Leaving Grand, Heading for Zion. What a long strange trip.....

Hi everyone,

Time to move on to Zion National Park.  We survived our first leg of the camping experience – rain and vicious elk aside.  I wanted us to get a quick move on.  It’s a 5 hour drive to Zion and we have two food places to stop at along the way. But no, my husband and I are barely aided by our two lovely yet lazy children.  All this despite the fact that I told them they weren’t getting breakfast until about an hour into our drive.  I don’t get it.  We were up at 6:30 and didn’t leave until about 9:00.  It doesn’t take 2 and ½ hours to get dressed, take down a tent, fold cots, unload the car and reload the car – am I right?

We continued on to Cameron for our breakfast.  We put the address into our GPS and it kept saying we wouldn’t be there until around 11am, despite my Google maps assurance that we were only an hour away.  Just as we were approaching Cameron, the strangest thing happened.  We traveled forward in time a whole hour.  We were still in Mountain time, though. What cosmic wormhole did we slip through?  Apparently Arizona is a bit weird.  The people at the Grand Canyon assured us that we were in Mountain time when we noticed that their time didn’t change from the Pacific time we came from in Las Vegas.  We were told that they don’t subscribe to the Daylight Savings adjustment so they are the same as Pacific time for half the year.  However, part of the state obviously does believe in this country-wide adjustment since we were suddenly catapulted into the future – which only made the kids hungrier.

If I can say something about Navajo tacos.  I’m sure the Cameron Trading Post does a great job of making them.  I just don’t like them.  First of all, I’ve never eaten so many beans in my life. Ugh.  And the little ditty is true, let me tell you.  Second, the portions are so huge that even though my husband and I ordered the Mini Navajo tacos, two to three people could have eaten each one. My kids didn’t want the tacos so I let them each get the Navajo fry bread.  Again, they could have shared just one portion.  My daughter loved it.  No kidding.  These things are nothing more than the same fried dough you get at the state fair.  The shape is different but the taste is the same.  My son didn’t like it and he wasn’t feeling well.  I have to remember to buy some Dramamine (sp?) for him and me.  These longer trips are hard on both of our gentle constitutions.

After our less than stellar experience for breakfast, we continued on toward Kanab to our next stop.  Okay, here’s where I get totally confused and a little pissed. I had our way mapped to Zion.  However, you can take a slightly more Eastern and Northern route that meets up in Kanab like my original way.  I’m not sure why my husband chose the other way but after 20 miles or so, I start seeing signs for Lake Powell and the place I originally had us staying before I rerouted us to Salt Lake City because I had confused which state it was in.  And here we are passing it!! With a few changes, we could have actually visited and stayed.  BUT, it wouldn’t have been on my birthday which I’m insisting on as a day of rest. Or at least a day of no camping.  So I’m still pleased with my change but baffled none-the-less by my inability to plan how to get here from there.

We made it to Kanab in record time.  Everyone was a bit hungry and looking forward to Nedra’s Too for machacas and chicken chimichangas.  Considering we had no idea what machacas was, I was impressed that my kids were getting excited to try it.  We pull into Nedra’s parking lot and it was looking strangely empty.  In fact, Nedra’s Too is closed on Wednesdays.  Wednesdays?  I do plan on checking to see if there are any special Mormon edicts that Mexican restaurants in Kanab should be closed on Wednesdays because nothing else makes sense.  We were all disappointed, especially since Cameron was a bust.  I noticed a sign for Prickly Pear frozen yogurt and all of a sudden my kids decided that’s all they were hungry for.  We drove up and went in to the Prickly Pear Frozen Yogurt and Art Museum.  I kid you not.  Two great tastes that taste great together – yogurt and art.  One is good for the gut and one is good for the soul.  I like that – and it keeps you guessing as to which is good for which.  Maybe I’ll mail them my idea.  BUT, wouldn’t you know it.  They don’t have prickly pear yogurt.  It’s just a name.  They do have banana pudding yogurt, birthday cake yogurt, pomegranate yogurt and white chocolate yogurt.  Who owns this place? Well, we actually met the owner’s mother who was in from Georgia to help out her son. Normally this time of year she and her husband are in France at their chateau where they run some type of logging business.  They have people who do most of the managing for them. I’m not sure I believe all this.  Maybe it’s something she tells herself to feel better about being in Kanab, Utah.  I don’t know.

My husband insisted on some actual food for himself so we stopped at the Big Al’s burger and shake shop.  He had a green chile burrito because that’s what you order at a burger shop in Kanab, UT.  We all tasted it and it was really good.  So if you’re ever in Kanab on a Wednesday, I highly recommend Big Al’s.

