All great stories are supposed to start with a catchy punchline or phrase but unfortunately this blog cant start that way because the first part of our trip (the flights) was very disappointing.
We flew Sydney to Las Vegas via Vancouver and both flights were packed to the rafters and therefore quite noisy with people chatting during the night as well as babies that cried for 10 of the 14hr flight. Usually we grab a couple of winks but this was not the case on the Sydney - Vancouver flight. All flights were delayed an hour, although that didnt affect our connections. We then had issues with our hire car at Avis. My printed confirmation and reminder had the price as USD 604 but system was showing as USD 2500. After an hour of queueing and arguing, we cancelled the reservation and walked to Alamo, who kindly offered us an equivalent for cheaper and included the insurances and an additional driver in the sub $600 reservation. Bought some groceries, had dinner and after 32 hours awake, we crashed at 7.30pm. Saw nothing of Las Vegas but well do a night of sightseeing when we
Woke at 8.30am with no jetlag and ready to roll. We left our Airbnb at 10am and drove 1hr north to the Valley of Fires. It was raining when we left LV and the scenery was full of sporadic small grey canyons, until we rounded a corner and voila! - the rocks were deep red! It was here that we entered the Valley of Fires state park and we could see why it was named that way. The rain had stopped so we made our way to several walks. Our walk of choice, the Fire Wave, was closed for the season due to summer temperatures, even though it wasnt a hot day. Our next pick of walks was The White Domes. It was a short 2.4km loop trail that meandered around brilliant red rock formations interspersed with rocks that had white tops. There was also a slot canyon. Slot canyon is a generic term that Americans use for narrow canyons. In Australia, the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney has a ton of them. It was fun to squeeze through the narrow fissure. We even spotted big horn sheep up on
a ridge. After White Domes we stopped at Mouses Tank for lunch which had several undercover picnic tables, where two chipmunks came to say hello. We gave them one almond and one walnut each. They ate the walnuts but buried the almonds for later. So cute!
After 2 hours of looking around and agreeing that it was better than wed expected, we made our way back to the interstate and crossed into Arizona and then Utah. It was a very pretty drive with one section snaking its way through an impressive canyon not unlike the Grand Canyon, following the Virgin River. It is called Virgin River Gorge and it was impressive with its flat tops and many chiselled levels towering hundreds of metres above us. It was an enjoyable drive, to say the least.
