My lady and I went on a beautiful weekend journey/getaway from California, through Arizona, to Utah and Nevada, returning to California on the following Monday. Stepping away from the city life is so necessary sometimes, especially when life throws a few curve balls. It’s always nice to return to nature and see how small we are as human beings on this huge planet.
And if it weren’t for vehicles this trip wouldn’t be possible. I can’t imagine how it would have been for Settlers, Indians, Nomads, Foragers, and all the ancient people to have to traverse the harsh landscape in the blistering sun and the bone chilling darkness.
The trip was truly amazing. First stop was at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. I had been before with my mother about 8 years ago, but I thought it would be lovely to drive out there with Lindsay.
Lindsay and I both have a love for the outdoors, traveling to new places, and exploring in general. We arrived at Grand Canyon, and I just wanted to see her reaction which was normal, she was just surprised at how wide it was and the color of it. The sun was hitting the canyon from the right side producing these beautiful blue/purple shadows, and it gave it a real majestic feeling. The cool part about the Grand Canyon is as the sun shifts in the sky the colors of the canyon walls change. The shadows and highlights shift, and the hues of orange, red, beige, and tan shift. The overall color temperature changes from a cool to warm and back to a cool temperature at the end of the day.
We continued our journey from Grand Canyon, onto Horse Shoe Bend, this beautiful rock carving created by millions of years of water carving out a horse shoe shape, thousands of feet deep. By this time there was a bit of a crowd visiting the same location, but we were able to get an amazing view and take a mixture of photos and videos.
Definitely a scary position to be in (hanging over the edge of a long drop) but well worth the photo and the memory. And this moment reminded me of how small we are in this world, on this planet, with so much history before our time that we wish we could better understand. Time in nature is so necessary for growth, creativity, and overall happiness.
We moved on to Antelope Canyon and Lindsay surprised me with a tour! It was truly amazing. We rode in an updated version of a Lorry to the entrance of this unique land formation. The tour was an easy walk through what is basically a cave or extremely skinny valley that was carved out by millions of years of water and flash floods. In certain parts of the cave, it becomes more of a valley (hence the name) since you can see the sky. The walls are truly a work of art by Mother Nature. The tour guide was able to tell us every position in the cave for the best picture, but the time of day made it slightly difficult to get a clean picture since it was so dark in certain parts.
After Antelope Canyon, our next stop was Utah, but it was getting late and we were tired. We stopped in Kanab, this small town in Southern Utah right by the border. Kanab is a town amongst red hills. It was hard to tell at first since we arrived after sunset, but in the morning it was truly beautiful. We stayed at a Best Western out there, which is like a resort compared to any other Best Western I’ve ever stayed at.
Lindsay and I are both vegan (she converted me when we first started dating) and we decided to eat Taco Bell before leaving Arizona, but Kanab surprisingly enough had some vegan offerings, so we plan to return to Kanab with an empty stomach.
I convinced Lindsay to go in the hot tub outside which may have not been the smartest idea looking back since it was 28 degrees Fahrenheit…which to us is freezing being from Southern California. We went in for a bit, got a quick workout in, and went to bed. I forgot to mention the employees at the Best Western in Kanab were so nice! So accommodating, so tender, so warm and welcoming. We had asked what did or didn’t have dairy in their free breakfast offerings and the woman who prepared the food called the supplier to ask for us. No one in California would go out of there way like that they would probably just make up the answer instead.
So we left Kanab in an amazing mood, and entered a whole new world! Zion National Park!
Zion is a must see. It is a MUST experience. And there’s quite a few things to do there. We did a scenic drive and 2 hikes before we had to leave. The scenic drive is only open in winter time since it is less crowded so we got pretty lucky. The colors, the nature, the mountains, the sand, the water...everything about this place is absolutely amazing. The first hike was an upstream hike called The Narrows. We rented some gear to do this hike because after a certain point you must walk through the water, but I’ve never seen anything like this. There was ice on the sides of this narrow valley. The water was cold, but manageable. The sounds echoed through this narrow valley. It wasn’t very crowded either which made it ideal for photos and just absorbing the whole experience. We ran into a few deer as well before we reached the narrows, 2 of which had missing antlers (likely from fighting each other) and these deer seemed to be somewhat fearful of humans, which I’m not used to. We did almost 2 miles upstream in the hike and decided to turn around.
As we were walking back, a few rocks fell from a few thousand feet above us, and landed on the ground not far from where we were standing...these easily could have killed us. I didn’t even know it was happening, I just heard a very loud rumbling, which almost sounded like the splitting of wood mixed with an avalanche. Lindsay saw the rocks fall, which got her anxious to get out of what now felt like a death trap.
We got out of The Narrows, removed our gear and went on another hike up the Emrald Pools! The Emrald pools are a unique sight. There are 3 pools with the lower pool being the easiest to get to. They seem to be created by melting snow dripping down from the top of the mountain, thousands of feet above, which just so happens to be a shear face. The hike wasn’t hard nor long, and some parts were actually paved! Some parts of the hike also had man made steps which definitely assisted in the walk up, but these steps were met with long fatal drop offs. We finally reached the upper pool and gave ourselves a few minutes to chill.
On the way out of Zion, we stopped at a little coffee shop in the town of Springdale which is literally right outside Zion’s gate. Springdale is the place to stay if you plan to visit Zion National Park. And the coffee place we stopped at had some vegan options as well, but we were eager to get to Vegas so we didn’t stop for food.
Our last leg of the trip was just to Las Vegas, Nevada. Lindsay and I both love Vegas. Vegas has a few great memories attached to it for me. One of which was the last time I was in Vegas for Lindsay’s birthday. But I’ll save that for another post! This time we wanted a cheap quick stay just to go to a club, check out a few things and head home. We went to Hakkasan Night Club for free to see Party Favor perform, but he didn’t come on until after 1am...and we were so tired from our journey that we just decided to go to sleep. We couldn’t get drunk, and we ate lots of food at our favorite vegan friendly place in Vegas, Nacho Daddy, and we were just ready to call it a night. We woke up the next day, had some vegan sushi burritos and hit the road home!
Overall great little weekend trip if you want to get a quick change of scenery! I highly recommend taking frequent journeys to nature to reconnect with the energy of the Earth and forget about all the stress that comes with living a fast paced working life centered on money and social status.
And for those of you who are going through tough times, get out of your house and drive down the road to somewhere in nature you’ve never been, take some photos, make some videos, fall in love with yourself and with nature again. Don’t get caught up in the vicious cycle of working for paper. Go outdoors, see the beauty and the peace, see the patience of the mountains, listen to the sounds of the stream, absorb the sun through your skin, rub your face in the dirt and feel the clean air in your lungs. If you’ve read this far thank you. If you enjoyed this post leave a comment below! I’ll do my best to bring more to this platform.
Best Regards,
David Massena
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