Thursday, August 14, 2008

Road Trip Report - Day 7

Leaving Las Vegas
Today we checked out of the Mirage and started on the trip home. Overall, our stay at the Mirage was very nice. We had one of the newly remodeled rooms and an extra large one at that. We liked the outdoor cafe by the pool and had good food at several other restaurants in the Mirage.

The room had a few shortcomings though. I tried to iron one of my shirts one of the nights we were going out to a show, but the iron in the room didn't work. The water control in the shower didn't seem logical. When you first turn it, hot water comes out. The farther you turn it, the colder the water gets. That seems backwards to me. Our room was on the 24th floor. It seems that the rooms on the 25th floor were still undergoing reconstruction. Each morning we could hear hammering, drilling, and other construction noises from the floor above. But today as Janet was using the computer, we heard what sounded like water running in the bathroom. When we investigated, it appeared that a plumbing mishap from the floor above resulted in water pouring out of the exhaust fan in our bathroom ceiling, splashing all over the floor and toilet seat. It stopped shortly and was easily cleaned up with a couple of towels. We're just glad the toilet wasn't engaged at the time.

Our drive today was another scenic one. Our destination was Richfield Utah which was a short enough distance to allow us to revisit the canyons on the way. We drove through Zion National Park, starting at the main entrance and leaving through the east entrance, which includes driving through a narrow mile long tunnel. You begin to run out of adjectives to describe the views. Awsome, amazing, breathtaking, just don't seem to say enough. We took pictures but they just don't tell the story any more than 1000 words do.

Driving through Zion



Viewing the Checkerboard Mesa


From Zion we returned to Bryce Canyon for a few sights from view points we didn't have time to visit before. The views from the high "Inspiration Point", and the even higher "Bryce Point" were spectacular.

In Red Canyon on the way to Bryce

From Inspiration Point

From Bryce Point

We left Bryce as the sun was setting and had to drive the hundred or so miles to our hotel in the dark. However, we didn't have to cross a mountain this time and we had an almost full moon to help light the road. Tomorrow we're heading to Denver.

No comments: