into the Visitor’s Center (for which you must pay to visit, even without the tour, by the way), for some views of the Dam.  It’s from inside, glassed in at that first level, but nonetheless, there was one middle-aged man, who couldn’t handle it. Clearly terrified, he was being pulled toward the window by his companion, but couldn’t look out. I felt badly for him.

There’s a small history museum, which does a good job of laying out the process of building the dam  Why was it constructed?  The power generation is a side benefit.  The foundational reason behind Hoover Dam was flood control – the Colorado was so unpredictable and destructive in its flooding, especially as agriculture was developing, something had to be done.  The power generation has, of course, been a boon, and has been what has enabled the Dam to pay for and support itself.

I was particularly interested in the preparation work that had to take place before the first cement could be poured: blasting tunnels so the river could be diverted and the area for the dam itself could be dried and dug out to the bedrock level.  I was also interested in the human stories of families resettling, of the camps that grew, and then Boulder City, and even of the support you don’t even think about, but is absolutely necessary.  There’s a statue in Boulder City of a man with a ring of rolls around his neck.  We passed by and had no idea what it was until we got to the Dam, where we learned that it represented one of the men who took care of the latrine areas for the workers – truly an essential role, with appropriate historical credit given!

After you finish at the dam itself (or before…we just did it after), you can drive back just a couple of miles to the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Bridge that now takes the bulk of traffic crossing the area. It’s a great view and the walk up to the bridge from the parking lot is marked by signage with tons of information on this, the longest single-arch bridge in the United States, and the second-highest bridge in the United States.

Finished at the dam, we had to backtrack – even though Hoover Dam is east of Las Vegas, and so was Saint George, Utah – our next stop – there was no direct northeast route from Boulder City up to Saint George.  We’d have to backtrack to the east side of Las Vegas to catch I-15, which would take us back up.

After a lunch at Scratch House in Boulder City, and some ice cream….we were on our way….

Previously: 

Part 1: Itinerary

Part 2: The flight from Atlanta to Las Vegas

Next:

Part 4: Saint George, Utah

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Wild West Trip 2015: Getting out there

You can read Part I – an overview of our itinerary – here. 

If I had not been hamstrung by some uncertainty regarding dates, the way out and back would have been clear: Southwest from Birmingham, direct. We probably could have done it for around 200 bucks a ticket.  However, that uncertainty meant that by the time I could commit to dates, the cheapest tickets on Southwest were no longer available.  Darn.  Then none of the timing for the other Birmingham-based flights were good (You know how it goes – the decent outgoing flight is never paired with doable return flights.), so I turned to Atlanta.

(The Atlanta airport is about a 2-hour drive away from here. It seems as if, with fairly good air connections from Birmingham, you wouldn’t even consider Atlanta anymore, but believe me, it has its attractions  When we came back from Germany last year, the complications and delays on the connecting flight from Atlanta to Birmingham meant that we would actually have gotten home sooner if our flight had ended in Atlanta, and we’d been able to simply hop in the car and drive 2 hours home, rather than waiting around, re-checking our luggage after it went through customs, waiting for a delayed flight to Birmingham…)

Again, because of scheduling (since we were flying out of Atlanta, I didn’t want a super early flight out, nor a terribly late flight back), I ended up booking two 1-ways on 2 different airlines – total cost around $200 a ticket.

The first airline was Spirit – a super budget airline that sells itself based on the “bare fare.”  The fare is for your seat and then everything else – even carryons and water on the flight – is extra.

Which is fine, because they are up front about it.  We had two carryons that I paid for ahead of time..

(Oh, another thing.  What did we take?  For a ten day trip, each of us had a backpack kind of thing, plus we took two suitcases.  If we hadn’t had to pack jackets for chillier temps at the Grand Canyon – we would be there from May 24-26, and the North Rim had only opened on May 15, and it had snowed that first day – we could have gotten away with just one, I think.  I planned on doing laundry (which I did, twice), and none of us are averse to wearing the same thing two days in a row.)

