Arizona & Las Vegas

After finishing up our time in southern Utah, we traveled through Arizona to check out the Grand Canyon. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as I thought it would be especially after already visiting Bryce Canyon and Zion national park!

The place wasn’t as crowded as I assume it typically would be during the busy season so we had that going for us, but we did run into the same problem we’ve been having with road closures so we only got to see a few parts of the canyon.

We stumbled across a beautiful little waterfall in the Kaibob national forest. It was truly a gem. The water was too cold but I would have loved to take a swim in this gorgeous water hole.

Lake Powell was an interesting sight. The winding lake stretches all the way from the southeast part of Utah down into the border of Page, AZ. The deep blue waters were fascinating to look at from above.

The kids stretched their legs with a walk in the forest and then we headed west towards Las Vegas to celebrate our daughters tenth birthday.

She is really into mermaids. We once had a tail for her but she lost it when we hiked to the Arizona hot springs. I promised her we would replace it. She had been asking me for a “real one” this time but I was hesitant to get her one unless I knew she was able to swim properly with it on. Vegas was the perfect place to sign her up for a surprise private mermaid swim lesson. It was incredible how fast she caught on!

I was able to get my windshield replaced for a great price and I loved how great the customer service was in Vegas. The cuisine was awesome! Something for everyone that’s for sure. Everything was within a short distance and this city definitely does not get much sleep! I’m not surprised why the city comes alive at night. The desert gets super hot during the day and very comfortable at night.

We were tired of being cooped up in hotel rooms and needed to get back out into the great outdoors so we headed back to a spot that I discovered earlier in the year. Lake mead in the Nevada desert.

My daughter found a live trap there that was broken and with a little instruction on how the thing worked, she was able to put it together on her own in less than three hours!

We couldn’t really take much more of the desert heat, even thought it hadn’t reached peak summer temps yet! The sand got in everything and I mean EVERYTHING. We were ready to leave and venture back towards somewhere with trees.

So we headed to the Sequoia national forests in Southern California.