Finally we made it to Zion National Park.  If you can, approach from the east so you can drive down the Zion-Mount Carmel highway. (I need to check on the name for that)  It’s a glorious ride in with breath-taking scenery.  Zion is a beautiful park.  Unlike the Grand Canyon where you’re up top looking in, Zion rises up all around you.  I’ll be adding pictures later for you to see.

I’ll be telling you more about Zion tomorrow.  Let me just end by saying that we finished our day at The Whiptail Grille as scheduled.  It was the best meal of the trip so far.  We had the goat cheese chili relleno as an appetizer.  It was to die for.  Crispy on the outside and cheesy on the inside with a wonderful goat cheese filling.  They were out of the spaghetti squash enchiladas which was par for the course for today.  But dinner was still delicious. The kids had fish tacos which they liked.  Although, much to my husband’s delight, they told him they liked his better.  My husband and I had the chicken chipotle enchiladas.  I’m allergic to cilantro so they made it with a different sauce especially for me.  I like that in a restaurant.  The place was super casual.  We ate outside in our shorts and t-shirts and were right at home.

Tomorrow – Zion – the most visitor-friendly place I’ve ever seen.  Plus the difference between a National Park campground and a privately owned one.

Monsoon season in Arizona? Really?

Hi everyone,

We woke up in the Grand Canyon to two different yet equally fascinating events.  The first event was the discovery of elk wandering through the campgrounds. Obviously they are quite used to humans since they just hung out, eating whatever scrungy food they could find.  In fact, they’re obviously used to stupid, moronic humans since every last one of us who saw this band of wild animals traipsing around grabbed our cameras and started snapping photo after photo of them. Carol reminded us that while elk are herbivores, they had big nasty antlers and could turn and charge at you whenever the mood struck them. It was at this point that we ushered the kids away and hoped the elk would leave and bother someone else.  But we still got lots of great pictures!!!

Shortly after that the rain started.  And not just some sweet little rain.  I’m talking about driving rain that sent us into our tent and had me cursing that I ran out of time last night to apply the tent sealer.  Apparently, it’s monsoon season in the Arizona desert.  What?! Monsoons?!  I thought those happened in SE Asia not in Arizona and not during my perfectly planned vacation!

We hunkered down in the tent for about 30 minutes.  When it became clear that we might be stuck with this all day, it being monsoon season and all, we decided to go into Tusayan and see the IMAX movie we ran out of time for the previous night.  The movie was kind of campy but the scenes of the canyon were beautiful and so were the times when the film made you feel like you were flying through or over the canyon itself.  This was a good thing to do during the rain and it had significantly lightened by the time we got out.

We hit the Bright Angel Trail as scheduled for the day.  We hadn’t even seen the canyon in person yet so you can imagine how excited we were when we pulled up to the rim to begin our hike……and we couldn’t see a darn thing.  The fog/clouds were so thick you could barely see two feet into the canyon.  I thought I would cry.  Instead we put on our backpacks and began the hike. We must have gone about 1/10 of mile when the whining began.  “We can’t see anything, let’s go back.  I might fall off the edge of the trail.”  My son’s diatribe lasted for another ¾ of a mile before we couldn’t take it anymore.  We decided to eat our packed lunch along the trail.  We found a nice spot with some good sitting rocks.  We watched hikers go by in both directions and even saw a few good views of the canyon as the fog would thin out here and there.  One thing I will say about trips like these is you have to know your families’ limitations.  Apparently ¾ of a mile was my son’s for that day.  We turned around and walked up the canyon.  The walk wasn’t bad.  One thing about hiking in bad weather was that it was cool and cloudy.  We barely needed water and no one broke a sweat.  If my son had been more willing, we could have done the 3-mile round trip hike easily.

We made it back up and had the obligatory ice cream that was promised at the end of the hike.  Carol, our campsite neighbor, had innocently mentioned this to my kids and my son had fixated upon this.  We tried to use this as incentive to hike further with no success.

Once we finished our ice cream, I suggested we take the Hermit Trail Shuttle to see the different sights.  The weather was clearing up and we hoped we might get some better views.  The shuttle was one of those things I had scheduled for the previous day that we ran out of time for.  It turned out to be an excellent idea.  We stopped at various points along the way and were treated to some amazing views.  The shuttles came regularly enough that we moved easily from one stop to the next.  When everyone had enough, we caught a shuttle going in the opposite direction and ended back at the lodge where we parked the car.

