Las Vegas

03 Feb 2025

Leaving the Grand Canyon, we continued west and hit the Hoover Dam on our way to see our old friend Munchie.

The scale of it just does not come across in the photos. It's so large that our eyes were fighting us on how huge it was. For instance, in this photo, we saw some cars down on one of the power stations, and they looked the size of a Hot Wheels toy car. We couldn't convince our eyes that they were full size cars.

The Hoover Dam also had awesome architectural features, built in an Art Deco style. We especially loved this relief showing the benefits of the dam.

After being awe'd by the dam, we continued on to Las Vegas, Nevada, where they grow power transmission infrastructure like Texas grows windmills.

Interestingly, Nevada decorates more of their bridges and highway walls than we've seen anywhere else.

Arriving in Vegas, we found our old friend Munchie! He was a little unsure at first, as it's been almost a decade, but he warmed up pretty quick.

Our first night in town, we decided to walk the strip. We started at the Bellagio where they had an incredible Lunar New Year display filled with pandas and a giant snake for the Year of the Snake.

The whole hotel had pandas hidden around it, so we were keeping an eye out. We only found a couple, including these ones hanging out in the flower bed outside.

We watched the fountain show at the Bellagio, and wandered around a couple miles, eventually spying the Sphere, which was really incredible. It was running through mostly art pieces and had some really impressive displays.

The next day we headed to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area just outside of town. The badlands mixed with canyons made for some really incredible views.

We decided to do the Calico Tanks trail hike, and the weather was pretty much perfect for it. Overcast, but the warmest it's been this whole trip.

Oh and we finally met up with Munchie's dad Zak!

Zak is the other reason we were coming to Las Vegas. We stayed with Munchie and him for a few days and got to catch up and see some awesome stuff together.

We continued on the trail documenting the local flora. All of it seemed to have spikes, so we tried not to touch it. Cory still managed to hit his head on a tree branch that gave him a good scratch though.

The Calico Tanks trail passed between a tan limestone hill and a red sandstone hill, which was really cool.

But "trail" is a bit of a misnomer in places. We were climbing up pretty steep slopes and sometimes it felt like rock climbing.

About halfway up, Sara found a cave to take a break in.

Near the top we found the basin that we think Calico Tanks gets its name from.

One last break before the summit!

We made it!

Then it was time to head back down, but not before Cory got a bit of lounging in.

We headed home, had some dinner and spent some more time with old-man Munchie. The next morning we headed up to the north side of the Red Rock Canyon mountains to Lee Canyon and the Spring Mountains Recreation Area.

Our first stop was the Desert View overlook that had a great view of both the desert below and the Mt. Charleston Peak.

From there we drove all through the mountains and found some offroading trails we wandered up to.

On day three we made it all the way to Utah. Welcome to Zion National Park! (With special guest Zak!)

Zion has an incredible canyon that we drove through and hiked to an amazing overlook of it. We started deep in the valley and drove through a tunnel to get up onto the higher side, then had to hike a mile up to an incredible view.

After that we headed toward the other end of the canyon, stopping in at the lodge to eventually get to the Riverside Walk trail.

We didn't make it to the end of the walk though, because Cory was getting old and tired. To save his aging joints we decided to start heading back after another little photo session.

We had such an amazing time with Munchie and Zak. We realized that it's been over 9 years since we last saw one another. We couldn't be happier that we were able to stop in at Vegas and finally get to see them again, and with any luck it won't have to be another decade before we get to see them again.

But after Zion we're off traveling again, toward the deserts on our way to California!