West Virginia Day 3 and 4

May 25, 2014 

Gauley Bridge Waterfall

Off to an early start yet again. The adventure that awaited us was water rafting with the River Expeditions Company. We rafted the Upper New River, which is class I-III rapids. Our guide, Kim, was great. I was kind of surprised on how little paddling was actually involved – only between 2 to 5 strokes at once and only a handful of times. Breakfast provided before the trip, lunch provided riverside, and drinks provided when we returned.

We searched long and hard for an ice cream place (other than Dairy Queen) near the rafting location and luckily were able to find a place that recently opened called “The Stache”.  There were many hard serve flavors to choose from. The place also had all sorts of candy and toys.

After dinner at camp, we ventured out to find a waterfall that we passed on the way into WV. We found the huge gorgeous waterfall on the side of the road in Gauley Bridge. We had a ton of fun traversing the rocks to get the best views of the falls.

A view from Hawks Nest State Park

Heading back to camp for the night, we stopped to check out the overlooks at Hawks Nest State Park. It was a short walk with rewarding views.

WV Capitol - Charleston

May 26, 2014 

Since there was a long drive ahead of us we packed up and left camp around 8am. Traffic was not too bad at all. We stopped by the capitol in Charleston – luckily it was an easy on and off of the freeway. I had hoped to stop by the capitol in Columbus also, but traffic always seems to be heavy in the area so we skipped it. 

West Virginia Day 2

May 24, 2014 

Babcock State Park Grist Mill

There was a big list of places to visit today. The first stop was Babcock State Park. Babcock State Park is one of the oldest in West Virginia and is located in the New River Gorge National River area. There is a very popular grist mill at the park that people from all over take photographs of. The water was not yet running in the wheel when we were there and we did not get a chance to go later in the day.

Our next destination was the New River Gorge Sandstone Visitor Center. This visitor center had lots of informative displays and a 12-minute video. There were not any views from the site.

So close, yet so far was the Sandstone Falls. The falls are only about 3.5 miles from the visitor center if you were a bird, but since we are not it took about 20 miles to get the falls. The parking area was packed. Many of the people visiting were fishing. We were able to snag a picnic table and enjoy our lunch at the falls.

Sandstone Falls

Before hitting our next major location, we made a quick stop to check out the Bluestone National Scenic River at the dam. There is not a visitor center for the Bluestone. To reach the water the best option is Pipestem Resort State Park, which was pretty far out of our way.

Thurmond Depot

Onward we went…next on the docket was the Grandview area of the New River Gorge.  The Grandview visitor center was not open there, but we did checkout the overlooks.

The last stop of the day was the Thurmond Depot area of the New River Gorge.  The town of Thurmond is an old ghost town. During the beginning of the 20^th century, Thurmond was the commercial center for the region. There is a visitor center with a few displays and well as the remaining structures that still exist to check out.

West Virginia Day 1

May 23, 2014 

New River Gorge Bridge

Yahoo!  Another adventure and three more NP stamps down! This trip was about an eight-hour drive to our base camp in Hico, WV. We camped at a place called Ray’s Campground. It had really good reviews on trip advisor. The campground was nice and had really clean bathrooms. Camp was pretty loud the first night and got quieter as the days progressed.

We left at a decent time and were able to set up camp and visit the New River Gorge Canyon Rim Visitor Center before it closed.  We checked out the overviews of the New River Gorge Bridge from the visitor center. We then drove the scenic Fayette Station Road. The visitor center has a CD that you can listen to while you are driving the route.

Gauley River

After a quick dinner at camp, we headed to Carnifex Ferry Battlefield State Park. We visited this site since it was supposed to offer the best views of the Gauley River. The drive to the state park had overlooks of the dam. The Gauley River National Recreation Area is 25 miles long, but does not have a visitor center. The river is a world class whitewater rafting location in the fall months.

We also pulled over to check out Summersville Lake - so pretty!

