Road Trip!

I took a week of vacation this week and it has been so nice to be away from work. I haven’t even thought about it until I just typed that sentence. My mom wanted to go somewhere so I told her ok as long as we went south so it was warmer. 

We drove down to St. George the first day and stayed overnight there. A coworker told me to go to the botanical garden there and it was nice. I liked walking around it. 

The next day we headed into Nevada and stopped at Valley of Fire state park. I’d never been there before so that was a fun side trip. It was windy though and wind kind of aggravates my eyes so we didn’t do so much walking around there.

We spend that night in Pahrump, Nevada. The next day we got up early and drove to Death Valley National Park. The high temperature was supposed to be 92 so we wanted to start before the heat of the day. Usually, I think of Death Valley as somewhere to drive through/past as fast as possible but it was actually fun to go there and see the diversity of the landscapes and vegetation. 

We walked out on the salt flats at Badwater Basin. At 282 feet below sea level, it’s the lowest point in North America. 

My car is sitting here in the parking lot and on the mountain behind it is a tiny white sign that says: Sea Level.

We walked up a couple of hills at Artists Palette. The sun was in the wrong spot to see the colors really bright but they are definitely there. 

We made Zabriskie Point our last stop. It was fun to see part of the park. There was still so much more we didn’t see. I would not want to do that in the summer and the heat, but it would be fun to go back during the winter months and see other parts and get some sunshine. 

And before we came home we stopped in Las Vegas and went to Ethel M’s chocolate factory. Yes, I bought way too much chocolate to bring home. I regret nothing. The little cactus garden they have there was also a nice place to walk . 

Of course my mom survived walking around the uneven ground in Death Valley just to walk off the curb at a gas station and do a face plant. She wasn’t hurt, but was bruised so the trip home was a fast one. We left Vegas at 6 am and drove home. We did stop back in St. George to go to the Farmstead Bakery because of a billboard we saw on the side of the road. It was excellent and worth stopping at. 

It was a fast trip but very relaxing. I stayed off social media and the news but then was very happy to sleep in my own bed last night. I like to go places, but I really like to come home.