….and we didn’t pay $3.00 for Cokes or what have you on board, so it worked for us.  Yes, the seat pitch was the smallest I’ve ever experienced, but none of us are big people, so it was okay, if weird.

The couple heading for a two-week hiking/camping vacation in Zion  sitting behind us, however, wasn’t as accepting.  Apparently they hadn’t read the fine print, which is actually in big bold font all over the Spirit website, and were totally shocked by the extra costs – didn’t know they were going to have to pay for carry-ons, drinks, etc, and were prepping for Big Protests.

Eh.

Anyway, our flight left Atlanta at 9:30pm – I parked in one of those off-airport parking lots, and the service was amazingly prompt – the van to take us to the airport pulled up even before we could get ourselves fully out of the car.  As I said, the quarters were tight, but it was mostly fine, except for the loud, continual complaining from behind us.

Got to Vegas on time – around 11, despite some delays on the ground in Atlanta.

Caught a taxi to the hotel, which was this one – the McCarran Best Western – super cheap at $50/night, and a very good value. It was clean, close to the airport, had free breakfast.  They also have a free shuttle to and from the airport, but it only runs until 11, so we couldn’t catch it when we arrived.  I did, however, use it the next morning, when I got the rental car.

I knew I wouldn’t want to bother with getting the car right when we arrived so late at night.  Hauling the kids with the luggage onto the shuttle that takes you several miles away to the off-airport car rental facility, dealing with the inevitable high pressure from the counter agent, and then driving through a strange city back to the hotel at midnight didn’t seem like a fantastic end to that first travel day. So instead, I booked the car for Wednesday morning, got up early, got the free hotel shuttle to the airport, found the shuttle to the car rental facility, walked right up to the counter (no line at 7am), got the car (Nissan Rogue SUV, Hotwire rate, less than $300 for ten days), drove back on largely empty streets, and was back by 7:45. With Me Time inhe car as an extra bonus. Hey, I take what I can get

.

Next…off to Hoover Dam!

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Go West!

Zabriskie Point, Death Valley

We are back.

Snake didn’t die. House wasn’t robbed. No need to crack the estate documents I always leave on my desk in plain sight for my adult kids, just in case….

It was a great trip. You know you did a lot when the adventures from five days ago seem as if they happened a month ago.

I’m going to take the next few days and blog in detail about the trip, since these are sights that many have on their individual and family bucket lists.  If you have experience with any of this, feel free to chime in.

Planning and Schedule

When it comes to travel planning, I am an odd, but so far workable combination of obsessive and lax. I love researching, but I spend the hours ultimately in the service of flexibility.  That is, I don’t want too many surprises…so we can be surprised.

I dreamed this trip up a couple of months ago when contemplating the shape of the summer.  June is mostly shot, since both boys will be going to camps (their own choice) that take up most of the month – none coincide with each other…not one of the weeks! Down here in the south, school starts early in the not-fall – August 6 for the rising high schooler.  There are other commitments in the beginning of July as well.  So that doesn’t leave a lot of travel time this summer (I’m not complaining…we got our fill in over the past 18 months at a ridiculous level. I’m grateful.)

But we did have these two weeks, in between Confirmation (May 18) and the beginning of the first camp (June 1).  What to do?  How about go out to the parts of the West that none of us had ever seen?

(Past travels have included:  some time in Phoenix and Tuscon back in 2005 for all of us; the boys and I to Albuquerque and Santa Fe a few years ago; the boys and I to the San Diego area Thanksgiving, 2009, Monterey a couple of years after that, other parts of the Bay Area the summer of 2013 to visit my daughter who was interning there, and various spots in California for speaking engagements. So no Northwest….actually not much in the West, period.)

After (as I said) obsessing, here’s how the trip turned out.  I’ll have more details about what we saw and the hotels in individual entries.

