Canyonlands/Capitol Reef Part One
Capitol Reef Part Two and Grand Staircase-Escalante
Bryce Canyon
Zion National Park
The foundation for our Memorial Week vacation was built back in November when tickets went on sale for Barry Manilow's show at The Westgate in Las Vegas. Holly has been a lifelong fan and wanted to be sure she saw him perform one more time now that he is 75. What made it even better is we scored 2nd row-center seats.
Now all that was left was building a trip around the show. We floated around ideas like Palm Springs and the nearby National Parks, extending time in Las Vegas and the surrounding area, but ended up landing on the Southern Utah National Parks to fill our week.
First thing we asked ourselves was "Who are we?" We enjoyed our time in National Parks over the last few years while Holly completed running a marathon in every state, but those were 1/2 day or one full day visits. This was a full seven days that would come with a lot of windshield time. Part of our rationale was let's get some more active touring out of the way while we still have mobility freedom. Parks and hiking can be tough for some folks that can't get around so easily. Also, we are pretty good at sitting on beaches and around hotel pools so we thought it was time to try something different. If it sucked it was only one week out of our lives. Believe us, we kept questioning our choices as time got closer and Dave was constantly evaluating alternatives with Vegas as the start/end point. But we stuck with it and had an incredible trip.
The itinerary (colors indicate drive day and match the route drawn on the map):
Friday night - Sunday morning: Las Vegas
Sunday: Drive to Moab, stop at Zion's Kolob Canyon on the way, visit Arches National Park
Monday: Arches NP - Morning on our own and afternoon 4x4 tour
Tuesday: Canyonlands NP (north portion only), Capitol Reef NP, night in Torrey in a Conestoga Wagon
Wednesday: Capitol Reef NP morning, scenic Route 12, Bryce Canyon NP
Thursday: Bryce Canyon NP
Friday: Zion NP
Saturday: Zion NP, horse ride
Sunday: Drive to Vegas and spend some time casino touring before the flight home
We picked the rental up from the Las Vegas airport (tip - the rental center is so far from the terminal so allow extra time) and drove directly to the Welcome to Las Vegas Sign. This was Holly's first visit to Las Vegas so we wanted to make sure we got a few touristy things worked in.
We originally booked The Paris Hotel but then realized for the same price we could stay next door (as next door as it gets in Vegas) at the Hilton Elara and earn major Hilton Honors points (and free parking). It was attached to the mall shared by the Planet Hollywood Casino. Disney fans will appreciate we had a Monorail view room facing south towards Mandalay Bay.
Our first stop was Sin City Brewing's mall stand for a walkie. We fought our way through the crowded Friday strip to the Bellagio Fountain show before grabbing a Lyft over to Fremont Street and old Las Vegas. A free Blink 182 show was going to take place tonight in the center of the Fremont Experience so we did some quick casino touring and caught the early light show before playing a few games and having dinner at Lillie's Asian in The Golden Nugget.
We caught a Lyft back towards our hotel and ended up at Cabo Wabo for lunch. Not the most inspired choice but their was a seat available along the rail allowing us to watch all of humanity go by. We spent a little time casino touring around Bellagio, Aria, and Cosmopolitan. We found a good beer list at Holstein's in the Cosmopolitan.
We took the monorail over to The Westgate for the show. We arrived early enough to browse the Barry Manilow shop, have a drink, and become less break-even on the slot machines.
Holly writes:
"When I heard Barry Manilow was going to start doing a residency in Vegas, I knew it was time for me to finally make the trip to Vegas. Barry was one of the first concerts I saw and I have been a “Fanilow” ever since. It has been a few years since I have seen him and I was really looking forward to the show. Barry Manilow puts on an amazing show. We splurged for great tickets and I was really excited to be sitting in the second row, dead center. We got to the theater a bit early and I’m glad we did because they had a Copacabana bar with souvenir drinks. I got the Made it through the Champagne drink, a clever parody of his hit “ I Made It Through the Rain”. It came in a cool light up glass. We made it to our seats and I couldn’t believe how close to the stage we were. This was going to be good!
Barry came out to start the show and I couldn’t believe how close I was to him. I immediately started crying! It was pretty embarrassing. I was just so blown away that he was right there, my favorite performer. He sang all the hits and he still sounds as good as ever. He danced and moved around the stage just like always and he’s not a young man any longer, but you would never know it. The big finale is Copacabana and it was amazing: show girls, the stage raised up so he could be up close to the people in the balcony, confetti, an amazing outfit on Barry, it was a true Vegas show experience. I was still crying at the end and so thankful that I got to see him so close. I now want to go back again!"
After the show we hopped on the Monorail to head back to Paris. Before our dinner in the Eiffel Tower we spent some time gambling and enjoying the live band on the casino floor. We got ourselves in the black enough to buy a 6-pack of craft beer. Dinner at the Eiffel Tower was a little lack-luster. We were dead center in the middle of the room and had to crane our necks to get some sort of view and the food should have been better for the price. One thing we can tell you is their chef likes his salt.
***
The alarm went off early on Sunday. We wanted to have some time in Arches National Park this day and expected about seven hours of driving. Dave has always wanted to drive down one of those long desert roads with nothing in sight for miles - and he got his wish.
It seemed every 40 miles or so the landscape changed. Within a couple of hours we passed through St. George, Utah and turned off to enter Kolob Canyon, the north section of Zion National Park. It was bizarre because you did not expect to see such a dramatic change in the scenery taking a few turns up the mountain road. We tried not to dilly on the short hike to the lookout but it was hard not to stop and take a few more photos.
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| Look for more pictures of Holly walking through nature in future posts. |
The rest of the drive was uneventful. We ended up in Moab around 4pm, checked-in to the hotel, then headed over to Arches. We'll cover Arches/Moab in our next post.
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