Las Vegas, Baby!

This was our first view of the city as we drove in. A bit smoggy but still beautiful! It is very HOT here! Everyone says, "yes, but it's dry heat" but I gotta tell you it is still HOT!

We drove the strip and parked at the MGM Grand to get our tickets to the circus for tonight. I never felt so much like a small town girl. I stood in the lobby gaping and gasping just watching people and trying to take in the opulence of it all!

The is the MGM Grand. There is a huge parking garage just outside so it was easy to get in and out. I finally found a slot machine that was nicer to me...no I didn't win but I played for a long time on my $2! I had it up to $30 at one time but of course pissed it away trying for the "big win". It was fun and I could finally see how people could sit and play the slots for hours.

This is the lobby. There are shops lined up and the casino right there. So many people rushing about like they had someplace important to be. I was glad not to have to be any place but right in my people-watching spot!

We drove up and down the strip and in that miracle mile we went to Paris (Eifle Tower), New York (Statue of Liberty) and Egypt (pyramid and Sphinx) and saw all the famous casinos that are always in the movies. It was sensory overload!

There was a huge roller coaster behind some buildings and I could see people riding it. I couldn't help but think of Cameron and know that he and Savannah would be in line for a ride for sure!

What an amazing place this is! Tonight we will see the Cirque du Soleil at the MGM Grand. I can't take pictures so don't count on any pictures of it from me but I'll buy postcards and tell you about it tomorrow.

Bryce Canyon

Our Bryce Canyon day turned out much different than we expected but was a wonderful day! We went into the Bryce Canyon National Park (thank goodness for the park pass which got us in free instead of paying another $25) but there were so many cars and people in the park that the rangers were blocking off overlooks because there wasn't room for any more cars. We made it into the main area but there was no place to park so I jumped out and took pictures (they are a little further down the page) and then we left the park for other adventures.

This picture is Devil's Garden. It was 15 miles down a dirt road. We engaged the 4 wheel drive so we had a little more traction on the washboard but it was dusty, rattly all the way! It was worth it to see this beautiful formation. If you look closely you can see Bill and Mindy at the base of the first formation (hopefully if you click the picture you can get a bigger version).

On the way we saw this stick fence. There were metal fence posts spaced out for stability but it looked so cool! I don't know what it is used for but there were cattle along the road also behind mostly stick fences. Where they got all those sticks is a mystery to me since there were no trees in sight except scrub bushes.

We left Devil's Garden and headed on down the dirt road toward "Hole in the Rock" which was another 40 miles. After about 15 or 20 miles of bone jarring, teeth chattering road which was getting worse every mile, we turned back. A hole in a rock just wasn't worth it! We were covered in dust by the time we got back to the highway. We decided we could visualize a hole in a rock and skip the actual experience!

Another side road into the mountains and we saw this beautiful deer or elk (we couldn't decide which it is). It posed for me to take many pictures of it. I think it was wondering what tourists were doing off the beaten path!

The spikes are called hoodoos and are formed by wind and water. They are so gorgeous and surprising! This picture was at Red Canyon before you get to Bryce. There were two short tunnels through the red rock we drove through. I wish I could put more pictures but you get the idea. Bryce is the main attraction but there are hoodoos and beautiful scenes all around!

The stripes are caused by a difference in the iron content. The redder the rock, the more iron and the whiter the rock the less iron. Alabama must be full of iron too!

This is one of the pictures at the overlook at Bryce Canyon. I took so many pictures and they are all beautiful. Now I'm wondering why I chose this one for the blog. It doesn't show how vast the red formations are in the canyon.

Tomorrow we will move South to Zion. They say it is different from Bryce but beautiful in a different way. I am in awe of our wonderful country and so grateful that I am seeing these wonders for myself.

Panguitch

This has been a hard day but we made it to Panguitch, Ut, only 30 miles from Bryce Canyon! We have a nice RV Park and I have a good frozen dinner to fix so we will survive!

The wind was terrible most of the way here. Poor Bill fought the motor home all over the road! This picture is after we turned off I15 and we drove over the mountains you see. At the summit we were almost 8,000 feet elevation! Then into a valley where the tiny, historic town of Panguitch lies (at least that's what we read.)

The dust you see flying came in the windows which were all open to catch the air so we didn't have to travel with the generator and air conditioners on. Big mistake! Now the inside of the motor home is really dusty! Oh well, I have wipes and a little vacuum with me so that's fixable.

Tomorrow we will take the Jeep through Bryce on a scenic drive. I've studied the book Tiz gave us (Thanks, Tiz!) and think I know what we want to see. Tomorrow's post should be more interesting. Gotta go dust a while now.

Salt Lake City

I love the welcome sign at the Utah border! We stopped at a welcome center and received free books about the sights to see and the state. They are beautiful booklets with great information! We feel so welcome and are really looking forward to spending some time here. First we will stop at Camping World (thanks, Clem, for telling us about this place). We spent the night in the parking lot at Camping World and got an oil change, new potty and a new awning. They also fixed the tv. They had power and water in the parking lot so it wasn't as bad as it sounds!