Later in the evening we were joined by our friends from Ohio – Pete, Suzanne and Tommy.

Summersville Lake

April 26, 2014 Las Vegas

Carroll Shelby Heritage Center - Las Vegas

We had to pack up and head to the airport, but we did have time to visit one last place – the Carroll Shelby Heritage Center, which was very close to the airport.  Tours are offered, but we were worried that it might make it tight on time to catch our flight so we just walked through the museum area. There were a lot of neat cars to check out and a huge gift shop area. 

We had lunch at the Burke in the Box in the airport – it was okay. We mostly picked that place since it was the only place with a TV playing the Red Wings game. J

The flight home was uneventful for the most part, except for the kid two rows ahead of us that threw up all over the place.  Luckily, it was after the plane landed so we did not have to deal with the smell for too long.

April 25, 2014 Las Vegas

Botanical Cactus Garden at Ethel M Chocolate

We visited the Ethel M Chocolate shop, which opened early and was right on the way to our planned destination.  It really was not much of a tour, just walk though and look at some signs and check out the factory behind large windows and then receive a sample of chocolate. The chocolate was okay. 

We then headed to the Lake Mead Alan Bible Visitor Center. The visitor center is quite new and had some really nice displays. We then drove towards the Hoover Dam, but decided that we did not want to pay $10 to park the car thus we headed back towards Las Vegas, visiting  a majority of the pull offs on the portion of Lakeshore Drive that we did not drive the prior day.  Lakeshore Drive between the Visitor Center and Las Vegas Bay is much nicer than the portion to the north.

Lake Mead 

The afternoon was spent visiting miscellaneous places around Las Vegas. Some places we visited included:

We drove by Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, as featured on Pawn Stars.  There was a huge line out front. Needless to say we did not visit the shop.

Counts Customs, also seen on TV, was neat place with a quite a few cars on display. We got to see some of the guys from the TV show since we were there around lunch time.

Counts Customs

So-Cal Speed Shop had a couple of cars in the shop. Mike got a tee-shirt and some stickers for the garage cabinets.

We also walked the strip. We had a list of “free” things to see at the hotels so we checked some out some of the things we did not see in the past including:

A live act at Circus Circus – kind of neat.

The wild life habitat at the Flamingo – lame.

What we think was the World’s Largest Chandelier at the Cosmopolitan – okay I suppose.

Las Vegas Strip

We had dinner at Holsteins, a burger place, inside of Cosmopolitan. It was tasty. We also stopped by The Cheesecake Factory for a slice of Carrot Cake Cheesecake!

Originally, hitting the downtown area was the plan, but we were just too tired to stay up and check out Freemont Street.

April 24, 2014 Glen Canyon Dam, Valley of Fire SP, Pipe Spring Monument

Glen Canyon NRA

After breakfast at the hotel, we were off to see the Glen Canyon Dam up close. The tour was $5 and lasted about 1.25 hours. It was very similar to the Hoover Dam, which we visited a few years back.

Pipe Spring National Monument was our next site to visit as we headed back towards Las Vegas.   Pipe Spring has a joint Tribal-Nation Park Service Visitor Center and Museum. There is a 25 minute video which discusses the history of the Kaibab Paiutes and the Mormon settlement.  Tours of Winsor Castle are available on the half hour.  There is a fee of $5/person to visit the site and take the tour.  An hour to an hour and a half is all the time needed at this site.

The site is located in the Arizona Strip, at the foot of the Vermilion Cliffs and has some of the purest water in the area. Puebloan people arrived to the area around 300BCE, soon after the Southern Paiute tribes arrived (and still live there). In the 1700’s missionaries and explored passed though. In the mid-1800’s conflicts over water and land began.  Mormon ranchers began to bring cattle and sheep to the area. Navajo Indians began raiding the Mormon livestock.   In 1870, Winsor Castle came about to serve as a remote stop for Mormons who were trying to expand their religion. Winsor Castle served as a hideout for polygamous wives due to its remoteness.  

