On the road again

The dealership was very busy and didn't fix the van for a few days, so we had a break a hotel for a few nights.  On Friday, they finally finished and gave us a ride to the dealership.  From there, White Sands National Park was only about 10 minutes away.  It was cool how the landscape abruptly changed from normal flat desert to very bright white dunes.  There wasn't a lot of hiking so after a drive through the park, we were on the road again.

Saguaro National Park was next, near Tuscon, Arizona.  It was about 110 degrees at dusk when we got there, so a short half mile hike was more than enough.  There were so many saguaro cactuses, even up on the sides and tops of the mountains.

It was too hot to stop and sleep, so we drove through the night towards Petrified Forest National Park.  After a few hours, we could see an orange glow on the horizon and suspected fire.  We kept driving in the direction of the glow and before too long, we could see the flames of a forest fire.  A few miles later, we were stopped by a police roadblock keeping people from driving to the fire.  We had to backtrack about an hour to the previous open highway but it was cool that we saw it, especially at night.  It didn't show up in pictures though.

In the morning, we drove the short distance to Petrified Forest.  There is one road through the middle of the park that we drove and took a few short hikes along the way.  The Painted Desert was super colorful layers of sand and sediment.  The Blue Mesa area was predictably blue but it's still weird for the ground to be blue.  The fossilized trees that the park is named for were cool too.  Some were one stone type all the way through, but others looked like they had bark still because the outside was a darker stone than the middle.  There is a log cabin made of the petrified wood that we hiked out to.

Then we drove to the Grand Canyon.  It was much cooler there, in the 80's, and we arrived near sunset.  After hiking along the rim and watching the sunset, we found a campsite in the national forest just 5 minutes away from the park.  In the morning, we got moving early and drove back to the park.  We hiked a portion of the South Kaibab Trail that weaves 8 miles down to the bottom of the canyon.  The rangers recommend hiking at most 3 miles as the heat can get very dangerous.  There are guided mule rides you can do that go the full length, down and back, in one day.  We had to get off the side to make room for them.

After the very tiring hike, we drove to the Hoover Dam even though it isn't a national park.  It was a quick stop, just a few pictures and moving on.  The temperature had picked up again so walking around taking pictures didn't last too long.  Then we drove another 45 minutes to Las Vegas where we stayed the last two nights.  Besides all of the concerts and gambling Vegas has, my good friend Brandon lives there so it was really good to see him again.  It wasn't all smooth sailing though.  We upgraded to a nicer hotel room at Caesar's Palace, but there was blood splattered on all four walls in the bathroom!  Even after talking with people at the front desk twice, they didn't clean it and only gave a less than 50% discount on the room.  Disgusting and unsanitary.

We're on our way out now, stopping for wifi and groceries at Walmart.  The next on the list is Death Valley, so we have our portable fans ready.