For the last two years October has been my month to explore. The last two Octobers I have travelled internationally, but this year I wanted to visit some National Parks. I told my friend of my desire to visit national parks and she suggested Utah, I doubted her until she told me to google it and I quickly became sold. As we planned our trip we decided to meet in Las Vegas and travel to Utah from there.
I arrived in Las Vegas on Friday night and had a couple of hours before my friend would arrive, so I decided to walk the strip. I grabbed dinner and a drink at hash house a go go which serves breakfast all day/night, after dinner I caught a dueling piano show. It was around midnight when my friend arrived and I was exhausted, we drove straight to the hotel. We stayed the night at the Best Western Hoover Dam which was conveniently located about 20 minutes from the Hoover Dam, and that was our first stop. We got up early the next morning and stayed at the Hoover Dam for about two hours and the views were just incredible.
After leaving the Dam we began our three hour drive to Utah. I have taken a lot of road trips in the past, but none that would compare to this. It was absolutely beautiful, there were mountains for days in all different shapes and sizes and colors. After we arrived in Utah we headed straight to our second stop, Zion National Park. Zion is known as a climber’s paradise for its 2,000 foot sandstone cliffs, and Angels landing standing 1,488 feet tall and overlooking the park, Angels landing is also known to be one of the world’s most dangerous climbs as people have died attempting this climb. And of course we hiked up Angels, but not all the way to the top as it got more dangerous. My sneakers we not equip for the climb and my friend admitted to me 1,200 feet up that she was afraid of heights.
Later that evening we checked into our AirBnB in Hurricane, Utah, and after checking in it was time for dinner. After a quick search on yelp we quickly learned that Hurricane and Utah for that matter did not have much to offer, so we decided on Mexican. The next day we woke up around 6am so that we could drive to Bryce Canyon National Park which was about two hours away from Hurricane. Bryce Canyon was my favorite, the views were incredible and the way the canyons were formed was different than the other parks we visited. I really enjoyed this park and wish I was able to hike it and really enjoy it the way I wanted to but the weather that day took me by surprise. It was 37 degrees with winds that felt like 50 miles per hour and I was not properly dressed, I had on sweat pants, long sleeves with a hoodie.
After we left Bryce we decided to head back to Zion National Park because there was so much to see at Zion that we missed the first time around. We only stayed at Zion for a couple hours, but that was just enough time for us to take a moderate hike along the Virgin River. I enjoyed this hike because it was so peaceful to walk along the water and just enjoying the scenery.
It was Monday morning and out mini vacay was coming to an end, but first there was two more parks to visit, Snow Canyon & Valley of Fire State Park. After spending all weekend in the National Parks and seeing the different Canyons, all the parks started to look the same; and while the last two parks were beautiful, our stay there wasn’t long. Thankfully both parks had a road that ran from one end to the other, allowing us to drive through each park rather than hike through them.
This was one of the best road trips I have taken and not just because of the scenery, but because I was able to unplug. The service wasn’t always great forcing me to use my phone for the camera. I was able to enjoy nature without wondering what was going on on social media.
Takiyah Travels 