OUT WEST ADVENTURES

  "We travel, initially, to lose ourselves,

and we travel, next to find ourselves.

We travel to open our hears and eyes.

And we travel, in essence, to become

young fools again -- to slow time down 

and get taken in , and fall in love once more."

Pico Iyer

June 1:
There are 7 of us off for adventure.  We plan to rent a house between Zion and Bryce National Parks for a week. Then move to the Flagstaff area for a few days and return back to Las Vegas for a couple of days before returning home.  The cast of characters is Paula and Jorge, Betsy and Roddy, Myra, Nick and me.

We need to leave at 6am to catch our flight out to Las Vegas.  Ben generously gets up to take us but there are too many of us to fit in his car.  Our neighbor drives for Ubber so we plan ahead for him to take some of us in the morning.  Uneventful flight - Just the way you want it.

Once in Las Vegas, we make our way to a nice off-site building where all of the rental agencies are.  Our 15 passenger van is waiting for us.  Nick is our driver.  Off we go.  It is about a 3 hour drive up to Duck Creek where we're renting a cabin for a week.

Las Vegas - What an alternate reality!  We spot familiar hotels as we drive out of town.  We will be staying at Treasure Island on our return.

We all remark over the difference in landscape.  So open, deserted and dry! We briefly dip into Arizona and have lunch at Peggy Sue's.  Great burgers and malts!

Paula and Myra at Peggy Sue's

At Cedar City, it starts getting much more mountainous.  Our cabin is about another 45 minutes up the road.  We've been told the closest grocery store is in Cedar City so we stock up for the week.  We were quite organized and had a list divided up between produce, dairy, meat, other.  Everyone got a list and off we went.  One of our best purchases was a small step stool to make it easier to get in and out of the van.

We arrive at our cabin at Duck Creek.  Oh, the week will be nice!

June 2:  ZION NATIONAL PARK

Nick makes us a delicious egg and bacon breakfast to start us off on our day at Zion.  We make sandwiches to take with us.


It is a about a 1 hour drive to the park. How beautiful the drive is!  We take the Mount Carmel highway to the park which takes us through a 1.1 mile long tunnel.  The road down from the tunnel had multiple switchbacks.

Our first stop in the park is checkerboard mount.  A ranger is there to greet us and tell us a little about the area.

We find a parking spot in Springdale and catch the shuttle into the park.  Boy, those senior passes are great!  We take the shuttle all the way to the end for the trailhead to the Riverside Trail.  At the end of the Riverside trail, one can enter the Virgin River into the Narrows.

 People aren't to feed the animals but the squirrels know that people drop food and crumbs so the squirrels are quite bold.

 Hanging gardens are where water seeps out of the rock which allows plants to grow.

 We stop along the river to enjoy the sandwiches we brought.

 Betsy, Myra, Nick and Ginger ventured into the river.  Very refreshing but boy, the going was tricky. The walking sticks made it somewhat easier.  After a couple of crossings, Betsy and Myra turned back and Ginger and Nick went around a few more bends in the river.  Ginger lost her footing on one of the crossings and took a bit of a dunking.  Luckily, the plastic bag around the camera held and the camera didn't get wet.

Took the shuttle back to the car and headed back to our cabin, sweet cabin.
All are tired and happy.

Nick grilled up some hamburgers which we all devoured.  The cabin has a hot tub which several of us enjoyed before heading off to bed.