We decided to go to the restaurant we had missed from the night before – The Coronado Room.  My daughter and I had the elk and it was really good.  Tender and perfectly made, we were treated to a great dinner. My husband, on the other hand, had the prime rib which wasn’t very good.  That great roasty part was salty and ruined.  However, we all had the mashed potatoes made with smoked gouda and green chiles. That was really good.  I couldn’t taste the smoked gouda but the green chiles were flavorful and added an interesting dimension to the potatoes.  My son was relegated to the Kids menu which was typical and boring.  I wanted him to share with us but he said he was fine with spaghetti and sauce.  Geez, this was a meat place, they should have had some interesting elk or buffalo meatballs at least.

We came back to our campsite and spent some time chatting with our friend Carol and then went to bed.  The clouds had mostly parted and we got to see an incredible view of the night sky that we never get to see in our light polluted town. It was a great day.

Tomorrow: Off to Zion and with some good luck and some bad luck and some frozen yogurt.

Still alive and at the Grand Canyon

Hi everyone,

I know you haven’t heard from me in days and probably believe my husband’s post that I was eaten by an elk.  No worries – I’m alive!  We haven’t had internet for days and I’ve been too tired at night to even write anything.

So I don’t overwhelm you all, I’ll still break down the posts into each day and make them separate posts.

Where did I leave off?  Oh yes, we’re about to leave our air conditioned hotel for the ruggedness of the wild…..

The drive to the Grand Canyon was long but okay.  We stopped at the Hoover Dam for a quick look.  With the ongoing drought in the Southwest, there wasn’t much to see.  In fact, my husband mentioned that on two separate occasions he saw women crying – supposedly due to the tragedy of the drought.  I think it was the lack of good parking.  Most spots require you to walk up or down a staircase which means you have to walk it the other way at some point.  There’s a new bridge that routes the highway away from the Dam in case you don’t want to see it. What this means is that you take the old road from Nevada into the Dam and then instead of continuing on through to Arizona, you have to go back the way you came and then go over the big new bridge.  It’s stupid but I guess they want everyone to experience the new bridge.

One thing I’ve definitely learned is everything takes three times longer than you think.  By the time we reached Seligman, AZ to eat lunch at the Road Kill Café, it was already 3:30 and everyone was yelling they were hungry.  I wouldn’t let them stop sooner, insisting we had to eat there since it was on my list.   Before I mention what it was like, has anyone seen the Cars movie?  Remember Radiator Springs?  I swear, we drove through the inspiration for that town.  The people there say it’s really Peach Springs about 35 miles away but I don’t believe them.  Maybe they’re embarrassed to be the focus of a Pixar film for kids but Seligman is right on Route 66 and, well I’ll have to post some pictures and let you be the judge.

Now for the Road Kill Café.  First off, all those great names for dishes like the Swirl of Squirrel and the Splatter Platter were just names.  My kids were so disappointed ( me too).  We were looking forward to various bits of meats made to look like they had tire tracks running through them.  No such luck.  This was just a regular hamburger joint.  I will say that the “Skunk” dish, really jalapeno poppers, were delicious and the highlight of the meal.  Crispy on the outside and yummy cheesy on the inside with a juicy (my daughter is making me use that adjective but it’s accurate) jalapeno pepper that wasn’t too hot and had lots of taste.

All was not lost.  I did get a mug that says “You Kill It, We Grill It”.  And while that was patently untrue, it still looks dang funny on a mug.

A few hours later we arrived at the campsite at the Grand Canyon.  We couldn’t see the canyon yet and my husband was yelling at us all to get the tent up before we lost daylight.  Luckily we had a great campsite neighbor – always very important.  She lent us a hammer for the tent stakes.  Apparently our tent mallet wasn’t in the tent bag.  She lent us her lighter so we could get our lantern lit.  She also showed us where the bathrooms were. Thanks Carol!!

No one was hungry for dinner since our road kill lunch filled us right up.  I think we just ate some dry boxes of cereal, if memory serves.  It was much cooler than we expected so we dressed warmly and went to listen to the Ranger Program.  I usually have an awesome sense of direction but it was totally baffled by the complete darkness of the park.  I kept taking us in circles and could not get my bearings.  After passing the same buildings for the third time, I conceded defeat and let my husband figure out where we were going.  Much to my disgruntled pride he found the outdoor amphitheater and we arrived only ten minutes late for the Ranger’s talk on the various levels (strata) of the canyon walls, what they were made of and how they were formed.  I thought it was fascinating and could have stayed for the whole hour.  My family had other ideas.  My son fell asleep, my husband looked like he was nodding off and my daughter, after determining that the Ranger wasn’t hot nor were there any hot guys in the audience, kept asking to leave.  We woke my son up, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, and quickly guided him out of the amphitheater before he woke up long enough to inquire where he was in his too loud for indoors, outdoors, or loud stadium voice.