May 19:  fly out of Atlanta, direct flight to Las Vegas, leaving at 9:30pm.  Spirit Airlines. Arrive at 11 pm. Hotel: Best Western McCarran Inn.

May 20: Pick up rental car. Drive to Boulder City and Hoover Dam.  Drive on to spend the night in Saint George, Utah. Visit Pioneer Park in Saint George. Hotel: Best Western Coral Hills.

May 21: Morning in Snow Canyon near Saint George.  Afternoon, drive to Bryce Canyon for two nights. Afternoon: canyon viewing.  Hotel: Best Western Ruby’s Inn, closest to the park entrance (without being inside it). Night time ranger talk on astronomy.

May 22: 3 1/2- hour trail ride on mules/horses through Bryce Canyon.  Afternoon: more hiking through the Canyon.

May 23: slow drive south, with various stops along 89. Lunch in Kanab, afternoon spent at Coral Sands State Park. That night, the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, we stayed at 2 of these bunkhouses, rented through Airbnb. They were great!

May 24: Make way to Grand Canyon, North Rim.  Detour to view Vermillion Cliffs, then back through Jacob Lake – stop at the justly well-known bakery – and down to the Grand Canyon North Rim Lodge, where we would stay the next two nights. A bit of exploring, listened to a ranger talk on California Condors.

May 25: Driving/hiking around the Canyon. Late afternoon ranger talk on the geology of the Grand Canyon.  Nighttime ranger talk on river-runners of the Canyon.

May 26: Drive up to Zion State Park, enter in the east entrance, which lets us see the Checkerboard Mesa, Bighorn Sheep and some other great views, check into Flanigan’s Inn, ride the shuttle bus up to the end of the canyon, spend afternoon on various hikes, including the Emerald Pools Hike and the Riverside walk.

May 27: Ride rented bikes all morning.  Lunch in the park, then back in car to Saint George.  Stops to look at dinosaur tracks and petroglyphs.  Hotel: Hampton Inn 

May 28: Drive to Death Valley.  Stop outside Las Vegas for In n Out, then on to Death Valley via the more northern route, which takes you to Beatty and then the ghost town of Rhyolite.  In the park, it’s 111 degrees, but we soldier on, finding the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes and Stovepipe Wells.  Check into our hotel, which is the Furnace Creek Ranch, then swim, eat and go back out to find Badwater Flats – the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. 

May 29:  Early rising to try to beat some of the heat.  Down to the Devil’s Golf Course, through the Artist’s Drive, a bit of Golden Canyon – much of this trying to find various Star Wars filming location sites,  back for another swim, then check out, and on the way out see the Harmony Borax Works and Zabriskie Point. Back to Las Vegas, yet another lunch at In n Out,  spend the night at Excalibur, just to have the, er, experience of staying on the Strip at a hotel that might have a decent chance of being somewhat family-friendly, walk around a bit….

May 30:  Morning return flight via Delta, direct to Atlanta. Resolve to never allow purchase of souvenir pocket knives EVER AGAIN unless we are flying Southwest, which has free checked baggage….

What we did was a short version of what they call “The Grand Circle.”  It would have been great to get in Arches and Canyonlands, for example, but we hopefully will be able to do that another time, and throw in Moab and Mesa Verde.

Just a word about this backward-seeming itinerary.  After all, if you look at a map, it seems as if it would have made more sense to do Zion-Bryce-Grand Canyon, rather than Bryce-Grand Canyon-Zion.  It probably would have involved less backtracking, although returning from the North Rim would require going pretty close to Zion anyway, so…

Well, the reason was the challenge of obtaining reservations at the Grand Canyon North Rim Lodge.  I’ll write more about this in the individual entry, but it was the one park lodge I was determined to stay in. Bryce, Zion and Death Valley all have historic lodges as well, but those parks also have good hotel availability outside, but still near the park. (Death Valley is a little different…both hotels and all campsites are in the park, but given it’s summer there, for all intents and purposes, the Ranch was easy to reserve – in fact, I didn’t even do it until the day before we arrived. The Inn would be a different story)

But for the Grand Canyon, if you don’t get in the Lodge, the nearest accomodation is a small hotel about 20 miles away, and after that another small inn at a further 20 miles. The short version is…those were the days I could get!

