Honeymoon: Vegas Excursion - Day 7

So we are approaching the end of our trip and can't believe how fast it has flown by! The last two days have been filled with a series of adventures and today we spent our last hours hitting up a couple favs, snatching some looks at places we hadn't seen yet, having a special dinner, and grabbing one last show. But first for the last two days of adventures...

Thursday we picked up our car rental and headed to Mount Zion National Park in Utah. It was Fee-nom-inal!! If you are ever anywhere close to southern Utah I recommend you checking this out! I wish pictures/videos gave this place enough justice but they don't even come close unfortunately.

From photo album: Vegas

Kaley and I hiked for three hours and then headed back to Vegas. On our way back we saw signs for a dinosaur track farm and pulled off the exit. This proved to be a great find! The farm contained a museum with over 1000 uniquely preserved dinosaur tracks, tail drags, skin impressions, and a skeleton that is the first of its kind found in the world.

We headed home, picked up a redbox movie (Animated - "Alpha and Omega". The french-canadian goose was hilarious in the movie), and had pizza bites for dinner.

On Friday we woke up early and began our Hoover Dam/Route 66/Grand Canyon excursion. I think with yesterday and today, we found ourselves saying "WOW!" about every other word.

The dam was only 35 mins from the resort and we pulled in right before they opened. Man what a marvel! (Jacob Frye, we thought about you here, often - an inscription read "an engineering feat of the modern world". Kaley and I have a bet that you'll design something even more awesome someday!) We chose to do the $11 Power Plant tour and were delighted at the tour we got. We watched a 10 minute video on the history of the dam and then got on an elevator and plummeted more than 1000 feet down into the cave and tunnel system where the generators and spillways are located.

Afterwards we got back on the elevator to see what our guide described as "the best dam view" in the canyon from the observation deck.

Leaving the observation deck we then walked across the entire length of the dam and left shortly after to continue our journey. Next stop, Seligman, Arizona - the historic origin of Route 66.

When we finally reached Seligman, there wasn't much to see besides Roadkill Cafe (not making that up), the commemorative Route 66 sign,

and a tow truck someone had fixed up to look exactly like Mater from the Disney movie Cars. We (unintentionally) drove 17 more miles on Route 66 before getting back on the Interstate and on to the Grand Canyon.

A little over two hours later we arrived at Grand Canyon National Park: South Rim entrance. We drove 5 more miles once inside before we reached the first outlook at Matherly Point. Hoooolllyyy cow! If you want to feel small and have God slap you in the face with how big and awesome He is then visit the Grand Canyon. WOW! Again, I think Kaley and I were saying "Wow!" and sharing stunned silences for most of the trip.

We stayed until sunset, taking pictures and climbing down to a ledge off the beaten path overlooking the canyon before beginning our 5 hour journey back to Las Vegas.

We arrived in Las Vegas (after getting lost inside the Park for 30 minutes) 4 hours later after some of the most nail biting driving ever. When you see signs for "Possible crosswinds next ...miles" hold on to the steering wheel tight with both hands! Winding through mountains with 6% grades os ridiculous enough by itself, let alone at night and with killer wind gusts. We were also warned to be aware of some interesting animal crossings as well along the way back - Cougars, deer, elk, mountain goats, and bears - "oh my". Haha!

We only ran alongside some elk in the Park and got pretty up close and personal (like on the grill of our car personal) to a coyote.

Overall it was a day to remember forever. We had some harrowing adventures and a ton of awesome memories made.