Thus ended our first day of camping at the Grand Canyon.

Tomorrow: There’s a monsoon season in Arizona.  Really?

Full day in Vegas

Hi everyone, (adding photos later)

Our first full day started off around 4 am when my son decided he was no longer tired. Dammit.  I talked him back to sleep – or rather I talked to him until I fell back to sleep.  He woke me up again several more times until I gave in and told him to play with his Dsi in the bathroom. Ugh…

Remember when I mentioned we’re not buffet people?  Well we are coupon people and we had coupons for the buffet – kids eat free – so we forced ourselves to get in line with the sea of humanity streaming into the buffet and grabbed some plates. The buffet was pretty good although they didn’t have any strawberries in the fruit section.  Who doesn’t have strawberries in the fruit section?  Isn’t there some unwritten law that all buffets should have strawberries?  Other than that we all liked it!

After that came Wal-mart. Oy. I do have to say that the Wal-mart on Charleston Blvd is very impressive.  It’s very clean, the people are extremely helpful and they all understand and speak English fluently unlike the crappy Wal-mart where I live where you could have a heart attack and die in the middle of the store and no one would help/notice/or be able to understand your pleas for an ambulance.

The site to store method worked like a charm.  Everything I ordered was there and Jill, my amazing Wal-mart helper, brought it all out for me, did all the paperwork and even took care of two returns when we realized we only needed one cooler instead of two and 6 pillows instead of 8. But holy cow, it’s a good thing we got the bigger SUV.  It is filled to the gills with all our stuff.  Poor Dan can’t see out the back window.  We keep praying we won’t hit anyone.

We got almost everything else we needed, too, but we held off on the food. We decided to wait until tomorrow or Tuesday.  There isn’t a lot of room and we’re worried we can’t keep the food cool enough. I have to say, this whole camping thing is starting to feel overwhelming.  I hope we haven’t bit off more than we can chew.  I guess we’ll see…..

Next we hit the strip and walked through The Venetian and Caesar’s.  OMG, you’ve never seen anything like these places.  They both have these huge, very upscale “malls” for lack of a better word inside of them.  The architecture is over the top with sculptures, fountains, and ceilings that look like the sky and change the time of day every 30 minutes or so. The highlights were seeing the gondolas in The Venetian and the circular escalators in Caesar’s.  We walked so much our feet, calves and tushies were sore.

Once again we didn’t dine at the specified location.  Gilly’s was in Treasure Island where our show was but they had a lot of young women in skimpy clothing getting ready to ride a mechanical bull.  While my husband found this exciting, the rest of us did not and we chose to go to Kahunaville instead  - mainly because we had a coupon for this place.  It’s a Caribbean-style joint also in Treasure Island.  The food was good enough and the prices are what I’d expect from a “moderately priced” restaurant in a Las Vegas hotel/casino.  I ordered the coconut shrimp special and it came on wooden skewers sticking out of a pineapple top.  Pretty cool.  The kids shared a Hibachi shrimp and chicken dinner.  I’m so proud of them.  The kids menu had 4 crappy things on it and when I suggested they share an adult meal, they jumped at the chance.  No chicken fingers or mac and cheese for my little foodies.

The best part of our day was the Cirque de Soleil Mystere production we saw this evening.  It was absolutely incredible and a great choice for the kids. The show was funny and the acrobatic feats were beyond description. What these performers can do with their bodies defies explanation. While the story line was perplexing, it didn’t matter. The sheer entertainment made that unimportant.  If you are with your children and looking for a show, we all recommend Mystere whole heartedly.

Tomorrow we leave the comforts of air conditioning, electricity and real beds and head for the canyons.  Wish us luck!

We're here!!

Hi everyone,

We made it!  This is no small feat considering that at every moment until the plane takes off I’m contemplating running up and asking to get the heck off.  But I held my tongue, bit the bullet and spent 4+ hours alternating between panic and a nervous resignation that there’s nothing I can do so I’d better suck it up and pretend I’m just fabulous. I think I was mostly believable for the kids. Unfortunately as we’re landing both my son and I were overcome with nausea and wanted to vomit.  This feeling lasted for quite some time.

On the happier side, check out the pictures I snapped from the plane of the kids enjoying the flight.  We kept trying to figure out what we were flying over – once I calmed down enough to look out the window.  We figured the plane took a southerly route since we were treated with an amazing view of the Grand Canyon.  My picture doesn’t do it justice but take a look.  Considering we’ll only be seeing a small section of the canyon when we visit, it was a great opportunity to see almost the whole enchilada.

