That’s a wrap on our big trip of 2024: Zion National Park! Dan and I, my parents as well as my sister and Tanner took off for Utah for 8 days of vacation – the longest vacation I’ve taken in a LONG time. It was so long I almost felt guilty for taking that much time off work – almost. 😉 But it was a much needed getaway and I loved every minute of our vacation.

Since it was such a long trip, I won’t list out every little thing we did, but I do want to share some of the highlights.

We ended up flying into Las Vegas and spending our first day of the trip there. Molly and Tanner flew out a day earlier than we did, so they spent two days in Vegas. I’ve never been before so I was curious to see what the hype was all about. Although, I’m not going to lie, I was not a huge fan of it. Not my kind of party.

However, we did see a show the night we stayed there and that was really good! We went to see Criss Angel, “Mindfreak.” If you live under a rock like me and haven’t heard of him before, he’s an award winning mentalist/magician and holy cow is he good. It was a fantastic show and I’m STILL losing sleep trying to figure out how he did some of those tricks. 😂 I do recommend it if you’ve never been before.

We spent the rest of the trip staying in an Airbnb in La Verkin, Utah, roughly 30 minutes away from Zion National Park. This was my first time staying in an Airbnb – remember, I live under a rock – and it was fantastic. It was great that we could all stay in the same place and actually have a home to come back to each evening. Plus it had a hot tub, so we spent almost every evening out there. It was awesome.

We only spent two days of our trip actually in Zion National Park. It is a little bit crazy over there cuz you aren’t allowed to drive through most of the park on your own. You have to park at or near the visitors center and then take a shuttle up to whatever hiking spot you want to go to. We didn’t even come during peak season and it took a good half hour or more to get on a shuttle each time. I can’t imagine what it’s like during their busy season!

All the trails we hit in the park itself were really great, but the most memorable one was the trail at the top of the scenic drive route. There was one road cars were allowed on that switchbacked all the way up this big mountain and through a mile long tunnel. Once you got through the tunnel, you could pull off and park and hike the rest of the way up. It was super cool and the views were amazing, but for someone who’s kind of afraid of heights like me, it was a pretty terrifying trek up there. I was clinging to the side of the mountain and if there was a railing, I was clinging to that too. I may or may not have, but definitely did start hyperventilating at one point, but I refused to turn around. Instead, my dad grabbed onto the back of my coat or my arm whenever we were on a ledge and said if I fell he’d have to go with me, so he was making damn sure neither one of us fell. It made me feel a little better lol. I will say the view was worth the near death experience though!

Another memorable part was going to Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona. It was 2.5 hours from La Verkin, but my dad really wanted to go, so we made sure we made time for it. You can only go to Antelope Canyon if you have a Navajo guide take you there, so we did have to make arrangements ahead of time – in case this is something you would also be interested in. It was WELL worth the drive. It was breathtaking and our guide shared so many fun facts about the canyon with us, and she even showed us how and where to take the best pictures. It was all around super awesome. It might have been one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Thursday and Friday we spent checking out hikes closer to La Verkin and we found so many hidden gems. Just when you thought you’d seen it all, you’d come across something new and it takes your breath away all over again. We even climbed into a volcano tube! It looked like a big cave and it was really cool to climb into. Apparently it hasn’t erupted in thousands of years but there were still lots and lots of lava rocks around. It was pretty cool.

I’ll share some more photos of our hikes below, but they barely do the place justice. You’ll have to visit yourself and check it out with your own eyes!

While I am sad that our vacation is coming to an end, I’m ready to be home. I miss my own bed and I really miss my puppy. I can’t wait to see what our next adventure has in store for us!

Until next time! 🙂

Megan Reiffenberger