Western States Road Trip June 2020

 

Western States Road Trip

June 2020

            With the COVID pandemic going on, travel was a bit more difficult.  Since Lucy, our German exchange student, was able to stay until the end of June, we decided to take her on one last road trip to some of the National Parks in the West. 

Beverly Beach State Park

            We started our trip by driving down the Oregon Coast.  We were able to get a campsite at Beverly Beach State Park.  Everyone had a fun time walking and playing on the beach.  Our friends, the Monsons, joined us there with their exchange student from Italy.

Oregon Coast

            The next morning we drove down the Oregon Coast, stopping at some small towns along the way.  We made it down to California and drove through some of Redwoods National Park.  We stopped a couple of times and did some short hikes.  Our plan was to camp somewhere around Eureka, but the kids wanted to keep driving to Becky’s parents house in Rocklin, just outside of Sacramento.  It was another 5 hours of driving but we made it.  I think we drove 14 hours throughout the day.  We stayed in Sacramento a day or so and picked up Jacob and Siena, who had went down to California a month before with Becky’s parents.

Southern Oregon Coast

Paul Bunyon and Babe (wearing masks)

Redwoods National Park

Compare the girth of the tree with the size of the car

Mono Lake, California

            After we left Sacramento we crossed over to the back side of the Sierra Nevada mountains.  We stopped at Mono Lake, which is one of the oldest lakes in the world.  Due to the lake being drained by the city of Los Angeles, the lake level has lowered and become very salty.  Mono Lake also has wonderful rock formations called tufa.  They are created by underwater springs that mix with the carbonates in the lake and create limestone towers and formations.  Once the lake level lowered, many of these formations were exposed.  We spent some time hiking around the lake.  We spent a little too long though, and still had a way to go.  We finally rolled into our camping area north of Las Vegas around 10:30pm at night.  We set up our tents with our headlights on.

Mono Lake tufa

Free camping north of Las Vegas

Sedona, Arizona

            We packed up and started heading south, crossing over the Colorado River by the Hoover Dam and made our way through Arizona.  We wanted to stop at Slide Rock State Park, but it was already full. Instead, we stopped in Sedona and looked around at all the shops.  Afterward, we continued to drive and made our way up to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon (with a stop at the Flagstaff Walmart for ice cream).  We camped in our usual location in the national forest just south of the park.

Outside of Sedona, Arizona

Free camping outside the South Rim of the Grand Canyon

            We got up early to beat the heat and went over to hike part of the Bright Angel Trail.  We only did a little over three miles since it was starting to get hot.  We then looked around some of the view points along the South Rim.  The road to the east side of the park was closed, so we had to go all the way back to Flagstaff and then catch highway 89 north.  We drove through Page, Arizona and stopped at the dam.  We finally pulled in to our campsite, just outside of Mt. Carmel Junction, Utah in the evening.  We camped at a free campsite right along the East Fork of the Virgin River (which is more like a small creek).  The kids cooled off in the water while we cooked dinner.

Grand Canyon National Park

Hiking the Bright Angel Trail

Dam at Page, Arizona

Nice free camping spot along the East Fork of the Virgin River

Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

            The next morning we headed north and went to Bryce Canyon National Park.  We’ve been there plenty of times, but it is always one of my favorite places in the world.  We hike the Navajo Loop Trail, then drove to the end of the road to see the Bristlecone pine trees.  On the way back down to Zion National Park, we planned on camping just outside the park in some free camping areas.  None of the areas were that nice and none had a lot of shade.  The kids asked if we could go back to where we camped along the river the night before, which we did.  It was refreshing to cool off in the river again.

Thor's Hammer

Navajo Loop Trail

            Since Zion National Park is insanely busy in the summer time, we planned to just drive through the Mt. Carmel tunnel.  After we did that we stopped at the visitor center and then did a three mile hike on the Watchman Trail.  It was getting pretty hot outside, so we got in the car and started driving toward Las Vegas.

Zion National Park, Utah

Hiking the Watchman Trail

            It was 107 degrees in Las Vegas when we arrived.  We checked into our hotel and went for a swim in the pool.  We decided to wait until night time to go out and walk around.  Since it was Juneteenth, there were some protests going on along the strip.  The news said they were peaceful and shouldn’t make it’s way to the area by the Bellagio and Cesar’s Palace, which was close to where we were staying.  When we finally did venture out in the evening, we arrived at the corner of Las Vegas Blvd. and Flamingo Rd. to see the intersection shut down and about 30 police cars there and lots of officers in riot gear.  The protests hadn’t gone this far down the Strip, but they were ready just in case.  We stood around and watched with everyone else, then decided to go over and see the fountain show at the Bellagio.  We then walked around the Bellagio and Cesar’s Palace and went to get dinner at In and Out. We finished the night by walking to the Venetian.  By the time we got there most of shops were closed and there weren’t a lot of people in the casino, mainly due to COVID (some casinos were more open than others).  By then we were exhausted and walked back to our hotel.

Police in riot gear in Las Vegas

Inside the Bellagio

Bellagio Water Show

Cesar's Palace

            The next day we made the long drive back from Las Vegas to Becky’s parents house outside of Sacramento.  We spent the next several days at Becky’s parents house for a family reunion and then had to say goodbye to Lucy and take her to the San Francisco airport.