It’s always stressful when you travel, especially when you’re flying and half your family is nauseous and one of the remaining half is coming down with a migraine.  But we persevered and went to pick up our rental car.  If you remember, I decided to go with a smaller name because the prices were far more reasonable and they weren’t charging me the drop off fee. Now Las Vegas airport has a bus you take to the car rental hub.  All of the car rental places are in this one place.  So you can imagine my panic when we get off the bus, enter the hub and I don’t see a Fox Rental desk.  

 Luckily I have my handy dandy notebook (like in Blues Clues!) and I check my confirmation e-mail.  I read a few paragraphs down and see that there’s yet another bus we have to take to get to Fox’s since they are off site.  My son and I suck it up and all four of us get on the Fox’s shuttle and travel about 2 miles down the road.  Bill, our very nice driver, tells us how the other major rental companies, if you ask them where the Fox counter is, will tell you that Fox’s is about 20 miles away and that they just missed the shuttle which won’t be back for 2 hours, but they (the major company) would be happy to rent you a car.  Meanwhile, because Fox’s is off site, they don’t have to charge you a whole bunch of taxes and fees that these other guys do, running about 30% less than the major guys.  I saved even more. Yes, we did have to take another bus and yes I did have to stand in line, BUT

they were out of my standard SUV and upgraded us for free to the large size with no fuss.

We then looked for some lunch because it was now past 2 o’clock EST and most of us were hungry.  We found an interesting looking “Nevada Style” pub called Steiner’s.  We learned what “Nevada Style” meant when we walked in and they informed us they didn’t serve children.  We weren’t hungry for children but left immediately since we didn’t think it fair to make the kids sit and watch us eat. We were exhausted and hungry and went to the next nearest restaurant, Chili’s. Not exciting but it did the job.

Then we headed for the hotel.  We got to drive down the strip – very cool!  I’ll get pictures for the next post. We saw the Luxor pyramid, the fountains in front of the Bellagio, the Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty from the NewYork, NY hotel and lots of people.  Our hotel, Circus, Circus, is just beyond the busiest part of the strip.  Check in moved quickly and we were in our room in no time.  Upon which we promptly fell into bed and took a 2 hour nap.  This was the smartest decision we made all day.  It refreshed us, got rid of the nausea and headaches, and prepared us for staying up late since even 8pm was going to feel like 11pm.

One last note.  We didn’t go to the Hawaiian fusion restaurant.  I did my least amount of research on Vegas and didn’t realize that Roy’s was out of the price range we wanted.  I pulled out the laptop and we found a local Italian restaurant that got very good reviews – Nora’s Cuisine.  It wasn’t fabulous but it was still good.  My daughter’s spaghetti and meatballs were as delicious as advertised and my son’s pizza was also very good as was the really garlicky garlic bread. The cannolis were yummy – we brought those back to the room to eat – we should have ordered only one instead of two because they were large.  My dinner was okay – I had the orange roughy fish which wasn’t bad but they served it with a big glob of angel hair pasta which was inedible.  My husband ordered a pasta dish with chicken, artichokes and capers which he said was good but nothing special. He said he’d return if in Vegas again.  I don’t know if I would.  I would make a reservation next time, though, because that place was packed.  They seated us right away because we were willing to sit in this little area along the kitchen.  Very noisy but we’re with kids so I didn’t care.  Also, this meant no one forgot about us!

More later – Our first full day in Vegas.  Everyone up around 5-6am.  Getting used to the time change!

Time to go!!

Hi everyone,

Well it’s the night before we leave and I’m running around like a chicken with her head cut off. Gross imagery, sorry.  I’ve been packing all week but somehow we’re all crazed, looking for all those last minute items, and getting yelled at by my husband for forgetting that liquids must go in the checked bags, not the carry-ons. Sheesh, I liked traveling so much better before the terrorists.

I’m watching my husband pack his carry on bags and I’m marveling at the amount of technology he’s smooshing into these things.  We have two laptops, one IPOD, one video camera, a regular camera, GPS, 2 Kindles, 3 cell phones and all of the cords and chargers that go with them.  “It’s all needed,” I just heard my husband explain.  I wonder what the pioneers did when they went on vacation? 

I’m giving a special shout out to the three people who are actually admitting to reading this blog.  Thank you Elaine, Ivette and Betsy for being my three biggest (and only) fans.  I love you guys!!!