While the work was being done we took the Jeep and Mindy out to see the sights. I've been trying to get Cameron a hockey jersey the whole trip but Montana doesn't have a team (HUH!!) and in Idaho we couldn't find any place to buy one. The guy at Fanzz said to go online to get one. Finally here we found the Grizzlies Hockey headquarters and they called a guy in who dug in boxes till he found a jersey for me to buy (don't tell Cameron). They were SO nice to us. Who knew that hockey would be more popular in Alabama than these snow states??

We went in search of the Great Salt Lake. After seeing the "great" Falls I didn't know what to expect of the great salt lake. If there is a word bigger than great to describe this beautiful lake I would us it! Spectacular!! We saw buffalo, prong horns and a little lizard that I thought I had taken a picture of but when I downloaded it to the computer the lizard wasn't in the picture I took! Fast little bugger!! Anyway, the lake is beautiful and seeing the same animals in this different setting was totally worth seeing.

It's hard to tell in the picture but those are little, long legged birds in the water. There were hundreds of them! Also white sea gulls are plentiful. It was like being at the beach on the ocean except that it is a lake. Amazing!

Tomorrow we head south and will visit Bryce Canyon and Zion. I can't wait!

Idaho

We were ready to get on the road for Idaho and leave Montana behind, fondly, when we discovered that the GPS wasn't to be found! We searched the motor home...nope...searched the Jeep thinking we had left it in when we carried groceries in but...nope! We headed out to Wal-Mart to buy another GPS. What else could we do? Wal-Mart didn't have the one we wanted so I found a phone book to see if I could locate one close by. I looked in my purse for a pen and paper and THERE IT WAS! I must have dropped it in when we were carrying groceries in. Silly Me! Anyway, we were on the road to Idaho!

After miles and miles of flat or rolling hills we came to a lava flow. It reminded us of New Mexico. The sign at the rest area told a little about it but not much. There was no visitor center and at the rest stop there were no brochures telling about Idaho so we decided that it wouldn't hurt to blow on through. It was still early when we got to Idaho Falls so we kept going to Pocatello. It should be an easy drive from here to Salt Lake City. We'll stay here tomorrow and leave Tuesday for Utah.

Miles of black, rough lava!

The fields here are either irrigated and green or dry, dessert looking. How do you irrigate an entire farm? They do it with huge LONG irrigation apparatus on wheels that shoots water out over huge areas. I know that lots of places irrigate but I've never seen such massive areas under irrigation. Interesting.

Next post from Utah! Should start getting interesting again.

Huckleberries

Everything here is huckleberry! I've seen lotions, candles, candies, pies, lip balm and various jars of huckleberry concoctions. Today Frank treated us to some of those wonders. Vickie and I had huckleberry ice cream and Bill and Frank had pie. Oh my!! The ice cream was a beautiful purple color with berries in a waffle cone and it was a little bit of heaven! Actually it was a LOT of heaven because it was huge! I thought I'd never finish such a big cone but I did. I tasted the pie and it was delicious too but I'm glad I had the ice cream. Vickie said the pie had too much cinnamon (is that possible?) but Bill ate every bite and said it was good. Huckleberries don't grow in our part of the country. They look just like a blueberry but they taste different. I am coming home with syrup, jam and various other goodies. YUM!

Glacier National Park

The beautiful Glacier National Park presented mountains, glaciers, water falls and breathtaking scenes unlike any other mountains I ever saw. You'd think that mountains would look pretty much the same any place but they are all SO different! The hard part is deciding which pictures to show you, I took so many. This one was taken after it got rainy but shows the snow and height well. Every time we wet around a curve the change in the look of the mountains was striking.

As cold and barren as the mountains look when you drive into them there are the most beautiful wild flowers growing in every nook and cranny that has a bit of dirt. Red, purple, white and yellow flowers grow in abundance along the road and under the trees. I really love the flowers!

The waterfalls were from melting snow and fell forever, down the mountain, under the road and on down to a creek or river that continued on down the mountain. There were so many! There was one place called the weeping wall that was sheer black rock that looked like it was weeping because so much water was dripping down. You wonder how there could be any snow or glaciers left on the mountain with all that melting and falling.

This was a construction zone and all the cars lined up are waiting for a pilot car to lead them, single file, along the road and then it turns around and leads the other other side. The wait can be long be we were lucky and didn't have too long to wait.

We finally saw a mountain goat and she was right next to the road! I could almost have touched it from the car!! Mindy was in the back of the Jeep and never even barked. She just watched and waited for the next exciting sight.

Notice how blue/green the water is!! I was amazed by the color of the water in all the creeks and rivers running down the mountain. I finally found out why in the book we bought about the glaciers. As the glaciers move they grind rock into a fine powder called flour that actually stays suspended in the water and as they reflect and refract sunlight they impart a beautiful turquoise blue to the water. Amazing!