Day 5: Las Vegas to Zion

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Chilling in my Trump robe before getting busy ...

 ok, so I just put it on for a quick picture ... who has time to chill?!

Part of the ridiculous bathroom with TV built into the mirror.

The view from my parents' suite with the tall peak of the Stratosphere on the right.

Well, our life of luxury unfortunately must come to an end, but not without taking a peek at the pool we could have been enjoying if we had more time.

This kind of makes me regret not going to the pool!

My parents volunteer to spend the rest of the trip at the Trump while we continue our lightening tour of the Southwest, but we drag them, nearly kicking and screaming, out of their suite.

After another quick drugstore visit we stop by an out of the way IHOP (International House of Pancakes) for breakfast. October is pumpkin season and Sandy is thrilled to discover her beloved pumpkin pancakes have made their way back onto the menu. Not wanting to miss out I also order the pumpkin pancake combo, while my parents start the day with healthy salads.

Very lifelike mannequin waving a sign for an emissions testing facility that looks to be advertising "Free Smog" until you get close enough to read the smaller print. 

Our destination for today is Zion National Park, but first we will detour past Valley of Fire a 35,000 acre park in the Mojave desert about an hour outside of Las Vegas. Since it's a Nevada State Park, our National Park pass won’t cover the admission, but this is not something you want to miss out on!

We haven’t even hit the first point of interest before my parents are out of the car, running around taking pictures. 

After I get them corralled back in the car we don't let them out again until we arrive at the Beehives. These crazy sandstone formations are excellent examples of cross-bedding; the lines in the rock represent different layers of silt deposits and how they were shaped by wind and water.

  

One of the peekaboo openings in the rock

Cow´s tongue prickly pear cactus at the visitors center.

Time is limited so I tell my parents to decide between Mouse Tanks’ petroglyphs and the Fire Wave and they decide on the latter, so after a quick stop at Rainbow Wash we head for parking lot #3.

Rainbow Wash 

 Back in 2011 the Fire Wave trail wasn't on the map and we had to rely on a set of vague German instructions to find it. In 2013  the 1.5 mile Fire Wave Trail was opened to the public and quickly became one of the most popular hikes in the park. 

From a preservation standpoint it makes sense; people were hiking out to see it anyway and creating a marked trail allows better protection of the fragile environment.

See the tiny trail marker on the top right of the hill? That's where we are going.

Created by shifting sand dunes 150 million years ago, the The Fire Wave rises from the desert floor like a flame.  

I may prefer the backside ...


Side view with the Fire Wave on the right side and a partial collapse on the left.

Note all the debris below; how long do you think the Fire Wave will survive? A decade? A thousand years? A million? Time will tell ...

   

  

 Looking back towards the trailhead

A little closer ...

Close-up

Where did all these dark rocks come from?

Someone explain to me how this place is not a National Park?!

It's hard to appreciate the vastness of the area until you see it in person, but this should give you some idea. You can just barely make out Sandy and my parents walking in the distance.

We exit through the east entrance, where the GPS directs us backwards and the drive ends up being a lot longer than expected.

We cross from Nevada into Arizona

… into Utah!

I'm not a fan of taking drive-by pictures because they never come out right, but I'll make an exception for this one 

By the time we reach Springdale it’s 5:30 and to make matters worse we overshoot the parking lot at the visitors center. We press on only to find all the parking spaces near the Canyon Junction Bridge occupied and end up having to loop back to the visitors center from where we catch the shuttle.

We get off at the photographer-lined bridge where I get busy setting up my gorilla pod. 

I love watching the sunset paint the Watchman (left) a deep red.

 The view in the other direction isn't bad either 

  A lone heron tries to catch supper in the Virgin River

The Pa’rus trailhead is right there too and I can’t resist bringing everyone down to the river for a few minutes. I even end up wading into the river to balance the tripod on a rock for a different angle of the sunset, but the only reward for my efforts is a pair of dripping wet socks.

Sandy is used to my antics resulting in wet clothes, but my mother looks like she's trying to rip her hair out. 

(she wasn't ... just a funny snapshot)

One last look at the valley in the late afternoon sun

Another wispy cotton candy sky

The shuttle drops us back off at the visitors center and we drive a couple of minutes down Main Street to reach the Historic Pioneer Inn Lodge where we’ll spend the night. My parents’ room is cute, although not what I’d reserved for them, but they seem happy so that works for me.

A foul odor rushes out of the other room as soon as we open the door and it looks like your grandma's bedroom from the 1960's. Two trips to the front office later, we are handed a bottle of air freshener from the maid's cart to help with the smell, because they supposedly have no other room available. 

After pulling up the reservation on my phone we realize just how badly we are getting ripped off; there is no correlation between the rooms we booked and what we received. Our third and final trip to the office ends with them blaming Orbtiz by saying they must have not put in our selection and that there’s nothing they can do for us.

Eager to get out of our room, we head to the Pizza & Noodle Company housed together with the Zion Outdoor store. 

Our pizza's are just ok, nothing special.

Back at the room, we’re just getting ready for bed when we realize the pillows on the bed are about the size of your average couch pillow. Not to be deterred, I grab another one only to find a bunch of hairs stuck to it. A closer look at the linen reveals hair everywhere and lots of it too. Gross! They must not have washed the linens. 

But my parents room is OK and at 10pm we have no other option but to deal with it. Orbitz came through and gave us a partial refund, but even the small price we ended up paying was too much for this dump. Worst hotel ever ... and we've stayed at some questionable places through the years.

Counting the hours until we can check out.

♥

Breakfast: IHOP
Dinner: Pizza & Noodle Company
Hotel: Historic Pioneer Lodge