Day 4: Angel's Landing at Zion National Park

For our second day at Zion, we decided to tackle one of the most popular and more dangerous hikes in the park: Angel's Landing.  This is one of the toughest hikes I've ever been on.  First it's a long way up just to get to the base of Angel's Landing and then to actually get to Angel's Landing you are scrambling over a narrow pathway of rocks.  The pathway is about a foot or two and there are places on the trail where it's less than a foot so they provide you with some heavy duty chains to hold on to.  On the other side of the path?  A sheer drop off the cliff.  There are many warnings (over the PA system of the shuttle, at the start of the trail and at the base of Angel's Landing) for those with a fear of heights to not do it.  I think one of the signs actually said 9 people have died doing this hike in the last 10 years, so I just hoped I wouldn't be the one for 2014 since the fatality rate seems to average 1 a year.  BUT you are rewarded with some spectacular views!

This is just to get to the base of Angel's Landing.  A ton of switchbacks to get you up the plateau.

Midway up.  What a view!  I wonder if the first people to settle Utah laid eyes on a similar scene.

And from the top.

This is at the top of the plateau and these were the kinds of rocks we were scrambling over.

Our little airstream (keychain) made it up the top too.

Closer look at mini airstream.

Looking right off the side.

And here's a better perspective from the base of Angel's Landing which is straight up at the top.

Day 3: First day at Zion National Park

So to continue to day 3 of our trip (only about 18 more days to write about!), our first national park was Zion in Utah.  We started the day a bit late (past noon) since we wanted to enjoy our first day of no driving and take it easy in the morning.  In the last post I mentioned we stayed at an RV resort, which is basically a really nice trailer park (with a higher price tag) but it's worth it.  There are clean laundry facilities, a pool, and each RV space is a bit bigger, giving you a little bit more privacy.

Anyway, since we started the day late we decided to do some easy hikes around the park.  There's a great shuttle system within the park since parking at different trailheads is limited (also cuts down on traffic through the park and the amount of pollution).  At the Zion lodge stop (which is somewhere I definitely want to stay at in the future), are the trailheads for the Emerald Pool hikes (upper, middle and lower).  I would say that this was one of the best easy hikes in the park.  For a relatively short distance and very little elevation gain, you get some nice views and cool experiences (like walking underneath a waterfall).

Our first hike started at the Zion lodge shuttle stop

Lower Emerald Pool Hike (ok so it doesn't quite look like a waterfall here but there was definitely water falling--just not a lot).  I think during wetter seasons (years?) it's more prominent).

I think this was the middle Emerald Pool?

We wrapped up this hike, which took us about 2 hours or so at a very leisurely pace.  And then headed over to the east side of the park to do the Canyon Overlook trail.  This was an easy half mile hike that gave us amazing views.  The best time is at sunset since it's quite easy to get back down in the fading light and on a clear day you're probably awarded with some spectacular views (unfortunately for us it was a bit cloudy that day).

Day 2: Barstow > Las Vegas > Zion, Utah

So we were originally just going to pass through Las Vegas since we go multiple times a year, but c'mon who can just pass through Vegas?  Nope, definitely not us.  We succumbed to the siren call and made a quick trip out of it.  And I have to say I'm glad we did.  It was probably my best 3 hours spent in Vegas.

Since we rarely go to the downtown side of Vegas we decided to just skip the Strip and go for the more laid back part of town (we were not feeling especially glamorous having just come from a night in Shady Lane--we were newly-minted truly trailer park people).

This was my second spin on my first machine!  $20 in, $92 out (that's a profitable 2 minutes).

They need to update their machine, most of these people are dead.

Then in honor of the return of the Walking Dead (this was awhile ago), another $20 in, and about $275 out.  I found my luck with the slot machines so I just decided to go with it.  I made $300 in about 30 minutes (10 minutes of which were spent watching the machine rack up the money)!  I'm not usually a slot machine person, but I have to say it's become more appealing to me in my old age...

