Viva Las Vegas!

When I proposed the idea of a week of hiking for vacation, one of us was not super into it. ;)  To sweeten the deal, I included a day and night in Las Vegas at a famous hotel in the plan and then she was sold!  Many things about Vegas were a treat to see and experience.  We watched the Ocean's 11 movies together beforehand to prepare and it was super fun to recognize things from the movies!

I'll start with what we loved.  We stayed at the Bellagio.  When we checked in we learned that the cheapest room I had booked had run out, so we got a free upgrade to a room on a premium floor that came with all kinds of luxurious perks that made us feel fancy and indulgent!  In the Las Vegas heat (115 this day!) we were excited to hit our hotel's 5 pools right away.  We moved around and tried each one.  Ella and I had a poolside pina colada treat.

Many of the pools had fun fountains in them, leading to a goofy photo shoot.  

The lobby of our hotel was its own sight to behold.  The Chihuly blown glass installation on the ceiling!

The conservatory with its thick floral scent and flower sculptures!

The world's largest chocolate fountain and Patisserie where Delia picked her Vegas treat-- strawberry crepes, entertainingly made by pastry chefs right in front of her!

The iconic dancing fountains outside the Bellagio, delighting us every 15 minutes with numbers by Elvis and Sinatra!

And the lights and spectacle, each hotel's unique theme, and how you can see volcanos erupting, gondoliers, the New York skyline, pirate ships, and the Eifel Tower all on one walk!

Things we did not love: pretty much everything else!  Including people smoking everywhere indoors, the crowds, the heat, the sad folks sitting in front of slot machines, the scantily clad gals asking every few feet if we wanted a picture with them, people drinking at 9 am, overheard conversations in the elevator about losing all your money, and not being able to eat dinner until 9:30 at night.  The Vegas Strip at night was something we probably only need to see one time in our life.  We're focusing on the plenty of positive we got to experience in this city, mostly thanks to the choice to stay in a classy hotel! 

Bryce Canyon National Park

And now my pictures turn to orange!  After Zion, we made the 1.5 hour drive to our next national park-- Bryce Canyon.  This one sits at 8000 feet elevation and is a smaller park, easy to explore in a day.  Here we stayed at Ruby's Inn, which was its own destination!  A HUGE hotel that had a general store, buffet, old timey western photography studio, ice cream shop, rock store, campground, lake, and pool!  Heads of antlered animals were mounted on every inch of wall space.  It was something!  It ended up working out pretty cool that each of the 4 places we stayed was unique and memorable!

We saw almost every part of this park throughout every part of the day!  From sunrise to stars, we thoroughly enjoyed Bryce!  Besides another amazing landscape, my favorite thing about Bryce was how accessible it was.  Most of it you could view with little hiking, or even short drives.  The crowds were minimal and it was the first day we weren't sweating from heat and hard hiking.

Bryce is known for its Hoodoo Amphitheater.  These hoodoo rock formations are formed from snow, rain, and wind and are bulbous spires that look like giant versions of when you drip wet sand into a tower.  There are multiple places to view them from a road rimming the amphitheater above.  Seeing them lit up at sunrise was the best.

Another picture in the "Find Delia in the Scenery" series!

At Bryce you drive along one road and hop out at a half dozen places to take in different awesome views.  Here is Inspiration Point.

This one is Natural Bridge

You can hike down into the hoodoos, which we did on the Navajo Loop Trail.  Each step down into the amphitheater needs to be taken UP on the way out!  Switchbacks help with the steepness of the trail, both down and up.  Delia called them "wiggles".

Another neat landscape!

This section was called Wall Street.  Ella is doing some wall sits on Wall Street!

This part of the trail was called Two Bridges.  Ebenezer Bryce, the Mormon homesteader who developed this park, must have been a pretty straightforward guy.  Building a road right to the best views and naming things what they were! 

This rock is called Thor's Hammer and Delia is having a little photo fun with it.

Another little hike we did was the Mossy Cave Trail.  On this one we found an actual waterfall!  Dry orange rock dust covered our shoes and shins on this day, finding flowing water was such a treat!  This was a cool waterfall you could climb behind too and enjoy the fabulous mist.

Another favorite thing about Bryce was the wildlife!  Deer were everywhere!  Meadows were full of them.  A couple fawns even stood in the road right in front of our car for a while.  Dave invented a fun game called "Can't exit the park till we spot 20 deer."  We did it easily multiple times.

Learning in the visitor center that Bryce Canyon has one of the darkest skies in North America, Ella's one request was a late night of stargazing.  We cuddled in beach towels and blankets through sunset.

And then we laid on a bench at one of the lookouts and watched the stars appear one by one.  We stayed until after 10 admiring how the vivid the night sky became in the utter darkness of Bryce.  The moon cast actual shadows of us!  We saw shooting stars!  And off in the distance we watched a lightning storm light up the sky!  Spectacular!

The Narrows

The Narrows was this trip's headliner!  It was the thing Ella was most excited about.  We keep a little "Top Five Hikes" list going, as I mentioned in a previous post.  The Narrows found its way onto the list!  For most of us, it even moved into the #1 spot!  Hiking The Narrows is traversing a 10 mile out and back trail, through the Zion Canyon, while walking IN the Virgin River. It's a strenuous hike in the sense that each step must be intentional and carefully taken.  There is current and rapids, high water, slippery rocks, and submerged boulders to navigate.   You need clothes and shoes that can be wet all day, but still comfortable to walk miles in.  And you definitely need a walking stick to keep you upright!  We walked 3 miles into the canyon and 3 miles back, so 6 miles...and it took all day!  It's an experience that's hard to capture with pictures, but here are 17 that tried!

All geared up and waiting for the shuttle bus to take us to the trailhead!  There's a shop called Zion Outfitters right outside the park entrance that rents everything you need for The Narrows-- from waterproof backpacks to neoprene socks.  We just got our sticks from them.  I read dozens of reviews about how much gear you actually need.  We found we didn't need much.

It's about a mile hike just to get to the river entrance.  It's pretty!  We were on this trail by 7:30 am.  Crowds are crazy at The Narrows.

Once you get in the river, you don't go far until the water gets deep!  We were up to our waist within minutes.  This is one of the natural crowd-thinning places.

There are only a few deep sections, though.  Mostly the water was shin-deep.

Summer is flash flood season and this winter Zion saw lots of snow which is now melting, so the rapids were up!  Taking careful steps on wobbly stones while the rapids tried to carry you away was one of the fun challenges of this hike! 

Look for this picture on our Christmas card! ;)

Ella taking a little break from the water to climb the boulders!

Dave found this heart shaped rock in the river so we had to take a cheesy picture with it.

As the sun rose higher in the day, the red rock walls changed colors!  I love how this section started glowing gold!

Some of the path was through pretty narrow walls.  Guess that's how the hike got its name!

It was interesting how the temps changed as we hiked too.  In this one section, the water suddenly got really cold, even though it was close to noon and the sun was hot.  We dressed in layers.

Fun to find little waterfalls trickling down the canyon walls.

On dry ground again and making our way back to the shuttle.  

This was a pretty awesome day.  Even Delia, who does not love to hike, loved this one.  Each step was an effort, but every bend in the river brought a new fantastic view.  Though it was a hot day, we stayed cool enough to wear long sleeves through most of it because the water was so refreshing.  We'll all remember this adventure our whole lives!