It’s been a while since I took some vacation time so we decided to fly to Las Vegas and squeeze a road trip in the middle of our stay to visit some National Parks. Our plan was to stay 2 nights in Las Vegas before hitting the highway for 3 nights, and then head back to Las Vegas for one last night before flying home. Each day driving would consist of about 300 or so miles with several stops along the way.
We flew into Las Vegas early on Saturday morning and took a quick taxi ride to our hotel, Harrah’s, on The Strip. We checked in our bags and headed straight out into the 108 degree heat to find something to eat. As hot as it was, we both were looking forward to the heat and it didn’t slow us down.
After grabbing a quick bite for lunch we walked down The Strip towards Bellagio. We took our time looking at the changes that have taken place since I visited last. Rotchana was excited to see all the casinos and how many people were out and about. We spent the afternoon visiting the Conservatory at Bellagio and walking through one of the indoor shopping centers located at Planet Hollywood.
We spent a little time in the hotel cooling down and resting before heading out for the evening. We stopped by Bellagio again to see the fountain show and then headed over to The Mirage to watch the volcano show. Victoria enjoyed the fountains more than the loud volcano.
The next day we took the monorail down towards the southern end of The Strip to take Victoria to Circus Circus. We spent a couple hours there playing some games so she could win a barbie doll and a Pikachu. She had a great time winning tickets and playing the games.
After spending all of our tickets we took a quick cab ride down to downtown to walk along Fremont Street. Although they’ve added some entertainment along the street and added zip lines to go with the light show, the downtown area seemed tired and not as fun as the north end of The Strip.
We made it back to the hotel around 10:00pm and Rotchana went down to the casino for about an hour to try her luck at some slot machines. Victoria and I stayed in the room to watch a movie together.
The next morning we checked out of our hotel around 8:00am so we could head to the rental car place to get our car for the next 4 days. By 10:00am we were headed out on the highway towards our first stop, Valley of Fire.
We spent about an hour taking our time driving along the road within the park stopping now and then to take photos. It was hot, but there were still quite a few cars driving around. We didn’t do any hiking, but that was more for time reasons than the heat.
Our next stop was at Zion National Park. We spent a few hours in the park sightseeing and pretty much stuck to the main roads. Perhaps another time when we have more time and it’s not over 100 degrees we’d like to come back and explore the area more. I’ve been to Zion before and hadn’t done much, but like this time, I think there’s a lot more to the park than what we saw.
A couple of hours back on the highway took us to our first overnight location, Cedar City, Utah. We checked into our hotel around 7:00pm and ran out to grab a quick bite to eat before crashing for the night.
