Red Eye to LAS
Our flight into Vegas was a red-eye, landing shortly before midnight. It had only been a few days since the Route 91 Harvest music festival shooting, so I wondered if we would see increased security. We didn’t notice any, but I’m not sure what I was expecting since the incident had nothing to do with the airport.
We picked up our rental car and drove a short distance to our hotel. We probably could have gone directly to our base of operations—Hurricane, Utah—but the two hour drive on unfamiliar roads was not something I wanted to attempt that late at night. Besides, now we could say we spent a night in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas to Hurricane
We woke early the next morning, and grabbed a quick breakfast at McDonald’s and a glimpse of the famous “Las Vegas Strip.” Getting out of Vegas was surprisingly easy, and it only took 15-20 minutes for us to shed the city and enter the surrounding desert.
I expected the land around the city to be flat, and it was on either side of the highway, but the small mountains visible in the distance did not fit into my preconceived idea of what the desert would look like. The color palette did match the vision, however, as the arid environment ensured browns and tans painted the ground and scrub brush. Monotony set in fairly quickly.
The landscape changed as we passed into Arizona, and we jumped forward an hour from PST to MST. The ground jutted up into the sky, dwarfing our car, and red tones crept into the rock surrounding us. The straight, flat highway we drove became more twisted and undulated, and it provided much needed visual interest.
The jaunt through the northwest corner Arizona was short, and we entered Utah rather quickly. Sagebrush appeared with more frequency and the rock formations varied widely between tans, reds, and blacks.
We stopped at a Walmart sitting alone on the outskirts of Hurricane to get some supplies for our hikes. When I stepped out of the car for the first time I was happy to feel that the air was warm but not hot, hovering in the mid-70s, and the bright sun was pleasant but not overwhelming—perfect weather for hiking.
We left Walmart and within minutes arrived at our hotel. Our room was not ready, so we went to a nearby Wendy’s for lunch and to review the plan for the afternoon. I was relaxed and excited at the same time. It felt good to be there. It felt good to be exploring again.