« Our week at the Lake | Main | Halloween Time »
September 21, 2007
Our Wild West
and Vegas trip!
What a time we had! It was fun, tiring and spectacular all rolled into one and many many miles!
We flew 
into Las Vegas on the 5th of Sept and spent two nights at the Orleans Hotel in Vegas, liked the hotel very much. It's like you are in a whole other world! Slot machines everywhere! People everywhere. We had fun, we ate a lot of food, played a lot of slots and saw a lot of neat things. The hotels are HUGE!
(The Orleans Hotel & Casino)
The strip at night is something to see, the lights, the action. The kids really enjoyed Freemont street and the light show.
The next day we traveled about 45 minutes to Primm CA to Buffalo Bill's Casino where the girls enjoyed some amusement rides, Hannah was on a roller coaster kick and she rode the Desperado, the fastest roller coaster there is, according to the post card we bought! She didn't want to ride anymore after that!
Later that day back in Vegas we saw a lot of the strip, New York and MGM Grand Hotels and the spectacular Bellagio Fountains!
On Friday we headed to Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon and then on to Page Az where we spent the third night of our trip.
(The Girl's at Hoover Dam.)
(The whitish color on the rocks is where the water use to be, as you can see, Lake Mead has lost some water!)
The Grand Canyon was wild and facinating. We really enjoyed it, but I was a wreck with the kids getting too close to the edge. Hannah finally went and sat in a tree!
From the Canyon we traveled on to Page AZ which took nearly two hours and stayed at a Budget Host Inn, not one of our favorite hotels, but it was doable.
The next morning we visited Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam, alot like Hoover, but much smaller. The country was desert and red and it was hot, but a dry a heat as they say. It wasn't too bad if you stayed in the shade, but there weren't many trees!
(Andy & Hannah at Glen Canyon Dam/Lake Powell)
(Lake Powell and some magnificent House Boats!)
Then it was off to Monument Valley Utah where we saw some very interesting desert landscape and where John Wayne filmed many of his famous westerns. The area is run by the native americans and the road that travels through the monuments is very rough in terrain and we were worried we would damage our rental so opted not to do the entire 17 mile loop. To take a tour on an old rickety truck cost $50 per person so we opted NOT to do that either! Very interesting place to see though, magnificent views.
(The Mittens)
After spending the afternoon at the monuments we traveled an hour southeast to visit the Four Corners of the US. This is where four states come together in one corner, Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. We were able to get in another two state signs and caught some great shots of a fabulous sunset.
From there we headed towards Cortez Colorado where we all enjoyed dinner and then back to Moab Utah where we spent the night in our desert cabin without a bathroom, you had to walk across the drive to a big public restroom/washroom. Cute cozy cabins though!
That next morning, day 5 into our journey, we traveled just a few minutes to the amazing Arches National Park. There we spent the day exploring in the heat and hot desert sun taking in spectacular views of some of the most wildest red rock formations on this earth.
(Sheep Rock)
From Arches it was on towards Colorado again where we spent the night in Glenwood Springs, a rather pretty part of Colorado and we found a nice hotel with WiFi where we could all check our email and upload some pics. In the morning it was off towards Denver through Vail and Loveland Pass 
which was quite an elevation at 11,000 something feet, winding mountain roads and rocky mountain tunnels. This was the longest day of our trip as we had reservations in Hill City S. Dakota at the Hillside Country Cabins. This particular day we traveled 539 miles into Cheyenne Wyoming up into S. Dakota and to our cabin in the Black Hills.
We were about half way through our trip by the time we reached Hill City and we had reserved our cabin here for three nights. So it was nice to be able to relax a little and just spend the days exploring all there was to see in this part of S. Dakota.
Our first day we spent the morning exploring "Beautiful" Mt. Rushmore Cave. Interesting to see the inside of a cave with those stalagmites and tite things you see on TV sometimes. However, when we caught up with the tour guide and group she was announcing that there had been a bat flying about the cave earlier in the day! Fortunately, we missed him!
After the cave exploration it was onto the Needle's Highway and then Mt. Rushmore, which I absolutely LOVED. What a neat experience to be driving along and all of sudden looming right next to you just about, are the father's of our beautiful country. It really was a neat experience.
(Needle's Highway ~ S. Dakota ~)
(One of the many Needle's Tunnels.)
On our way back to the cabin that night we stopped to see the Crazy Horse Monument as well. It looked like only his profile had been completed.
The following day we traveled to Wall SD and visited Wall Drug where we bought more souvenirs and had lunch including some delicious homemade apple pie! 
After leaving Wall we visited a small priarie homestead where we saw an actual sod house and cabin that people lived in back in the mid to late 1800's. I wasn't too thrilled with this little place, but did enjoy the prairie dogs! From here it was off through the Badlands National Park. What strange land...
From the Badlands we traveled through Custer State Park, didn't see any buffalo, but did capture a great shot of a doe.
I really liked South Dakota, Hill City and the Keystone area. It reminded me a little of Vermont with rolling green hills and pine trees. Rapid City was a good sized city, easy to navigate and LOTS of places to shop and eat. I just liked the feel of the area, kind of reminded me of home. Hubby and I would both love to go back there someday.
