Day 287: Las Vegas – Zion National Park
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Sunday May 22nd
‘That’s what you get for waking up in Vegas’ … unfortunately we didn’t have any wild stories when we woke up that morning, but Katy Perry’s song still became our anthem for that morning. I woke up and checked the footy results and was instantly depressed - Adelaide had been up by 23 points at ¾ time and ended up losing by 42 to Collingwood! They always lose in the last quarter!
We ate breakfast in the hotel car park (I tried Honey Nut Cheerios for the first time) and then headed to a Vegas grocery store to stock up on supplies, as we would be out in the bush for the next few days. It was so funny the way we shopped – we all lined up, military style, and Amy would read out an item and the quantity for us to find within the store. Upon return, Amy would check the product, quantity, size and price against her check-list, and then place it in either the breakfast, lunch or dinner trolley. Can you believe there were even slot machines here?
We were finally on the road, this time heading to Zion National Park – back on schedule! We went through several states (Nevada and Arizona) before arriving into Utah and Zion National Park. We’d actually lost an hour due to the timezone change, so by the time we’d eaten lunch, put up our tents and unpacked the van it was near 5pm.
We all took the free park shuttle to the visitor’s centre, where Cassie gave us a run-down of the hikes available to do the next day. To be honest, none of us had even heard of Zion, but it was really beautiful – massive red sandstone formations, with different layers showing its creation over thousands of years.
The group took the free park shuttle to the last stop, then did a short 1.6 mile hike to the river. Along the way, we kept stopping at picturesque spots to plank (it has become an obsession of the group) and do extreme push-ups (I’m trying to start a new craze). By the time we got back to the campsite (which was now overrun by school kids), it was past 8pm. Most of the group stayed up to make s’mores around the campfire (an American tradition of toasted marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate, although we substituted the chocolate for Nutella) and then retired to our tents at 11pm. I had a tent all to myself, which made it the first night in 7 months that I had slept by myself (in a purely innocent sense of course – no bunk bed, no dorm, no shared hotels, no shared tents!)
‘That’s what you get for waking up in Vegas’ … unfortunately we didn’t have any wild stories when we woke up that morning, but Katy Perry’s song still became our anthem for that morning. I woke up and checked the footy results and was instantly depressed - Adelaide had been up by 23 points at ¾ time and ended up losing by 42 to Collingwood! They always lose in the last quarter!
We ate breakfast in the hotel car park (I tried Honey Nut Cheerios for the first time) and then headed to a Vegas grocery store to stock up on supplies, as we would be out in the bush for the next few days. It was so funny the way we shopped – we all lined up, military style, and Amy would read out an item and the quantity for us to find within the store. Upon return, Amy would check the product, quantity, size and price against her check-list, and then place it in either the breakfast, lunch or dinner trolley. Can you believe there were even slot machines here?
We were finally on the road, this time heading to Zion National Park – back on schedule! We went through several states (Nevada and Arizona) before arriving into Utah and Zion National Park. We’d actually lost an hour due to the timezone change, so by the time we’d eaten lunch, put up our tents and unpacked the van it was near 5pm.
We all took the free park shuttle to the visitor’s centre, where Cassie gave us a run-down of the hikes available to do the next day. To be honest, none of us had even heard of Zion, but it was really beautiful – massive red sandstone formations, with different layers showing its creation over thousands of years.
The group took the free park shuttle to the last stop, then did a short 1.6 mile hike to the river. Along the way, we kept stopping at picturesque spots to plank (it has become an obsession of the group) and do extreme push-ups (I’m trying to start a new craze). By the time we got back to the campsite (which was now overrun by school kids), it was past 8pm. Most of the group stayed up to make s’mores around the campfire (an American tradition of toasted marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate, although we substituted the chocolate for Nutella) and then retired to our tents at 11pm. I had a tent all to myself, which made it the first night in 7 months that I had slept by myself (in a purely innocent sense of course – no bunk bed, no dorm, no shared hotels, no shared tents!)
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