Took the winnings straight to the Beef Jerky Store and purchased a whole lotta snacks, about 3 grocery bags full.  It's a good thing we did since we needed them during our long road trip.  We finished it all before we got back to Cali.

And then dinner at Sushi Mon (all you can eat sushi).  The last bit of Japanese food to last us the next couple of weeks on our road trip (as we head into cattle territory).

By the time we pulled out of Vegas, the sun was setting.  This is the view from the back of the truck (Luckily unobstructed because the airstream was temporarily parked at another trailer park.  This was when we were driving back to pick it up).  We pulled into Zion late, around 10pm, but luckily had little trouble setting up camp because we were at an RV resort, which is completely different from a trailer park (but more on that on the next post)!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I thought I'd start off this holiday season by finally getting around to chronicling our road trip in our (rented) 27' airstream!  Beware, the posts will be lengthier than usual since there's so much to talk about!

And here she is!  What a beauty!

A little bit about towing an airstream for the first time.  Well, this was the first time I've driven a truck, let alone towed something so massive so you can understand the MAJOR difficulties I had.  Especially when driving from SF to LA on the I-5, which was the most congested highway that we encountered on this trip (in hindsight).  So it was a real sink-or-swim moment.  Luckily (for me), Brian drove first so he got to experience all the problems first.  And the biggest problem was trailer sway.  As newbie towers, this was not something we expected nor something we even experienced before.  I guess the closest thing I can describe it to is when your car is hydroplaning.  You can't really use the brakes nor control the steering wheel very well.  You can only hope to slowly counteract the sway with the steering wheel while gradually decelerating and hope not to hit anything in the process!  Luckily the Ford F250 we rented had a trailer brake which helps (if you know how to use it right, which of course we didn't during that first day.  A later very informative YouTube clip on the second day showed us how to do it right).  At some points it felt like the trailer was controlling the car and not the other way around.  The trailer sway got particularly bad when there were high winds, going downhill or when a large speeding big-wheeler passes (and super terrifying when a big-wheeler speeds pass you downhill in a high winds area).  Luckily we only had one major near-miss, but no accidents.  Staying between two lines was been harder.  And did you know that outside of the yellow lines there are rumble strips to let you know that you're veering off course (I never knew that since I've never strayed outside the lines before!).  I got to know the sound and feel of those rumble strips very well (basically every time I drove).

And here we are driving from SF to Barstow.

Thank goodness for towing mirrors (absolutely essential)!

And finally resting after a long hard first day of driving.  We drove from LA to Barstow and it took us about 5 hours I think.  We tried to split the driving 50/50 because it is absolutely exhausting towing a large trailer in such an uncomfortable truck (the truck had ZERO amenities).  This is the dinette and the dog bed was underneath, also where the heater vents are conveniently located so the dogs loved it there.

And the secondary dog area, the hallway leading to the bedroom.  On the left you have the shower and closets (in the foreground) and on the right you have the bathroom (where Hachi is sticking his nose into). 

The next morning in Barstow:

We had the pleasure of getting to know Nespresso during our trip, provided by the rental company.  After 3 weeks with Nespresso, we are converts.  We love it!

I also took along my fav, the nutribullet so that I could still get something healthy on a road trip.  Being able to bring everything you love is one of the best things of taking a trip in an airstream (or any trailer really).  Sorry for the ugly brown shake, that's what happens when you mix greens and acai (but it was delicious!)

And here's a pic of our freezer (so that we wouldn't have to cook from scratch and could spend more time adventuring).

And this was our first RV park on our trip.  Yep, it was called Shady Lane and yep, it was shady (and keep in mind there were 0 large trees on the premises).  This was taken as we were leaving because we actually pulled into this place around 9pm.  And it was even shadier then!  The people who helped us were a little scary looking (real characters!) and that first night I thought "What did we get ourselves into?" and "Will we get through it alive (considering our terrible towing skills and now literally shady RV parks)"?

But make it out alive we did and now Vegas ho!

Ellie was happy to make it out alive too.

The dogs' temporary abode while we drove.

On the way to Vegas!