day 2-hostel life to las vegas nights by way of a national park

The Grand Canyon International Hostel was just great. The idea behind a hostel: anyone, any age can stay for a fair price, breakfast is served in the morning on actually plates and coffee drank out of actual mugs, not the loads of plastic that you find at conventional hotels (which create HUGE amounts of waste) and in the morning you must bring your sheets down upon checkout to be washed... fair enough, and the cost 45 smackers, for a private room (bathroom down the hall) extremely fair, and a much warmer feeling than the "cheap" hotel, which is still around 60 dollars where you get luke warm shower water and sheets that feel like they possibly have 2% natural fibers in them, maybe. Our room was on the 2nd floor right on S. San Francisco St., which was a bumping place. We retired to the room after 2am but the sounds of the night continued on. I have to say I enjoyed the sounds of the bar patrons on their way home, its something about the sounds of people doing something, gathering, talking, whatever, that warms my hear. I am also a pretty heavy sleeper so as soon as my eyes closed, im out. There were also sounds of a train not to far away throughout the night, and I kinda enjoyed that too... it reminded me of my place on Pulaski in Athens. 
We left Flagstaff and headed north to Springdale UT. The drive was indescribable, the landscape had mass changes about every 70 miles or so. We stopped for lunch at a scenic overlook before we got to Page AZ. Kyle made us some potato and bean burritos before we left Lubbock, and they, with some Julio’s salsa, have been a tasty lunch treat to us often on this trip. About 20 miles before the Utah border we passed Lake Powel, which has to be one of the most alien landscapes that we have see thus far. It’s a lake in the valley of what looks to be like white mountains, but there are absolutely NO trees ANYWHERE, no plant life anywhere around the lake, and the contrast of the white rock and the blue water adds to the mystique. We passed the Grand Staircase in Escelante, Pink Coral sand dunes, and thru a 4 mi tunnel carved directly into a HUGE monolith inside Zion State Park on our way to Springdale Utah, which is actually nuzzled into the south entrance of the park. There is an image below of the view from our hotel, breathtaking. On Sunday we spent some time in Zion, and words can not even describe the beauty and these pics, although they try will not do it must justice either. So after our time in the park we had a lunch of k’s burritos at a park in Springdale and headed to Las Vegas. The drive, again was amazing, the diverse landscapes are truly unbelievable.
Ok… so we booked our Vegas hotel off of ivegas.com and paid 24 dollars for a room at the Plaza Hotel, downtown, sweet. We figured it would be some crappy room, whatever, BUT when we got here, what we got was the best room in town!.. well maybe not the best in town but for 30 bucks…. Righteous! Today we head to Hollywood and to visit our friend Marcus…. More later!

that was our room

These are some cool signs we found in Flagstaff

K and his burrito at the best lunch spot so far.

Outside our hotel door in Springdale UT.

Buffalo and Elk reserve in Springdale.

Inside Zion.

BTW...this photo has not been edited, beautiful.


Our last Springdale pic.... 
Vegas room...ha
View outside our balcony!
yes one entire wall in our room is a mirror.
The plaza from street level... the white arrow points to our room.