Zion to Vegas

We slept in and didn't make it out to Lake Powell. If waking up just before 10am didn't already kill our plans, the really expensive and complicated jet ski rentals and apparent outlawing of cliff jumping were good enough on their own to cancel the 3-hour drive to Lake Powell and back. Instead, we decided to go back to Zion NP and do another hike. This one was much less harrowing and kind of boring - it never really stood a chance after the Angel's Landing hike the day before. The trail sounded good - Emerald Pools hike (three pools .5 - 1 mile apart) - except a couple of them weren't so much pools as big puddles and the ones that were big weren't really emerald-colored. We decided that we were there in the wrong season - maybe during the spring with more rain and snow melt it would be much better. Regardless, it was good to get a little more hiking in before we headed to Vegas.

The drive to Vegas gave us a pretty clear impression of what we were in for over the next 4 days - it got up to 116 degrees, and that was at around 6:30 pm. Steph's grandma Darlene (her dad's mom) has been nice enough to put us up while we're in town. She's even insisted on paying for all our food and most of our entertainment - which has done wonders for the budget. Steph's uncle Ryan and his family also live in Vegas, so we borrowed their daughter Emily (flower girl in our wedding) to have some fun. We've played 2 rounds of putt-putt and lots of skeeball and other arcade games at Circus Circus and Chuck-e-cheese. Not exactly your typical Vegas vacation, but its been fun. After dinner tonight we're planning on going down to the strip to walk around a do a little gambling - the more money we lose the more working we'll have to do in New Zealand.

Tomorrow morning we're going to drive up (or I guess I should say down) to Death Valley. We have no intentions on spending much time there, since its probably going to be even hotter than it is here, but we'll check it out. We'll stay somewhere between there and Yosemite National Park for the night, then camp the next 2 nights in Yosemite. Internet has been pretty non-existent in the parks so look for our next post to be Tuesday or Wednesday.

Update: We've posted some videos on Youtube.

On hike to Sky Pond in Rocky Mountain NP:

Bison crossing Yellowstone River: