Leg 2: Detour To The Coast
Although Route 66 would have taken us all of the way to the Pacific Coast, we opted to end our journey along Route 66 at the Arizona/California border. We wanted to make a few detours before ending up at the Pacific Coast. We stayed a few days in Lake Havasu City on the AZ/CA border before visiting Sedona, AZ’s red rock country, the infamous Grand Canyon, Utah’s Zion National Park, Lake Mead & Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, and Death Valley. We had other possible detour locations in mind as well, but after making our way through Death Valley’s desert – we were ready for the beach and made a mad dash to the coast.

Highlight 1: Zion National Park Utah’s gem of a national park is located in the far southwestern corner of the state and offers amazing rock formations, breathtaking vistas and a really long tunnel. We had such a great time during our visit. We didn’t do any of the long hikes, just a few short walks admiring the beauty but I will not forget the views anytime soon. It was such a contrast to visit this park on the heels of the Grand Canyon as we did not going down into the canyon there and spent our time looking down into the vastness that is the Grand Canyon – whereas in Zion, you are in the canyon and you spend your time looking up at the canyon walls and viewing the world from the canyon’s bottom.

Highlight 2: Arizona By picking the state of Arizona, I selected Sedona’s red rock formations and outstanding beauty, Flagstaff’s relaxed and welcoming atmosphere as well as the Grand Canyon‘s natural beauty all in one. We absolutely loved Arizona – it has so much to offer. We weren’t there in the heat of the summer and yes, I have heard that it is a ‘dry’ heat; however, I still don’t know if it is something that I would enjoy. I was not as happy with the desert around Lake Havasu City as I was with the mountain air around Flagstaff; but the state was a delightful surprise and made it onto the ‘Places We Would Like to Live’ list.

Arizona - Utah - Nevada -  California

Travel:
Number of Days: 10 – May 3 to May 12
Number of Miles: 1,651

Sleeping:
Nights in the car: 4
Nights in the tent: 6
Nights with friends/family: 0

Our trip was categorized into different travel legs, with five legs in total. This is a flashback about Leg #2.