Choosing the right route

Hi everyone. Today’s post is about the route we’re taking to get the maximum sites seen. As you know from reading my last post – you did read it, right? – I chose a West to East route.  Let me include a map so we can all follow along.

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This isn’t exactly the Google map I was using but I can’t figure out how to copy the Google map onto a document – or onto anywhere.  Anyone? Anyone? 

In a fairly close range, you can see Zion National Park, The Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches National Park and Glen Canyon (not pictured on this map but if you see Lake Powell in Utah, that whole lake/river area is part of Glen Canyon.) I figured we’d arrive in Las Vegas on a Saturday, spend the rest of the day there and the whole next day, then travel Monday with a full visit day the next day at our first stop and then travel the day after that.  So big driving days would only be every other day. This would make our vacation two weeks long.  Luckily we both get enough vacation time to make this work.  Quite frankly, if you’re taking a sightseeing vacation, two weeks is definitely the way to go.

Before I proceed I want to mention that there are very few main roads/highways through Southern Utah/Northern Arizona.  As the crow flies, getting to some of these places should be easy.  They’re not.  I wasn’t prepared for that.  I grew up in the Northeast where there are multiple highways to get to the same place.  You have but to choose the one with no accidents or traffic jams.  Although these days that task is far more challenging.  But I digress.  Keep this notion of few highways in mind as I explain the insanity of the first route I selected.

My so-called straight line was originally going to start at Las Vegas and then go northeast to Zion National Park.  I had been trying to decide whether to go to the Grand Canyon before Zion and then go up and across but I chose Zion first, then the Grand Canyon and then back up to Bryce.  More of a zig zag than a line.  My reasoning for this was because I’m trying to keep driving time to a minimum.  It’s only three hours from Las Vegas to Zion but about 6 hours to the Grand Canyon.  And the route from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon is rather crazy.  I’m going to try and get that map for you from Google so you can see for yourselves.

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I did it! 

Well this looks far more out of the way on the larger view. But it still takes 5 hours (for some reason I had written down 6 hours in my notes).  Look at the easy ride to Zion from Las Vegas:

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Pretty straight forward, right? Therefore, I chose Zion first, then the Grand Canyon and then back up to Bryce.  And I continued all my planning, campground reservations, etc. based on that choice.  About a week ago, I started second guessing myself.  Was this really the best way to go?  Zion and Bryce are so close together I should really do them in a row, etc.  The deciding factor was when I took a look at the route from Zion to the Grand Canyon and back up to Bryce.  It was pretty much the same route coming and going:

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This is Zion to the Grand Canyon. 

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And this is the Grand Canyon back to Bryce.  It’s the exact same route to just north of Kanab.

If we’re going to be doing that much driving, I don’t want to take the same way twice. So after much deliberation and driving my husband completely nuts (what do you think, hon? Which way would be better?  Are you sure?  Do you think I should just leave everything the way it is? What do you think? Honey? Honey? Are those earplugs in your ears?) I changed our route.  As it turns out, we’ll have an extra sight to see.  By going south out of Las Vegas we’ll pass the Hoover Dam.

That wasn’t the last change I had to make in our route.  After Bryce I had us going to Capitol Reef which is an easy 2hr 45min drive. Next was a trip to Glen Canyon to Lake Powell, another 2 hr 45 min drive, or so I thought.  I had never heard of Glen Canyon before. I googled it, of course, and saw fabulous pictures of Lake Powell and beaches and a lodge.  Great, I thought.  We’ll be there on my birthday and by then we’ll have had enough of camping and hiking.  We can stay at the lodge and swim in the lake and in the pool. I’m in heaven and patting myself on the back for such a smart idea.  Ah the best laid plans……

The lodge was more than I wanted to spend so I decided we’d camp at the campgrounds across from the lodge. The lake is right there and I thought you could use the pool at the lodge but I can’t find it mentioned anywhere now. There are lots of water activities including boat rentals, jet skis, kayaks and cruises.  All I wanted to do was sit by the pool or on the beach and chill. I knew the kids would feel that way, too.

Weeks go by, the campsite is reserved, the restaurants are decided and I pay a visit to the Lake Powell site to look for an interesting boat tour.  I click on a map and notice that the Wahweap campground isn’t in Lake Powell, UT. It’s in Lake Powell, AZ, a 5 ½ drive. Not to mention there would be another 5 ½ drive up to Arches National Park after Glen Canyon.  Holy cow (that’s not even close to what I really said) what a ridiculous and stupid mistake.  I keep checking and rechecking with the fervent hope that if I do this enough, somehow this mistake will disappear and all will be right with the world. Once again I’m practically in tears, convinced I’ve ruined our vacation.  I could say that I’m not usually this dramatic but that would be a lie.

I needed a new option. I consulted my handy dandy Google map of Utah which I can now show you thanks to my husband showing me the “snipping tool” on my computer.  I highly recommend it.