So I don’t have time for one of my usual brilliant breakdowns of our next destination so I thought I’d post our itinerary.  Upon looking it over I noticed that it’s incredibly detailed.  You’re all going to think I’m nuts or just incredibly well organized – and nuts.

Here it is:

Shipping containers to Circus Circus

C/o Andrea and Dan Gallant

Arrival date: July 23^rd

2880 Las Vegas Blvd S.

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702-734-0410

Day one – Saturday, July 23 -  Arrive at Las Vegas

Pick up car – Fox’s Rental Car – print off confirmation

Check into Circus Circus Hotel and get sent boxes

Pick up stuff from Wal-Mart

Dinner – Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion – 620 E. Flamingo Road – 702-691-2053 – Reservations recommended

Day two – Sunday July 24 - Full day at Vegas

Breakfast – Use coupons for breakfast

Go to lots of shops and sightsee

Dinner – eat at Gillys Las Vegas in Treasure Island

Show – Cirque du Soleil – Mystere.  Print off confirmation sheet and bring to box office. Show starts at 7:00pm.  Must pick up tickets before 6pm at box office – can pick up any day, any time as long as it’s at least an hour before show.

Day three – Monday, July 25 – Travel from Las Vegas to Grand Canyon – 5hrs

Breakfast  - quick in Vegas

Fire restrictions for Grand Canyon – no wood burning fires.

Drive one hour to Hoover Dam. Stop and Visit.  Follow directions to Dam.

Lunch – Road Kill Café, Seligman, AZ - 502 West Highway 66, Seligman - (928) 422-3554

Get to Mather Campground in GC South Rim and set up camp.

Take bus ride to Hermit road shuttle and take that bus for lots of great views.

Dinner and IMAX in Tusayan

7pm reservation at The Coronado Room - 100 Highway 64 Best Western Grand Canyon Squire Inn. Tusayan - (928) 638-2681

IMAX – ½ hour shows every hour on the half hour until 8:30

Day Four – Tuesday, July 26    

We’re responsible for 3 meals.  Must pack lunch.

Take shuttle to Bright Angel Trail and hike til Three and a half mile marker.  Less if needed.  Eat lunch on the trail.

Chill out for the afternoon.  Visit visitor center.  Buy food for dinner and cook.  Must use stove.

Do either Twilight Zone Family Program –check visitor center for dates and times

            Or

Campfire program – Sage Loop Campfire – in our campground - ??Not sure if will occur due to fire restrictions.

Day Five – Wednesday, July 27    

Drive from Grand Canyon to Zion National Park – Call first thing to reserve “ride with ranger” tour for next day at 9am - 435 772-3256

Stop in Cameron, AZ for breakfast/lunch at Cameron Trading Post – Navaho Tacos or Navaho tacos with egg.  Breakfast til 11am and lunch starts at 11am

466 North Highway 89

Cameron, AZ – 928-679-2231

Lunch in Kanab, UT at Nedra’s Too – Chicken chimichangas w/ white jalapeno sauce; machacas –

Set up camp at Ferber’s Campground in Springdale, Utah

479 Zion Park Blvd. Springdale, UT. 435-772-3237

Go to Park – Visitor Center.  Take tram to last stop and do Riverside Walk (1 ½ Hours).  Then take tram to Weeping rock and do trail (1/2 hour)

The Whiptail Grill for dinner – 445 Zion Lodge, Springdale, UT - (435) 772-0283 ‎

 - Goat cheese chili relleno and spaghetti squash enchalada.

Dessert – gift shop of Bumbleberry restaurant for bumbleberry pie. – 97 Bumbleberry lane, Springdale, UT. - (435) 772-3224

Day Six  - Thursday, July 28

Ride with a Ranger Tour – 9-11am – be there by 8:45.  Find out where to meet.

Visit Zion Human history museum or Nature center

Have lunch at Zion Lodge – nothing special but keeps us on site.

Do Grotto Trail/Upper and Lower Emerald Pool/Kayenta Trail loop

Go back to campground for swimming – do Virgin River Tubing – leaves from our campground.

Dinner – Gun Barrel Steak and Game House – St. George – Fav of locals – ONE HOUR AWAY – 1091 N. Bluff St, Ste 1400, St. George – 435-652-0550 – Reservations(?)

Day seven – Friday, July 29^th

Leave for Bryce Canyon – 2 hours

Breakfast at Park House Café – serving breakfast til 12-1.  Lunch and dinner, too. – 1880 Zion Park Blvd, Springdale.

Set up camp – Sunset campground

Take free shuttle around Bryce Amphitheater route – get off at stops to see sites. Go to Visitors Center to get list of Geology Festival events and nighttime events.

