Day 2: Saturday, September 25

Saturday, September 25, 2010
First day of the road trip based out of Las Vegas. Definitely didn’t get ‘up and at ‘em’ as early as I had hoped, but that’s probably what happens when you stay up way past 11PM losing $5 on slots! Ha ha

We hit the road around 6AM and saw the sun rise as we headed towards the Valley of Fire State Park. When planning, its easy to say “yeah we’ll just drive through here and maybe take a few pictures”. That turned into about 3 hours exploring the park (which is only about 60 miles northeast of Las Vegas, and it’s a shame that people go to Vegas all the time and don’t check it out)…
We did a little hiking (probably 1.5 miles total) into some cool wave-like features. The sun hit us pretty hard, but it was a good first hike. We spent some time hanging out at the Cabins which were built in the 1930’s for hikers/travelers through the park.

After visiting Valley of Fire we headed north to St. George, Utah where we had a picnic lunch in a park under a tree and then headed to Page. The drive in total took about 6 hours from Valley of Fire. We arrived at Wahweap Campground, right on Lake Powell, about 3:30pm and set up the tent. Turned out the tent we rented was slightly bigger than we need(ed). Big enough for 4 people comfortably (I believe its 10’x10’. That’s roughing it!. Not to mention we had wifi at the campground. Really REALLY roughing it. After setting up the tent, we decided to head into Page and stop at the Glen Canyon Dam. I got my first cancellation stamp in my nerdly National Parks Service Passport book, for the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

We tried to find a good spot for sunset, and by the time we got back to the marina area it was just too late. The the light over the rocks around Lake Powell was still pretty awesome, a cool purpleish hue.
Back at the campground we brainstormed plans for the next few days. We decided to forgo the Grand Canyon so we wouldn’t have to rush through Moab and that area. Our plan for Sunday is to head to Monument Valley for the night. After grabbing showers at the campground, we called it a night with hopes to get up around 4:45 and head to Horseshoe Bend just south of Page…

Not much time to add photos to this but you can follow daily photo updates as often as I can get them up: CLICK HERE