A Road Trip

As a family, we were planning to do a trip for Spring Break because we knew that it was coming. My parents have been in the US for over 18 years, but in these years, we didn’t really go on any “real” road trip, so this year, we finally made a plan to go on a road trip. We wanted to visit wonderful national parks and some iconic canyons. While we were planning, some friends wanted us to visit their places, so we decided to add those to our road trip. This was going to be a very exciting road trip for us. 

After the plan was made, we packed up a lot of supplies for the trip, including clothes, books, movies, snacks and a lot of stuff. We were quite excited to go on the trip and were waiting for Spring Break to arrive, but we planned all that in March, so it was a long time before Spring Break could arrive. Since we were going to different states, they are going to be really long drives. We packed movies and a DVD and Blu-ray player to watch those movies. 

We did plan all of that beforehand and we made it final that we are going as per plan, but something unfortunate happened. A week before April, I felt a bad pain in a tooth that was chipped  way back in November 2021 while playing catch catch. It hurt so bad and I felt so bad we almost had to cancel the trip. After a dental appointment, we figured we only needed to do a few changes. Per my dentist's advice we canceled going to Bryce Canyon because it is high altitude and the tooth pain would get worse if we went up that high. We could still do the trip, except the Bryce Canyon part was canceled and we postponed our start date (originally April 14th) to April 15th.

Finally the day came and we started our trip on April 15th, our first destination was Riverside at our friend’s house. To get to Riverside, we had to do a really, really long drive, so it would take us nighttime to get there. We took a lunch break on the way. We ate at McDonalds and the food was good. When we got there, we had too much fun staying the night there. That night Rishan and Joshil won’t go to bed as they loved playing laser tag. It was after mid-night we went to bed. Mom and dad were in a nostalgic mood with Piyush uncle and Bindiya aunty while talking about Sacramento. I was so happy for them. We saw them after a long 5 years. We played pool over there. Uncle taught us how to play pool. It was an interesting game. It was so great to see that Joshil has learnt a lot of trick shots. 

The next day, we were heading out to go to Chandler, Arizona, where another friend of ours lives. Before leaving, aunty packed hash brown sandwiches, lots of snacks, and chocolates for lunch to eat on the way. When we were actually on our way to Chandler, we watched some movies we packed. The one I really liked was the Home Alone movie. On our way, though, when we were on I-10 near Palm Springs, we got into a sandstorm that whipped at our car, flinging dust at it. It was over 20 minutes and we got really scared. We crossed the Colorado River and saw lots of  cacti. We were thrilled that we drove into Arizona. We took a short break to feel the air in Arizona. We reached our friend’s house in Chandler that evening. We had great fun there. Jyoti uncle and dad cooked chicken on the BBQ grill. It was very yummy. I had great fun with Jishnu and Rishan had a great time with Sai. Rishan and Sai had one thing in common - Beyblade and they played like crazy and did a lot of unseen stunts with Beyblades. Jishnu is a bookworm and he showed me a number of books that he enjoys reading. The next day we were leaving their house and going on a journey to the Grand Canyon. Our journey to nature just got started!

It was a few hours drive to go from Chandler to the Grand Canyon. When we got there, it was a majestic view. This was my first time visiting the Grand Canyon and I realized why it's called  “GRAND”. The vastness of the canyon made me awestruck. I was speechless. We got a great view of the canyon from the Vista Pointe. We sat on a canyon rock. It was quite close to the edge. We sat there quite long and felt chills in my body as I was sitting on a rock which is millions of years old! We started discussing the origin of earth and the universe. Not only was it a deep canyon, it was also very broad. We did a small hike and visited many viewpoints. We saw many picks and I could not believe that only a river with the help of wind has made so many artistic curves and picks.

After we took a very nice glimpse of the canyon, we took a 2 and a half hour drive to the small but beautiful city of canyons, Page. We stayed there for 3 days to stay submerged in nature. We found a number of good restaurants for dinner. It was a bit late when we reached the city Page from the Grand Canyon. We took away Mexican food and ate in our hotel room. It was delicious and we enjoyed it a lot - I love good food!. But, my mind kept going away to the thoughts of how majestic our Lake Powell boat tour would be. Rishan and I were super excited and could not wait to see the morning sun.

The next morning, we woke up, had an awesome breakfast in the hotel and went to a boat station for the Lake Powell trip. We scheduled a time for the trip and when the boat arrived on the scheduled time, we climbed onto it. There were other passengers, too, and we got to see a map of what Lake Powell looked like. It looked like a set of neurons. Lake Powell is what also  eroded another canyon called Antelope Canyon. The tour guide told us that the water level decreased because of drought. He also mentioned that seven states and Mexico get water from the Colorado river and this drought is impacting all these states very badly. There were lots of objects carved from the erosion of the water. It was spectacular that a lot of cool shapes were carved from just water erosion.

After the boat trip, we went back to the hotel to prepare for a hiking trip down the lower part of Antelope Canyon. We went to a place called Ken’s Antelope Canyon Tours, and a tour guide, not named Ken, led us down to the lower part of Antelope Canyon. Every 10 years, a storm hovers above Antelope Canyon, causing a flash flood. The latest one so far happened in 2013. We had to go down steps to reach the bottom of the lower canyon. It was underground! When we finally reached the bottom of the canyon, we could see smooth textures on the walls of the canyon. It was very beautiful. We can’t imagine that a flash flood through the canyons can make this awesome canyon. We hiked and took photos to reveal mind-blowing illusions! There was a shark, a seahorse, and the woman in the wind carved into these underground caverns. There was another shape where there was an opening in such a way that it looked so much like a sunset. The colors were beautiful as well: red, dark brown, maroon, all kinds of colors! When we got out of the canyon, it looked like the entire canyon was just a crack in the ground.

