It’s time to get going again. Today, we’re leaving Flagstaff, Arizona and driving west to Vegas! We make a few quick but very cool stops along the way.
First, we came across a junction with the old historic Route 66, so we had to stop for some quick pics! We’ve driven many sections of Route 66 before but it’s still neat.
Soon, we also passed through Williams, Arizona, the gateway to the Grand Canyon National Park. If you intend to go to the Grand Canyon, definitely stop here to get gas and any other supplies before you head up north to the canyon. It’s still a long drive up and it can get more remote. This is also where you catch the Grand Canyon Railway if you’ve booked that as part of your Grand Canyon trip.
We didn’t go to the Grand Canyon this time due to time constraints but we’ve gone there several times before. It’s an amazing national park. This time, we just stopped in the Williams Info Center for a little driving break. It has a neat little exhibit about the area – the Kaibab Forest, more about Route 66, the Grand Canyon, and of course, a gift shop.
OK, back to driving…and more driving.
We saw so many cool rock formations! I just love this scenery! We love driving through the southeastern United States because of this. I probably took a million pics, but I’ll spare you. LoL. Here are some favorites. Do you see the turtle??
We finally get to Nevada!
We stopped at the Hoover Dam real quick, which spans the Nevada/Arizona border. An amazing feat of engineering! If you can, schedule a tour inside it.
After leaving the Hoover Dam, we continue driving northwest through the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. It is considered a National Park Service property so if you have one of the National Park Passes, it is covered with that. I highly recommend getting a pass if you’ll be going to about 3 or 4 parks that charge admission within 12 months. It is a huge beautiful area for all sorts of outdoor and water activities.
We’re going up this way because we want to take a slight detour on the way to Vegas to another place that I’ve heard is beautiful. Any guesses?
Driving on! More gorgeous scenery!
Surprise! We arrived at Valley of Fire State Park!
We’ve wanted to come here for a while. We’ve seen videos showing how gorgeous it was here with the deep red rocks and oddly shaped formations. They were all correct. Look at these formations just along the road driving into the park!
We stopped into the Visitors Center to learn more about the area.
We didn’t have much time here this time but at least we got to drive through the main road that goes through the park. So amazingly beautiful!! There are also a few offshoot small roads and hiking trails if you have time for them. We love this type of scenery so we’ll be back to explore this park more in depth in the future.
It’s about an hour to Vegas from here, so we have to get going. We have to make it there tonight for an event. Let’s continue driving the rest of the way out of the park to hop back on the highway down to Vegas!
We finally made it to Las Vegas!
We are just here for tonight so we explored The Strip for a little bit, which is most active and pretty at night all lit up. There are tons of hotels, restaurants, shows, clubs, casinos, stores, and attractions along this main touristy road in the heart of Vegas.
However, this time around, we were here to see the BattleBots show! Have you seen this robot competition show on TV? It’s filmed here and there are almost daily competitions that you can go watch!
We also enjoyed dinner at a Korean BBQ.
It was a short but cool stay in Vegas!
Day 8
Today, we’re off to Nevada’s only national park – Great Basin National Park!
It’s a very scenic but long, looong drive. It’s also pretty remote so make sure to top off your gas and such in Vegas before heading up.
We finally made it to Great Basin National Park!
Let me warn you, even though Google Maps says it only takes about 5 hours to get there, allocate an extra hour or even two hours, especially if you have to get there for a timed tour. The one road up there is a small remote road with several construction stops that can add up to half an hour to each stop.
Unfortunately, we ended up missing our cave tour time by just 5 minutes, so we just learned about the famous Lehman Caves in the Visitor’s Center. We had to stop so many times on the way here due to construction on the only way here. The lady in the Visitors Center said several groups had been late recently due to all the road construction. Luckily, they were willing to refund our tour fee, but it’s a shame we missed it. The group already went over to the cave and we couldn’t just catch up with them. Bummer!
However, there are still plenty of things to do above ground at this park. We toured the top of the park above the caves, driving up to one of the scenic viewpoints. I believe it was up to 10,000+ feet in elevation! Great views!
After exploring the park for a few hours, we head out towards our hotel. Note that there are very few hotels in the immediate area of the park and they fill up fast, so we had to get one in Ely, the next town over, which was an hour away. Make sure to reserve your hotels way ahead of time if you’re planning a trip to this park.
We stopped for dinner near the hotel at a local Mexican place, Roberto’s Mexican Food. Sooo good! Huge portions!
I haven’t really posted about our hotels on this trip since they’re mostly at Best Westerns, which we love, but you probably know about already. But, this time, we stayed at the Bristlecone Motel, a little locally owned motel in Ely, Nevada, about an hour west of Great Basin National Park. It was nice and clean, and the receptionist was sooo friendly and helpful! And, it’s just 2 minutes down the road from that Mexican place. Just book by calling the motel directly. Don’t go through the various booking sites.
It’s been a long day of driving but we finally got to a remote national park that we haven’t been near on past trips. Still a good day! Time for bed now!
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Adventures By Anne 