5/20/2010
Las Vegas, NV
The first stop on our road trip was Pocatello, Idaho. We are going to Laina's aunts house, where we will cast our wedding rings. We made the drive in a little over 3 hours, driving across the south of Idaho and following the Snake River for most of the way. We had good weather, made good time and arrived before sunset. It was really nice to see Beany and George again, and we quickly got to business in the studio downstairs, sorting gold and getting the torch ready. Beany had already made us our wax molds of the rings that we saw a week earlier, and then made a plaster cast of those molds, which she had in the kiln the morning before we arrived. With the mold ready, we heated the gold up with a torch until it was liquid, and then set the centrifuge to send the gold into the cast. Once the gold went into the cast, we dropped it into water to cool, and then broke apart the cast to see the rings! They were beautiful!
We left the next morning and headed to Capitol Reef National Park, drove south through Salt Lake City, and continued all the way down to the red rock landscape so typical of southern Utah. Getting into Capitol Reef was amazing, huge red cliffs on both sides of the highway, and as far as you can see on the horizon. Our first night, we set up camp in the Fruita campground, and then took a short hike up the reef and enjoyed some red wine during a spectacular red sunset. We made some friends in the campground, heated up some chili and potatoes on the fire. The next day we drove aound the scenic route, hiked grand wash, some other narrows, and then went to see Capitol Dome. After another cold night camping, we jumped in the car and headed to Bryce Canyon.
Driving to Bryce Canyon, we drove through some fantastic scenery. One part of it, "The Devil's Backbone" had a road on a ridge, with drop-off's on both sides at least 300 feet. We continued over a 10,000 foot summit pass, and then down into Bryce territory. Bryce Canyon National Park is at 8100 feet, and is spectacular. It looks somewhat like a coral reef, thousands of pillars and spires, all with similar striations giving it an eerie blurry look. From the park, you look down into the canyon, from many different vistas, and paths. We only stayed in the park for 2 hours, because we wanted to camp at the lower elevation, hence warmer, Zion National Park.
Arriving into Zion, I couldn't stop saying how incredible the views were. We entered from the west entrance, and from the first 200m my jaw was slack from the sights. The beginning of the park was amazing, you are driving on top of and in the slickrock. Once you drive through this area, you see the checkered slickrock hills, and they are so close you cannot see anything else. Then you go through a mile-long tunnel and when you come out on the other side, the whole canyon opens up in front of you. You can see across, down and far away, the canyon is huge, majestic and red. We got a campground, spent a fantastic night with our fellow campers, Texans and Portlanders, and then toured the park for the whole next day. Our last night in Zion we camped outside the park, at a BLM campsite. I jammed with a mandolin player from Fort Collins, CO, and chatted late into the night with a couple from Steamboat. The next morning we headed Las Vegas way, stopping in a failed attempt to swim in lake mead, and then got stuck in construction for a double failure! We finally did get into Las Vegas and met up with our CS host, Mark. After much needed showers, we headed to the strip for food and fun. After a few 99 cent beers, and Chipotle, we started our tour of the casinos. We saw them all! We were most impressed by the Venetian and Bellagio. I decided the bathroom in the Bellagio was the opposite of the bathroom at the bus terminal in La Paz, Bolivia. After a long night of much walking, we wound up back home for some chatting and much needed sleep.
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