Day 25 (by Krysta)

After waking up in Las Vegas, we ate some breakfast that we brought in from the car (from our food stash in case we get lost along the way).  Thankfully we had that stash... We went to the lobby of the hotel we were in and reserved a room on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  So, at some point in the morning we headed out.  Unfortunately, we thought that the room we reserved was on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon...

Before that, though, we drove through two beautiful National Parks. First, we drove through Zion National Park, which was amazing.  It reminded me of a smaller Yosemite, but in red.  It had thin, windy roads and a couple tunnels. 

After leaving Zion, we quickly headed over to Bryce National Park before sunset.  Bryce was also quite unbelievable.  It had one road straight in and out of the park.  After the amount of time it took us to get through Yosemite, we thought that we would not make it to the end of the park before sunset, but we did!  So, we stopped at each of the overlooks and took pictures.  The last site was probably the most breathtaking.  It was called Rainbow Point and its elevation was over 9,000 ft (I believe that the entire park was very highly elevated, but this was the highest point).  From Rainbow Point, we could see like 100 miles. I'm not even sure that is an exaggeration!  And since we were there around sunset, I got some amazing pictures.  Once again, we drove out of a national park in the dark.

After leaving Bryce, we decided to head to our hotel "on the North Rim" (but not really!).   We made it all the way to the road that leads to the North Rim, passing by a few creepy restaurants named "restaurant" and a little inn called "Jacob Lake Inn".  We started to head down the long straight in and out road that leads to the North Rim.  We had assumed that since there was a hotel on the North Rim, that there would also be a place to eat.  As we drove down the extremely dark road, we noticed were the only ones on it, which seemed suspicious.  We saw an amazing number of stars on the way in, as well as an amazing number of deer.  About forty five minutes in, Paul looked at his iPod, where he saved the address of the hotel.  We discovered, to our dismay, that the hotel was on the South Rim.  (We had just entered the north rim of the Grand Canyon into our GPS).  So, there we were on a dark, abandoned road surrounded by a million deer.  We decided that instead of turning around, we would see if there was anything on the North Rim...a place to eat or to sleep.  When we got there, though, we drove by a little motel-like place, with red lights outside, and a pickup truck parked at it...basically it looked like something from a horror movie.   We parked in a little lot at the end of the road, near an RV and random other car that were there.  Thankfully, Paul had a tiny bit of phone signal, since I had none.  He called the hotel and they tried to help us, but Paul had almost no battery on his phone and there was nothing that they could really do.  We stayed there for a little while, eating Nutri Grain bars and drinking water bottles from our food stash.  Paul went to the trunk to find his car phone charger.  It was taking so long I thought he was eaten by a bear, especially since I said his name and he didn't reply..the first time (he did after the second one though).  Then we turned around and drove out the the North Rim.  On the way, though, we almost hit a deer, swerving out of the way just in time to save us and the deer! :)  We went by Jacob lake inn again, but unfortunately it was closed by that time (it was about 10 or 11 by this point).  So, we filled up the gas tank at their little gas station (you could fill the tank with credit cards, even when no one was there), Paul drank Coke right out of the bottle because he was scared of falling asleep on the way and we headed toward the South Rim. 

Looking at a map, we decided that we should stay in a town just on the other side of the rim and texted William for the phone number of a Super 8.  We got it and called them, and they told us we didn't need to make a reservation because there were plenty of rooms.  So, we headed to Page, Arizona.  Again, though, we were driving through such darkness, I was confused when I saw the moon behind the clouds. Paul and I both had no idea what the "creepy light" coming from the clouds was, I guess we had forgotten that the moon even existed, haha!