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Capitol Reef National Park, which is the previous sight before Glen Canyon, is only 4 hours from Salt Lake City and roughly the same back to Arches National Park.  That hour and a half savings is enough for me to consider rerouting us North for a change of scenery and a hotel.  It’s my birthday, dammit, and I want a hot shower and a comfy bed.  We also have friends who visit their parents every summer in Salt Lake City so I contacted them to see if they’ll be around to hang out with.  Not only will they be there, but their parents have invited us to stay with them. How cool is that? We’re very excited to visit, especially because the house we’ll be staying in is 11,000 square feet.  No, I did not misplace my comma.  I have no idea what a house that size looks like.  I’ll be sure to take lots of photos and post them!

We’re hoping they’ll show us the sights or at least recommend the best ones to see.  On the food front, this detour will send us through Salina, UT, home of Mom’s Café which is a Mecca for Road Foodies.  (more about that later)

So here’s a map of the whole trip:

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A – Las Vegas

B – Grand Canyon

C – Zion National Park

D – Bryce Canyon National Park

E – Capitol Reef National Park

F – Salt Lake City/Heber

G – Arches National Park

H – Grand Junction, CO (last minute change to stay here instead of 2 nights at Arches)

I – Denver, CO

I look at this now and see so many other ways I could have done this but it’s 2 weeks until we leave and there’s just too much to do to consider making any changes.  The better, circular route would have been Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon to Glen Canyon to Arches to Capitol to Bryce to Zion and back to Vegas.  Oh well.  May others learn from my mistakes :).

Next – Las Vegas

My first mistakes!

This post is all about making mistakes. This includes whatever stupid button I pressed last night that deleted my latest post, which was, ironically, about making mistakes. I was practically in tears after I pressed the “Publish Post” and everything just disappeared. My far more technologically literate husband walked me through about a hundred steps only to conclude I must have pressed something else by mistake. Thanks dear…..

The one good piece of advice my husband gave me was to write these posts in Word first, save them, and then cut and paste to the blog. Thanks dear.

So before I get to one of the biggest mistakes I made, which occurred at the beginning of my planning process, I have to give you an idea of what I was thinking when I thought about this trip. You see, I had visions of the four of us in one of those RV pop-up thingies, traveling around from place to place. Do you know how much one of those RV pop-up thingies cost? Well, I can’t remember but it was a lot. Mostly because you can’t just rent that part; you have to rent the vehicle it attaches to. And that vehicle isn’t some nice sedan, SUV or even a fun pick em up truck. You have to rent some beast with a trailer hitch attached. Most rental places won’t let you put a trailer hitch on one of their sweet little vehicles. Go figure. I guess the point is I didn’t figure. So our RV trip quickly morphed into a camping trip with the family tent and a rented SUV.

This brings us to my first stupid mistake. (ok, second). I wanted to choose the route we’d be traveling. Being a woman of the 21^st century I immediately went to Google maps and pulled down a view of Bryce Canyon. I started with Bryce because it’s my favorite and I knew any canyon trip would have to include Bryce. I panned out and quickly saw the many places I wanted to visit. I also noticed that the best place to fly into would be Las Vegas. It’s close to the canyons and it would be a great place to pick up our vehicle and load up with all our supplies before heading out into the more rural areas. FYI, there’s a Wal-Mart in Vegas.

I decided that a great route would take us from West to East from Las Vegas across Utah. Then we could drive through the Rocky Mountains and end up in Denver. I figured we could fly from Dulles through Denver to Las Vegas round trip. On the way home we just wouldn’t show up for the Las Vegas to Denver leg. Brilliant, right? We even used the miles my husband collected through the travel he does for work so we only had to pay for two of the four tickets. AND, my fabulous husband was able to get the one-way flights to Vegas and then back from Denver so we didn’t even have to be no-shows for a leg of the trip. Life was looking good……UNTIL….. I went to rent the SUV. Many of you are already shaking your heads, I’m sure, because you know what I’m going to say next. Drop off fees. Never was there a more insidious phrase in the land of car rentals. OMG. I originally wanted to get a full size SUV or minivan. Do you know how much those vehicles cost when you don’t return them to the same place you got them from? A lot. So much that even when I downgraded to just a regular size SUV, I was going to have to pay over $2500! I thought our vacation was over right then and there. However, I persevered and found Fox’s Car Rental. They’re a smaller car rental company – not a Hertz or Enterprise – but two of their main locations are the Las Vegas and Denver airports. Guess what? No drop off fees! My costs have now dropped to a little over $800. Now, that’s still a lot more than I was expecting to pay. But even the big name companies would be around that much without the drop off fees. I had no idea renting vehicles was so expensive. Obviously I don’t do it that often.

While we haven’t gotten the SUV yet, the experience has already been a positive one. When I called to verify our reservation, the guy I spoke to got us an even better deal, saving us an additional $40. I was smiling once again.

So I have learned my lesson. Next time I plan one of these “See the USA” trips, my travel route will be a circle and not a straight line.

Next post – More issues with the straight line. Finding out the hard way there’s a Lake Powell, UT and a Lake Powell, AZ!