Sunday morning Dave and I enjoyed a quieter morning and enjoyed visiting the atrium of the Bellagio without the crowds. The Christmas display is completely over the top. Like everything else in Vegas!

After breakfast, we packed up and returned to the airport to pick up our rental and our friends! And so our road trip began!

First stop Valley of Fire State Park. Nevada’s first state park.

Valley of Fire State park is about an hour away from Vegas. Within minutes of entering the park we had our first spotting of wildlife. Big Horn Sheep!!

The red rocks are caused by the oxidation of the iron in the rock. So, basically they are rusty rocks. The black is caused by the oxidation of manganese in the rock. Our first stop in the park was to see the beehives. The holes and ridges in the rocks are caused by erosion.

We continued driving through the park. We entered through the west entrance and exited through the east entrance. It would be easy to spend an entire day in the park. We only took a couple short walks to see specific sights. Mainly because we still had a three hour drive ahead to Kanab.

We stopped to see a petrified log…

We stopped to see elephant rock.

Elephant rock

We loaded up in the car and continued our drive to Kanab. The drive was beautiful. We crossed back and forth from AZ to UT.

The sunset as we crossed through the Kaibab Indian Reservation in AZ. It was stunning.

Sunday Sunset

We were glad we hit the road when we did from Valley of Fire State Park. We didn’t realize we went to mountain time in Utah. Our three hour drive was actually four. We were hungry and still needed to gather provisions for Monday’s Wave hike. Our hike begins at 8am. We are all beyond excited!