(A few of the MANY antelope we saw!)
We left Rapid City on the 13th and drove through Sturgis into Deadwood. A very cute little western town that we all liked. There Mom played more slot machines and won a few dollars on one...
It was here in Deadwood that the old west really started to come to life with images and stories of Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane. It was also here that we had the worst time getting our lunch. We stopped at a small "cafe" that had an interesting old soul running the cash register. They were out of a lot of items including chips and buffalo burgers. It made for an interesting time and a few good laughs!
From Deadwood it was off to Devils Tower, WY ---
From Devils Tower it was off to Sheridan where we spent the night at a so so Super 8 that had one rollaway and it was already taken for the night! We made up a bed on the floor for Hannah and had left over egg salad sandwiches and chips for supper. That next morning there was quite a frost and we all had to wear our jackets and sweatshirts. We headed out around 9 am and had a huge and delicious breakfast at Perkin's Restaurant and then it was on to Cody Wyoming via route 14a, known as one of the most scenic routes in the US. We traveled through the Big Horn Mountains at elevations near 12,000 feet and it was here I found my "cowboys", dozens of them, herding cattle!
We had reservations for that night at the Big Bear Motel. Cody was really neat to visit. The true "old West" named after Buffalo Bill Cody. We visited his museum, saw a old time "shoot out" on Main St. and visited the Irma Motel, Buffalo Bill's original hotel named after one of his daughter's.
This part of Wyoming Andy and I really enjoyed, it was mountainous and picturesque with ranch after ranch of cattle or beautiful grazing horses. Part of our trip we would definitely love to revisit someday.
That night at Big Bear I had gone to bed around 11 pm and was suddenly awoken by howling winds. I thought it was the air conditioner as I was sleeping right under it, but in the morning we were told there had been a huge wind storm during the night so it had been howling I had heard and wished I had gotten up to see all the dust blowing around!
After breakfast that morning of the 15th we headed just an hour to the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. It was here we FINALLY saw some buffalo!
And some stinky hot springs...
Andy LOVED Yellowstone, for him this was the high point of the whole vacation. By this time though, the kid's, especially Hannah, was getting a little tired of all the traveling and being in the van all day long. At Yellowstone though we had picnic lunches both days and got out a lot to look around, take pictures of the buffalo, elk and deer and the hot springs and geysers.
We spent one night in Montana, Gardiner, a very small town that didn't even have a Mc Donald's! The Inn we stayed at though, Yellowstone Village Inn, was the nicest place, I thought, that we stayed in our entire trip. We had a family suite that over looked the mountains and was very near the Roosevelt Arch of the North entrance of Yellowstone. I loved the Inn and they had a great continental breakfast that allowed us to sleep in a little, but still be out by a decent time to explore Yellowstone Park for another day.
First thing that morning we encountered a herd of Elk hanging out at the Mammoth Hot Springs area. Many cows and a few bulls.
Apparently it was getting close to "rutting" season, so the bull's were a bit noisy at times, typical males...
And...more buffalo
At the end of our Yellowstone trek we found the famous, Old Faithful, and had a great show!
Leaving Yellowstone that Sunday afternoon we quickly discovered the Grand Tetons of Wyoming and how spectacular they really are.
(Andy & Hannah at Jenny Lake, Grand Tetons National Park.)
After an afternoon of the majestic Tetons we traveled a few miles further to spend the night in Jackson Hole Wyoming. Very cute little town, sort of "ritzy" like shops, lots of resaurants and mountains. Very pretty. We walked about a mile that night from our hotel to a family style restaurant that served a TON of food. Poor Hannah was suffering from altitude sickness though so wasn't up to eating and I walked her back to the hotel early.
The next morning, second to the last day of our trip, we started our way back to Vegas. We traveled a bit through Idaho, another very pretty state, and stopped in Montpelier Idaho for lunch at an Artic Circle, a fast food chain that we had never heard of, but it was pretty good and they had the BEST shakes and buffalo burgers!
From Idaho it was back into Utah through Logan Canyon which was gorgeous. Red and golden aspens along the mountsides, a river and beautiful blue sky.
We stopped for about an hour in Salt Lake City to visit the Temple Square, quite a place and I would have loved to have heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearse, but they weren't there at the time we visited.
(Devon and Hannah ~ Salt Lake City, Utah)
We drove an hour or so past Salt Lake to a place called Nephi Utah and spent the night in another, much nicer, Super 8 Motel and caught up on our laundry and sleep and made the final destination back to Vegas the next morning.
And we spent our last night at Circus Circus and got lost for 15 minutes trying to find our room! Holy Cow that place is HUGE! Nearly 4000 rooms! I, personally, still liked the Orleans much better, but we did have an AWESOME view of the Vegas strip from our room at Circus Circus!
(A picture I took outside their 3 acre amusement park looking up into the mirrowed windows reflecting one of their towers.)
We had a fantastic time for sure! We saw a lot of places in 12 days and made memories that will last a life time!
Posted by tracey at September 21, 2007 08:07 PM
Comments
Wow!! An awesome trip!!
Posted by: Dorene at April 4, 2008 07:57 PM