That same evening, we went to see the Horseshoe Bend. The Horseshoe Bend was the Colorado River, bent around a cliff to make it look like a horseshoe. It was beautiful! There was also a rock stacking area where we could stack small rocks to build a rock tower.  We stacked some rocks and made a tower with a small rock on the bottom and a smaller rock on the top. People say if we go back 100 years later, this rock stack would still be there! That same night, we went to a fancy restaurant, named Sunset 89. There, we ate some scrumptious dinner. It was really delicious and we enjoyed it. 

The next day, we were taking a tour of the Upper Antelope Canyon, just a cavern above ground. While the Lower Antelope Canyon looked like a crack in the ground, the Upper Antelope Canyon was an above ground canyon. When we went inside, it was much brighter than the Lower Antelope Canyon. In that part, there were also some objects carved from erosion just like the Lower Canyon, like a heart, a crack, and a light beam. We were taking photos of the objects carved from the natural process of erosion, and then we finally got out of the cavern. It was very windy. That was why there was sand falling when we were inside the upper canyon. The wind almost blew my hat away, but I caught it. Later on, we went back to our hotel, we were relaxing after that long hike we had. 

Towards the evening, we were packing up all of our stuff to go to Utah. While we were going, we were watching some movies on our double DVD/Blu-ray player when we hit the Arizona/Utah border 3 times. We hit the border up north once towards the beginning when we were near Lone Rock. We were in Utah. It was very windy. We stopped to see the rock, and the door flew open when we opened it because of the wind. It was almost impossible to close the door. We got driving again, and then we hit the border again down south, this time taking us back to Arizona. We had to drive a lot in order to get back to Utah, and so we did. Our new hotel was in La Verkin in Utah. We got some dinner from a Peruvian restaurant and then took it to our hotel room. Our room was on the first floor, and as we ate and slept, I thought of our hike at Zion National Park. 

The next day, we went to Zion, a national park that is at the bottom of a canyon eroded by a river called the Virgin River. Our first stop was stop 9, the Temple of Sinawava. Over there was a hiking point where we could go down to the Virgin River. We went down to the Virgin River, and we took off our socks and shoes. We then set foot on the rocks that were in the water. When our feet touched the water, it was super duper cold, but we later got used to it. We threw small stones at a very large stone. One of the stones was big enough to break when it hit the large stone. We got out of the water, and we then went to the main part of Zion National Park. On our way to the main part, we saw a big lone rock and saw two people attempting to climb that rock, which is very dangerous! We then completed a Zion Ranger Handbook and took oath to be a junior park ranger. We then took a bus back to the stop where we parked our car in Springdale. We then ate dinner at a Thai restaurant and the food was very delicious with Zion mountains on our side. We went back to our hotel and Rishan and I discussed the dinosaur museum we are going to visit tomorrow.

The next day, we ate breakfast and then packed up our stuff to go to Las Vegas. Before going to Las Vegas, we took a stop at the St. George Dinosaur Museum. There was a lot of stuff that had to do with dinosaurs in the early days, like fossils, track marks, etc. There were even some videos of dinosaur features and some discovered ground features that lead to the thought of dinosaurs. Once, there was a ground feature where we could see small footprints, large footprints, raindrops, and mud cracks (cracks that happened when the ground dried up). There was a lab where scientists cleaned the fossils to get the dirt out so that the shape stays there. We said goodbye to dinosaurs and hit the road again. On the way, daddy asked if we wanted to visit Valley of Fire. We happily agreed.  Then, we made our way to the Valley of Fire State Park. It was a very sandy area, and we saw a rock that was shaped like an elephant, known as the Elephant Rock. We took a lot of photos at the Elephant Rock, and we took a few rocks as  something to remember the trip. It was really quite crazy and fascinating that nature carved an elephant from a big rock. We did an amazing 3 miles hike over there. We eventually reached an area that had very wavy sand. We went almost 100 ft down and walked through high mountains standing very narrowly. It was scary and we were almost lost. It took us almost three hours to find our way out. We later came to know that the area was once the bottom of an ocean. That was our last hike of the trip and we headed to the bustling city of Las Vegas!

On our way to Las Vegas, we were watching movies on our DVD/Blu-ray player, and we came into a large city with a lot of buildings and casinos. We stayed at Flamingo hotel with a casino on the first floor, and our room was on the 27th floor. It was a city view room. We can see the Hotel Bellagio, Ceasar’s Palace and a couple of other Casinos from the big hotel window. Our friend Lipi masi, who lived there, came to visit us with her family. Then, we went out to get dinner in an Indian restaurant. The food over there was delicious, and I couldn’t stop myself from eating until I was full. After that, we left for the hotel, and when we reached, our friends had to go back home. When we went back into our room, we saw the dancing fountains of Bellagio from above. They were breathtaking, and we even recorded it on video so that we’d see it later. There were so many people on the road that night. Nice to see that Las Vegas never sleeps at night. Then, we slept, and I was thinking that we had so much fun during our super amazing trip, and it was our first road trip ever! But it was over now, and that was where our journey ended. When we left for home the next day, we could not stop thinking about our amazing journey to some spectacular state and national parks, and some iconic canyons for sightseeing. We also got to see some of our old friends before beginning our journey to the iconic canyons, state and national parks. It was an amazing journey, and I just know that there would be another journey just like this.