A great vacation

We were about two hours from Las Vegas , in our flight , when Pat said to me,"Look down there! There has been absolutely nothing except mountains and desert for the last half hour." I looked for quite a while and saw only an occasional building. I discovered that there is still lots of space where a person can be by themselves in this country if that is what they desire.
We Had reservations at the Riviera Casino on the strip and met Jan and Duaine later that night. We left about noon the next day for the wonders of Utah. The drive accross Nevada was similar to driving through a gravel pit or abandoned quarry. In my humble opinion there was nothing pretty about the country. We arrived at the town of St. George late in the afternoon and got a room before touring the town. St. George is a clean and neat town with beautiful mountain views. It, like all of the towns in Utah, is Mormon. We visited the oldest Mormon church in Utah and spent some time walking the well maintained grounds around the church. The Mormons sure know how to landscape their church properties.
We left early the next morning for Zion National Park. I started shooting pictures as soon as we arrived. I couldn't imagine anything more beautiful than Zion and so took lots of pictures to show the folks at home. Little did I know then that all of Utah is gorgeous. The next morning we drove to Bryce Canyon N.P. and then proceeded to see all of the following national parks in the following days. Capitol Reef, Canyon Lands, Arches N.P., Escalante Staircase, Arches National Monument , Hovenweep indian ruins, Canyon De Chelly, and the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Each park was totally different from the other.
We also followed old route 66 through small towns in Arizona. Two of these towns, Williams, and Klingman, used Route 66 , as it was in the fifties , as their theme. Consequently there were small diners with pink an lime green vinyl booths. Stores sold items such as poodle skirts, sunglasses with horned rims, etc. In Williams we went to dinner at Cruisers which specializes in barbeque. For thirty two dollars we were served a whole slab of pork ribs, a large section of beef ribs and a half of a chicken along with beans and cold slaw. We gorged ourselves and Pat actually got sick in the middle of the night. Route 66 also twisted and turned through the moutains and through the ghost town of Oatman , Arizona where burros still panhandled on the streets of this dirty little town without a reason except for suckering tourists out of their money buying indian jewelry. I don't think that it could be possible for indians to manufacture all of the "authentic" indian jewelery that we saw accross the west. Two of the local old timers acted out a gunfight in the center of the street. They passed the hat after and insured the audience that all money went to charity. Shortly after the fight I observed one of the old timers shuffling down the street with a brand new twelve pack of Old Milwaukee beer under his arm.
My cousin Bonnie who lives in Bullhead City , AZ, suggested that we stay at the Desert Palms Casino in Laughlin, NV. We got our rooms for thirteen dollars a night for two nights. We spent time with Bonnie discussing family history. She is the only member of the family left on my mothers side who knows any of the history. Bonnie and her husband Ken took us to a fantastic indian casino somewhere in NV outside of Laughlin for a buffet which was out of this world.
We spent the last two days in Las Vegas where we must have walked five or six miles each day seeing the sights.
Utah is spectacular! The scenery couldn't be any nicer anywhere. The hike up to Cassidy Arch in Capitol Reef NP. was my favorite hike. It started off fairly steeply, but then turned into a gentle climb for about an hour. The flowers and pinion pines as well as the other flora along this trail was beautiful. It was almost as if it had been landscaped. I would like to go back to this trail and hike it alone. I would leave early in the morning and come back at dusk. The most intriquing aspect of this country next to the beauty is the profound silence. It fairly screams at you. There is not a sound in these areas, even the wind blows quietly. We were gone fifteen days which seemd just about right.
The Ol' Curmudgeon