St, George, UT to Las Vegas, NV - The Desert

Last week we drove from St. George UT., to where we are now in Las Vegas.  In the past week, I didn’t have internet time to blog about a few of the events on the way to Vegas.  So, first of all, I have to say that the landscape out of St. George just gets better and more picturesque with each mile.  The Virgin River Gorge is 20 or so miles of extremely rugged terrain sporting an impossibly curvy piece of I-15 connecting Utah and Arizona.  It was carved out of straight up volcanic rock.  This few miles of highway represent the best of engineering, blasting, and bridge building, and took more than ten years to complete.  It is the most expensive road project in history according to the locals. I think I heard somewhere that this bit of road was the last and toughest stretch building a road through the deep, undulating gorge.   The cliffs are craggy with ramparts as tall as the Empire State Building on all sides. It needs to be seen, because I can’t do it justice. Virgin River Gorge   The cliffs are so near you can almost reach out the car window and tough it…at 70 miles per hour.  The color of the rock makes an instant switch from terra cotta to a dark and colorless gray at the gorge and is a treat for the geologist/traveler in every one of us.  It is slap your face gorgeous!

The road soon straightens out like an arrow and lays leaden on the sand all the way to sin city.  There is little to see until a few Joshua trees begin to speckle the wide alluvial plains the make up the high desert.  The desert has its own brand of beauty this time of year when everything that can turns a fleeting greenish and then the sun soon bakes it the more usual hue of dust.  However, for now, in late March it is pretty.  I saw two (only) prickly pears in bloom in two hours of drive time.  The blossoms were the color of – I don’t know what – the most vivid shade of eye aching fuchsia that can only be imagined. I couldn’t stop driving to photograph it.

Speaking of driving, Lance and I have stumbled on an arrangement about who does the driving.  Between the two of us we destroy every rule of polite driving etiquette, by back seat driving, road rage, hectoring and nagging; all the things that ruin an otherwise good trip.  What we have done to protect our good marriage and what works for us, thus far, is I drive, Lance navigates. He is really good at reading the GPS and maps, and two people watching the highway signs is better than one.   Also, I have a very light brake foot and so the contents of the Little House (LH) remain in place better when it is my foot on the pedals.  Lance, however, is masterful at parking the LH.  He can back it into small spaces and remove us from a tight pinch like a pro.  So, I take us down the road, and Lance does all the parking and maneuvering.