Dinner – Foster’s steakhouse in Bryce City – 1150 Hwy 12 – prime rib, garlic chicken and pie

Day eight – Saturday, July 30^th

Breakfast at camp

Hike – Queens/Navajo combo loop with Rim Trail

Lunch – either at Bryce Canyon lodge or pack it.

Take Rainbow Point Shuttle to Rainbow and Yovimpa Points.  Do Bristlecone Loop Trail

Chill and comeback to Sunset Point by 5pm for Ranger-Led Rim walk.

Dinner – either 45 min drive for Café Adobe in Hatch or ask for good local place or cook.

Day nine – Sunday, July 31^st

Drive from Bryce to Capitol Reef – 2 hrs 45 min

Set up camp – SandCreek RV Park – 540 Hwy 24, Torrey, UT – 435-425-3577.

Lunch in Torrey - ?Capitol Reef Inn and Café

Hwy 24 into Capitol Reef – take rt to Panorama and then Sunset Point.  Go back and go to visitors center.  Look for any goings-ons.  Drive and do Hickman Bridge Trail.  Go back to Visitors center and go down Scenic Drive.  Pull onto Grand Wash and hike to Cassidy Arch.  Go to end of Scenic Drive and take Capital Gorge and hike trail to “The Tanks”.

Dinner – Drive to Boulder 45 for Hell’s Backbone Grill or Café Diablo in Torrey (rattlesnake?)

Day 10 – Monday, August 1^st

Drive to Heber and hang with the Shimazaki’s – 4 hours

Breakfast at Mom’s in Salina, UT (1 ½ hours from Capitol Reef) – gotta have the scones.

Continue to Heber.

Day 11 – Tuesday, August 2^nd

Go where Shimazaki’s recommend.

Have lunch at Bruge’s – 336 W. 300 S. (Broadway), SLC – 801-363-4444.

Enjoy Birthday!!!

Day 12 – Wednesday, August 3^rd

Heber to Arches National Park – 4hours

Lunch – Westwinds Truck Stop – Best Country Fried Steak – Green River - Conveniently located on I-70 just off on exit 164

Go to Visitors Center – see what evening programs there are

Drive thru to Devil’s Campground and set up – stop along the way for the sites.

Do Broken Arch and Sand dune Hikes

Delicate Arch (at sunset?)

Dinner – Buck’s Grill House – Moab - 1393 N Highway 191, Moab, UT 84532     TEL: 435-259-5201

Duck, elk, etc.

 Day 13^th – Thursday, August 4^th

Arches to Grand Junction, Colorado

Delicate Arch – if not done previous day

Drive out to Windows Section – The Windows Trail and Double Arch

Lunch – Milt’s Stop and Eat – Moab – burgers and fries and shakes -

356 Mill Creek Drive Moab, UT 84532 (435) 259-7424

Drive 2 hours to Grand Junction.

Arrive Double Tree Hotel

Hang out, swim, etc.

Dinner – Rockslide Brew Pub – unless someone can suggest better.

Day 14^th – Friday, August 5^th

Drive from Grand Junction to Denver – 4 ½ hours.

Stop for lunch in Evergreen, CO (4 hours).  Tins Star Café and donuts – BBQ and Apple fritters. -

28025 Colorado 74 Evergreen, CO 80439 (303) 679-1155

Hotel – Courtyard by Marriott – Airport

Find place to ship our stuff.

Dinner – Buckhorn Exchange – reservations recommended – 303-534-9505 –

1000 Osage Str. • Denver, CO 80204

Day 15^th – Saturday, August 6^th - Fly home!

Zion National Park - Yay!

Hi everyone,   

Countdown to vacation – 1 more day!  We’re all packed – I insisted we give each of the kids their own suitcase despite my earlier plan to have them share.  Why, you ask?  Because the only suitcase big enough for them, besides the biggest Dan and I were already using, had all of their clothes squished in together.  There was no way they’d both calmly and nicely go through this thing and gently find what they needed.  All of their things would be flying everywhere, they’d be fighting about whose underpants were touching whose shirts, and my son would be cringing each time he had to see my daughter’s bras.  It just wasn’t worth the $25 savings.

So on to Zion National Park.  We’ll break camp early and head up to Zion.  We’re stopping in Cameron. AZ for breakfast/lunch/brunch at the Cameron Trading Post.  They are known for their Navaho Tacos. 

