Trip 2005 - Zion National Park

Last night, when we arrived at the Virgin River Casino, I immediately went and got a bite to eat at the restaurant. I probably didn't mention that while in Vegas, we ate at one of those world famous buffets that everyone always boats about. I think we ate at Harrah's Casino, and the buffet was like $16.99. It did have prime rib, crab legs, maybe lobster, but I still don't think that it was worth $17 dollars. It was good, but I was feeling kind of sick, and didn't really eat that much. I was starving at midnight when we got there, and got a cheeseburger and fries. It was yummy, and it gave me fuel to lose more money for 2 hours. I really enjoyed the casino, and really wish that I could have had something to show for my time spent there. These smaller casinos were supposed to have better odds than Vegas, but so far it doesn't seem like that is the case for me. I losing everything, and it didn't get any better as the day went on.

Home

Before heading out to Zion National Park, we stopped back into the casino so that I could put a bet down on the Milwaukee Brewers vs. Washington Nationals baseball game. I put $10 dollars down on the Brewers to win. If that were to happen, I would win $12.50 or something, essentially doubling my money. We put a couple more dollars into the slot machines without receiving any back, and finally headed east to Utah and Zion National park.

The Casino was also a hotel, the likes of which we stayed at. This is a picture of me in the parking lot. To my right is the hotel/casino property (which is huge and not really in the picture) and to my right is absolutely nothing but desert.  That's pretty much the norm for all of these casinos on the boarder between Nevada and other states.

The state of Nevada is basically flat because of the desserts, so it was a joy to get closer to the mountains, and an even greater joy when we got to drive through them. This is the beginning of the gorge that is cut through the rock courtesy of the Virgin river. The drive to Zion was truly a sight to behold.

That truck behind me tried to kill me as I was standing at the gas station. I was taking pictures and goofing around, then I looked up and saw this truck barreling toward me. I think he honked at me to get out of the way, but I wasn't paying attention. Behind me you'll see an awesome looking rock formation, which we would see throughout the day. The one at the right was near the entrance to the park, and I thought that it looked cool.

Sometimes I see things that make me laugh. While walking towards the tram that would take us to the hiking paths, I saw this rock formation (circled in white) that I thought looked like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers headquarters (pictured at right) where their leader, Zordon, directed all of their operations in the battle vs. Rita Repulsa. I got home and found the actual picture of the base, and decided that it looks nothing like the rock formation. Oh well, at least it was a good laugh when I was walking alone in the mountains of Utah...

The Virgin River is responsible for creating this gorge, and the United States Government is responsible for creating this National Park and paving trails alongside the river for people to walk upon. But Mother Nature and God are responsible for creating this cool trickling waterfall that dribbles down the side of one of the rock walls (pictured on the left.) A lot of people/groups/things were held responsible for their actions.

Even though it was cooler in here, I still had to stop for a rest because it was a lot of uphill hiking. This trail was the least strenuous, so I'm glad that we chose this one. This trail was also the last stop on the tram, so we got to see the most amount of scenery on the trip to and from the trail area. It was a real neat experience and also quite calming.

The canyon walls were so high that the sun was able to only shine upon one side, leaving everyone within the valley in shade, as well as one half of the gorge. The lack of sun (and the river which contained melted snow from mountains) made the temperature in here about 20 degrees cooler than the desert, which was completely fine with me.