Those last three days weren’t planned until we were actually on the trip  I didn’t know how much time we would want to spend in Zion and if Death Valley would even be doable, so I waited until we were actually in Zion to finish that part up.

There’s only one accomodation on our list that I’d probably recommend against if you have other options, but you know, live and learn. I”ll talk about that when I get to that day.  It’s hard to figure stuff out when you’ve never been in an area before, whether that’s a city neighborhood or a huge, arid expanse!

A note on camping and RV’s – renting an RV seems to be a pretty popular option for travelers in the area.  At every stop in every park, I saw at least two RVs rented from this outfit, and at Death Valley, several of these.  There might have been more from other companies that just weren’t as clearly identifiable.  I actually considered it for about two minutes – fly into Vegas, rent an RV, not have to move our stuff every couple of days?  Sounds good.  The boys were keen on it. Except for the fact that I know nothing about RV’s, really don’t want to drive something even the size of a smaller camper, and I’m pretty sure that when you factor in all the costs, including gas, there isn’t that much difference in total expense, especially with a $50/night hotel tossed in there here and there.

But if camping is your thing, I can’t imagine a more idyllic place to do it than Zion, just so you know.  

Tomorrow:  Adventures with Spirit Airlines

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7 Quick Takes With Many Rocks

— 1 —

8th grade graduation: Check

Confirmation: Check.

Time to hit the road!

Well, that was the only road sign I have so far. But you get the gist.

— 2 —

It’s late, and I’m tired, so all I can do is photos.  Sorry!

Hoover Dam, obvs.

— 3 —

Inside the dam.

Speaking of tours (were we?)…if there is anything I would like to change about the current Guided Tour and Presentation Culture of these United States, it’s..”.humor.”   As in, You’re Not Funny.  Stop trying.

(Personally…I blame it on Disney. You know…the Jungle Cruise thing with lame jokes?  I blame that. But then I blame Disney for almost everything bad, so take it however you like.)

— 4 —

A fantastic surprise in Saint George, Utah.  When checking in to the hotel, I asked the clerk what to do with those last couple hours of daylight.  He suggested this – Pioneer Park.  Great time, running and climbing and looking down on the town. (The white church is, of course, the LDS temple, but it’s also important because it was the first LDS temple built in Utah and the oldest still in use.

— 5 —

The next morning, we hit the ground running and headed a bit north to the AMAZING Snow Canyon State Park.  It hadn’t been on my radar until the day before, and I am so glad we spent the morning there.  Petrified sand dunes, lava fields, lava tunnels, then an array of white hills (hence the name). Gorgeous.

— 6 —

And then, of course….

Bryce Canyon…

— 7 —

Today’s wildlife count:

Many, many deer (in Bryce)

2 rabbits.

1 weirdly friendly huge raven at an overlook at Bryce.  People must be (unfortunately and stupidly) feeding it because it positions itself on whatever post is nearest to an onlooker and just waits.  We didn’t get close, but even when we walked away and to our car, it flew after us, landing right in front of the car, clearly expecting something. Very Birds-like, and considering that over the past two weeks, a bird has flung itself into our front living room window with such force it left feathers, and another small bird came in through an open door of our house…yeah,we’re ready.

Some good-looking lizards at Snow Canyon.

A wild turkey at Bryce.

And most amusingly, at Snow Canyon, a prairie dog sprawled in a juniper bush just stuffing his little fat face with every berry he could reach.

My name is not Tippi.

Oh, and Saturday’s forecast for where we are going to be….ice. 

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

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