The Leaving of Las Vegas

Today, Thursday 7th June, was our first day on the road. A cab ride to Car Rental Road to pick up a car at the Las Vegas McClarren Airport Car Rental Center, a massive terminal building just outside the airport where once my paperwork with Dollar was completed we took an elevator down to the Dollar garage area. Thinking that I would be given a particular car I was surprised to be told by the Dollar employee to just go over to a row of cars and pick the one I wanted. That was all except for someone at the gate checking the car's identity and recording it on my rental contract.

North out of Las Vegas on I-15N we soon left the Strip and downtown and were quickly out onto open highway. Lots of sandy, stoney scrubland led through stoney, sandy, hills all sharing one common factor. This is the dressing by the wind of nearly every brush and cactus with waste plastic bags which blow across the highway with each sudden gust of wind. On to and through the Moape Reservation with a stop for water at the Maope Piute Smoke Shop which is large structure seemingly only in existence for the sale of fireworks and alcohol as well as some general merchandise and with a tribal casino right next to it.


Everything is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and there is even a firework testing range next to the store where customers can test out the fireworks they have bought.
Though we were aiming to reach Zion National Park by early afternoon our plans were put into disarray because we stopped in the town of Mesquite to buy 'provisions' before we went on northwards. Well actually we stopped at a Wal*Mart to get a cooler box, some ice, water and the suchlike together with lunch from the shelves of the store- hummous, salad and fruit. The other factor we hadn't taken into account was that there is a time difference of 1 hour when crossing the Nevada state line, a little bit of Arizona and into Utah from the south. We weren't aware of the clock moving 1 hour forward as we went north until we checked into our motel in Cedar City but it was then crystal clear why the park rangers were closing the road into Zion at what we thought was 4 pm but was actually 5 pm Utah time. But the day wasn't wasted at all. We saw amazing rock formations and distant mountains coloured the most amazing colours as well as wonderful scenery when we took a detour off I-15N in the direction of a small town called Leeds and on towards Silver Reef.

So here we are in Cedar City, Utah on what is a very cold and windy night. We are something over 5000 ft above sea level and there is a chilly wind blowing from the north west so we are very grateful that we brought one warm jacket each.
Tomorrow it is an early drive north east on 12 for about 300 miles up to Moab through Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef National Parks for Capitol Reef and Canyonlands National Parks as well as Arches National Park if there is enough time before leaving Utah on Monday morning.