Day 8 – Viva Las Vegas in an RV

After a quick game of morning Frisbee, we reluctantly left the Zion River RV resort. Today was a short drive – about 4 1/2 hours. We took the scenic road to Hoover Dam.

The scenery as we left Zion quickly changed from towering multi-colored cliffs to low meandering hills up close, with less colorful cliffs in the distance.

We left Utah and drove about 40 miles through Arizona before reaching Nevada. Unlike the pine-covered approach to the Grand Canyon North Rim, this land looked exactly like the stereotype of Arizona.

Whereas at other locations, the land at least looked deceptively green, here the land was obviously rocky. The sandy soil was punctuated with short bushes and big rocks.

At Hoover Dam, Ross and Ethan enjoyed walking out on the Pat Tillman bridge. I enjoyed sitting in the RV. (You do remember that story about heights at Mesa Verde, right?) The Dam was impressive. It’s hard to believe they accomplished such an engineering feat in the early 1930’s.

Less impressive was the heat. It was warm that day. As we left and drove toward Las Vegas, the landscape became more rocky and barren. It’s a good thing they made Vegas exciting, or no one would want to endure the heat just to visit a boring city in the desert.

It was great to put on decent clothes for dinner in Vegas. After a week of hiking boots and hats, I was feeling quite grubby. We asked for recommendations for dinner, and were given directions to a casino about a “1/4 mile” down the Strip. Well, after about 1 mile, we reached our destination. At least the walk was interesting – there were all types of people walking the streets.

When we were planning the trip, the family wanted to see Vegas (for one night, anyway), but I was struggling with accommodations. I mean – I didn’t think Caesar’s Palace would let me park our RV in front of the Coliseum.

Guess what I discovered? There’s a KOA RV campground ON THE STRIP. I was so surprised! It’s the KOA Circus Circus Campground (complete with a Big Top roof on its office).

This certainly wasn’t the fanciest KOA we’ve stayed at. The entire campground was on an asphalt lot, and they weren’t too many trees. But, did I mention we could park our motorhome ON the strip? And, we were right next to Circus Circus Hotel. That’s what I call hitting the jackpot.

Westward Ho!