Thursday Night

Now we hit the road hard... no more lolly gagging on the West Coast :( 

Next Destination Las Vegas-- but on the way we needed to book a hotel room for the night.

I'm still resistant to having my own smart phone, but I don't think we could have completed this journey without Matt's iPhone in hand. We booked just about everything from the car. Unfortunately we forgot to bring the car charger, so we had to conserve the battery. Watching the battery wane away just added more risk and excitement to the adventure.

Google: Zion Natinal Park -- only one option for lodging popped up and... the lodge inside the park! I called and they meet all of our criteria: 1) Arrival between 10PM & 1AM 2) Less that $100 3) Clean

So we booked the room and drove on down the road. Neveda here we come... As we crossed the border we found an exit lit up like it was Disney world... all you needed was the ability to gamble and all of a sudden hotels and roller coasters arrive decked out with millions of blinking lights. They even had slot machines in the gas station...

We were headed to Vegas and arrived at 6:52PM-- Our goal, eat dinner and be headed out by 8PM-- could we do it? Well, good news for us there is a FREE parking deck next to the MGM Grand. So, we pulled in and headed to Craft Steak.

**Another Top Chef Favorite** Head Judge Tom Colicchio's place. Would we be able to get in?

No problem! We walked striaight up to the Host Stand in our sweat shirts and asked if we could sit at the bar... sure thing... we found two vacant stools and ordered some drinks and a 'few' items off the menu... scallops, snap peas, mushroom assortment and a flat iron steak!

The steak melted in my mouth llke nothing else, creamy yet meaty at the same time... How do they do that? I will say the service wasn't that great, but the food made up for it and we got to plug in the phone, which gave us just enough juice to make through the cliffs into Zion by Midnight.

8:10PM, enough time to cruise down the strip before hitting the road again.

We were lucky enough to pass the Bellagio while the fountain show was going off. 

2-3 hours more to drive... getting a little sleepy, but determined to make it. We were hitting a lul when the full moon started bouncing off of cliffs all around us. It was mesmorizing! I felt like I was riding a roller coaster through the cliffs and Matt enjoyed stearing the Jetta through the twists and turns.

The last hour had us on the edge of our seats. In the middle of nowhere, gas and iPhone battery dwindeling down and the temperature quickly dropping from the 80+ earlier that day to 30 when we climbed out of the car to check into the lodge.

To our room to plug in our electronics, turn on the heat and get some sleep...