Over the past few summers, we tried to take a trip without the kids. As they get older, it’s harder to leave them for too long. This year, we tried something a bit different, and planned to stay in the US – allowing us to get a full week in, allowing us to get home before Shabbat. We decided to explore some of the National Parks around Utah and Arizona, and really packed in a busy trip. Rita had been to the area before on Achva West, but Sam never saw any of the parks. Since there was no kosher food in the area, we mostly survived on sandwiches, instant noodle soup, and other things we could find in the supermarkets. Sam couldn’t make his beef jerky because it was the 9 days. We started off with a 6am flight to Vegas, rented a car and drove to Utah!
Note: on this trip, we really learned how to do road trips in national parks. We figured out how to feed ourselves, on Walmart, and other supermarkets (we got better at this in later trips too). We also learned, that in each park, you go to the visitors center where a park ranger will point you to the highlights to hit based on how much time you have.
Day 1 – Zion National Park Pt. 1 (Sunday)
After a 3 hour drive, we stopped by the hotel right outside the park, and headed in for the afternoon. Since we knew we had a full day to be in Zion at the end of our trip, we skipped the main valley (Zion Canyon) where cars weren’t allowed, and explored the area a bit to the east. We drove through the Zion – Mt. Carmel tunnel, hiked the Canyon Overlook Trail (which was tiring after a full day of travel, but offered spectacular views and was a fun hike), then did a short Petroglyph hike (unmarked trail to some ancient Native American wall art) which was really cool to see.
Day 2 – Bryce Canyon (Monday)
After about a 2 hour drive, we got to Bryce Canyon. This is one of the most spectacular places in the country, with a canyon nestled in the mountains, filled with hoodoos that reach stories high. Like most things on this trip, pictures didn’t do it justice. We started by walking to Sunrise and Sunset Points on the canyon rim, and did a horseback riding trail (Peek-a-boo Loop). It poured during the first 30 minutes of our ride and we were soaked (it’s monsoon season), but the extremely dry air dried us off almost immediately afterwards, and the rest of the ride was spectacular. Finally, we took the scenic drive to Rainbow point, which was a more wooded area of the park, with nice views of the canyon as well. We drove to Page, AZ that night.
Day 3 – Page, AZ – Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, and Lake Powell (Tuesday)
First stop was Lower Antelope Canyon. Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon, which is a narrow passageway carved by rushing water in the ground. It creates spectacular formations in the stone. The guide there showed us how to change the exposure settings on our phones to take some spectacular photos.
We hiked up to the Colorado River where it made almost a 360 degree turn. After that, we went to lake Powell, where we took a boat tour through the artificial lake created by the Glen Canyon Dam. Afterwards, we drove to Horseshoe bend, which was another Instagram hotspot, and then spent the rest of the day by the “beach” at Wahweap Beach. (See! We do relax!)
Day 4 – Grand Canyon North Rim (Wednesday)
We drove from Page to the Grand Canyon, with a quick stop at the Navajo bridge at Marble Canyon. We planned to visit the North Rim of the Canyon (which made more sense with our trip). The north rim is much less visited than the south rim, which was nice during the summer busy season. It’s also about 10 degrees cooler than the south rim, and is actually quite green because of the rain it gets in the winter. We hiked to Bright Angel Point, did a mule ride into the canyon, and drove to Cape Royal. We drove back to Zion for the night.
Day 5 – Zion National Park Pt 2 (Thursday)
For our full day at Zion, we explored the Zion Canyon which we skipped Sunday. Compared to the other parks on the trip, Zion was not as picturesque, but it was definitely the most fun. We didn’t do the Narrows hike which required hiking through the river in special boots) but we had a lot of fun seeing the canyon from the valley floor, and Sam even swam in the river. Our stops were the riverside trail, Weeping Rock Trail, Lower Emerald Pools.
We left a bit early so we could catch our redeye flight back home from Vegas. There we got our first real meal of the trip, which was interrupted when we heard our flight home was cancelled. After spending all of our meal on the phone, we were able to rebook flights via connection and get home in plenty of time for Shabbat.
All in, we drove over 1,000 miles and over 16 hours, we got to see some spectacular sites in a whirlwind trip.
