Leaving Las Vegas

We checked out of the Stratosphere around 11am and got a free shuttle across town to Road Bear RVs to pick up our home for the next 26 nights! The RV is the smallest one on offer (sleeps six), but is still about the biggest thing I’ve driven. We have all mod-cons including shower, toilet and coffee maker!

By the time we had completed all the paperwork and stopped off at WalMart for supplies, it was getting on a bit, and we arrived at Zion National Park in complete darkness after a rushed drive from Vegas. The check-in kiosk was closed, so we found ourselves a spot, hooked up the electricity and water, and enjoyed cooking for ourselves for the first time in a month. It’s amazing how nice it was to eat a chicken salad that contained less than 12000 calories and didn’t come with waffles on the side. This morning we woke up to some amazing scenery; Zion national park is right in the middle of canyon-land and all around the campsite are huge red sandstone monoliths that look like something straight out of a Marlboro advert.

There was a minor crisis when we tried to disconnect the water hook-up from the RV; it had somehow become jammed on (not my fault, honest) and so we had to drive back to the nearest town (ominously called Hurricane) with the hose wrapped around the rear bumper to find an RV servicing yard. A friendly chap fixed it for us in less than a minute so we were able to get back to Zion pretty quickly.

The weather here is a few degrees colder than Vegas (we’re almost halfway back to Aspen) and it looks like it’s going to be overcast for the next few days, but we still went for a drive around Zion National Park, and did a couple of short walks along the river, and to “Weeping Rock” – an overhang in the sandstone cliffs which ‘weeps’ a constant shower of water. Apparently in takes the water 1,000 years to seep through the stone and reach the overhang, so it was pretty cool to go and stand under it and know how old it is.

If the rain holds off, we’re going to try canyoneering in the next day or two – which basically means getting kitted up with water proof gear and walking the course of the river along the canyon.