If we make it before 11am we’ll get the taco with an egg on top.  Otherwise, just the taco.  Apparently Cameron Trading Post used to be a much smaller, homier place called…. Oh, crap, I can’t find the comments that explained about this place.  I believe the people who ran this place lost their lease or something so they opened up a much bigger, touristy spot at this current location.  Well, I’ve been reading that the giant Navaho tacos are TDF, so that’s where breakfast is going to be. BUT, we can’t eat too much because we have to stop a few hours later in Kanab, UT at Nedra’s Too for something called machacas (no clue what this is) and chicken chimichangas with white jalapeno sauce. It’s a day in foodie heaven – Dan will be pleased.

Remember what I said about not staying at any campground that doesn’t take reservations? Well, the campground at Zion National Park doesn’t take ‘em so we’re not staying “on site”.  Instead, we’re staying in the nearby town of Springdale.  Springdale is the big town just outside the park and it’s got plenty of hotels, campgrounds, restaurants, etc.  The Ferber Campground looked very reasonable and the hosts have been very friendly so far.

Once we’re done setting up camp – this is our second time and hopefully will go a bit faster – we’ll take the shuttle to the Visitor Center where I want to register for the Ranger-led tour for the next day. Since I did my homework and visited the National Park’s web site, I know there’s a shuttle that goes right from Springdale into the park.  The shuttle ends near the Visitor’s Center at which point there’s another shuttle system that goes through the park itself, stopping at many different trail heads and views spots.  We’re going to take the shuttle to the farthest spot and do the Riverside Walk for 1 ½ hours, hop the next shuttle and go to the Weeping Rock trail and hike that for ½ hour.  Why those trails? Both are considered easy, first of all. The Riverside Walk will take us to the beginning of the Narrows.  I’d love to do the Narrows but it’s a strenuous hike done nearly all in the water with swift currents - it’s too dangerous for my young son.  The Narrows path takes you through an amazing gorge cut out by the Virgin River.  The sites are supposed to be amazing. With the Riverside Walk, we’ll at least get to see a portion of it. The Weeping Rock Trail was recommended by other travelers.  It’s a short walk but you see these little “falls” of water.  It looks like the rocks are crying – hence the trail name.

We need the walking because I have yet another dining experience planned. Our dinner will be at The Whiptail Grill in Springdale. Nice and easy since we’re staying there. We’ll be sampling the goat cheese chili rellenos and the spaghetti squash enchiladas plus anything else that looks yummy. But wait, there’s more! Dessert! We’ll be rolling out of the Whiptail and heading over to the Bumbleberry Inn for their famous bumbleberry pie.  Bumbleberries are pretty much whatever berries the bakers have available to throw together.  I’ve heard it’s good but not worth the price so we’ll do what one fellow traveler suggested.  We’ll go to the gift shop and buy some there.  If it’s not too far, we’ll walk it back to the campsite and eat it in our tent, all snuggled in our sleeping bags on our cots. Ah, just like home. Okay, not really.  First, I’m not doing anything that might attract any more bugs than necessary.  Second, I hate crumbs in bed.

The next morning we’ll all be lamenting mommy’s wonderful idea to take a 2-hour Ranger led shuttle tour because we have to be at the Visitor Center by 8:45 am. Hopefully we’ll make it.  Our new-fangled cell phones have alarms on them, don’t they?

After our tour we’ll grab a quick lunch in the park – nothing fancy today – and hit a few more trails.  I found a cool combination of easy and moderate trails that form a loop – Grotto trail/Upper and Lower Emerald pool trails/Kayenta loop (see pages 6 & 7 of the park newspaper).  They should add up to a 2 ½ - 3 hour combined hike.

Once we’ve finished those trails, we’ll head back to the campsite and take in some tubing on the Virgin River.  There’s supposed to be a tubing company there whose take-off point into the river is adjacent to our campground.  I didn’t even realize our campground was near the river!  Anyway, it’ll be a nice cool break from the hiking.

I have a great place lined up for dinner but it’s an hour away.  The Gun Barrel Steak and GameHouse is in St. George’s Utah, headed back toward Las Vegas, believe it or not.  I’ve chosen this place because it’s supposed to have great meats and fish, including their mixed grill which offers an Elk chop, Buffalo BBQ rib and a choice of either beef or buffalo prime rib.  My carnivorous mouth is watering just thinking about it. But all of this will depend on how exhausted the driver (my husband) is after an afternoon of hiking in potentially very high heat. If he’s too pooped to party, we’ll ask around about another fine local establishment that serves great meaty fare.

That’s all for Zion.  The next day we’ll be off to Bryce Canyon.

Tomorrow – final farewells before we leave.  I’ll post our full itinerary so you can follow us along on our trip.  I’ll try to post each night so you can hear how it’s going and if we’re surviving without killing each other as my 12 year old insists will happen.