Valley of Fire State Park - Petroglyphs

Continuing towards Las Vegas, we checked out Valley of Fire State Park. There was a $10 fee that was paid at a drop box when entering the park. The park was okay, but after seeing so many rocks already on this trip I did not find these rocks to be all that special. There were some petroglyphs at different locations throughout the park.

We decided to take the scenic route for the remainder of the trip – Northshore Road through the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.  It was okay – not much traffic but you could not really see Lake Mead from the road.

For the remainder of the trip we stayed at Desert Paradise Resort. It was very nice, but traffic in the area was a bit heavy.

April 23, 2014 Monument Valley, Lower Antelope Canyon, Glen Canyon

Moo from Monument Valley

We started the day early with breakfast at the hotel - since the hotel was totally booked so we wanted the best choices and a place to sit! We had quite a drive again, but unlike most of our travels there was actually a lot of traffic.  A guy Mike works with recommended visiting Monument Valley. Monument Valley lies entirely within the Navajo Indian Reservation on the Utah/Arizona border. The cost was $5/person to get in.  There is a 17-mile driving path to take - it was not comfortable - very rocky and extremely bumpy. Cars were driving down the road, but I would recommend a higher clearance since you could see places where cars scraped their bottoms on rocks. After seeing rocks for so many days there really was not anything too special about these ones, in my opinion. It takes about two to four hours to make it through the one way looped road. There is one hiking path along the driving loop, but we did not venture out.

Navajo NM - Betatakin Dwelling

The next stop was at a NPS site - Navajo National Monument. There was a short video, which was very informative. The site also has a short walk along the Sandal Trail that leads to an overview of the old cliff dwelling – the Betatakin dwelling. It is believed that about 120 people lived in the dwelling area. Apparently, they do offer walks down to the dwellings, but I did not notice when they are offered. That walk is limited to a certain number of people and it takes a few hours (per the video).

Lower Antelope Canyon

It was still early afternoon, we decided to check out the Lower Antelope Canyon - one word to describe - AWESOME! The canyon was discovered not all that long ago by an Indian woman that was watching her sheep flock. The canyon entrance and exit is a very short walk from the area that you pay.  The operation is called Ken’s Guided Tour of Lower Antelope Canyon.  It was $28 for the tour and Navajo Park Permit.  Based on my research, the best times to go to between 11am-1pm, we were there later than that but still thought it was great. There is currently a building being built – which would be nice since then they would probably have real bathrooms instead of port-a-potties. There are a lot of stairs and tight spaces throughout the tour. The guide we had helped everyone set up their cameras to get the best shots - I was amazed by the number of people that do not know how to change the settings! The tour is not really guided – you more less along at your own pace and snap away. I would HIGHLY recommend this tour. There were young kids on the tour and they all seemed to manage okay. It should be noted that there is also Upper Antelope Canyon tours –those tours cost a little more and per tripadvisor reviews is a lot more crowded. I also believe that the slot canyon is wider.

Lower Antelope Canyon

Lower Antelope Canyon from up top

We still had a little time left in the day, we went to the Glen Canyon area. We watched a video on how the dam was built at the Carl Hayden Visitor Center. There are also two other videos available, the schedule was posted outside of the auditorium. While at the visitor center, we also reserved a spot for the 8:30 tour the next morning. You pay $5/person when you check in for the tour.

Bridge in Page, AZ

We checked out a BBQ place for dinner – Big John’s BBQ - it was just okay. I had the pork sandwich, not greasy or fatty, but a bit dry. We went to the Bigger Dipper for ice cream - good and very large scoops!

Horseshoe Bend

We checked out Horseshoe Bend, but we got there a little early for the sunset. The hike to the edge was very sandy and there were a lot of bugs flying around. We also checked out the Dam overlook behind the Denny's restaurant.