As you Athenians know, last night was the wild RumpusParade through the halloween streets of Athens. We could not resist heading down to check it out, I mean, it only happens once a year and we were really looking forward to it. We both promised to be home in bed early,so we would be ok getting up at 5 am to head into atlanta for our flight to Las Vegas. We had such a time, running from Flickr, to the Theatre and all up and down west washington. There were so many amazing, creative costumes and everyone was having such a good time.
We ended up at Go around 12:30 and finally left for home about one. Got in bed at 2 am, with several clocks set for 5 am. and let me tell you, 5 am came waaaay too early for me!
Was shooting to hit the road by 5:30, but didn't make it out until a little after six am. Luckily traffic was verify sparse early sunday morning so we made good time to the airport, but not good enough. Got off the shuttle at curbside baggage check and they told us that we'd missed cheek in for our flight. Oh crap. I looked at my phone and we'd missed it by THREE MINUTES. No exceptions either, so we head to the Delta counter to figure out what we could do. When I booked the flight, the only other options that day were evening flights, getting us to vegas around 9pm, and after that a several hour drive to Zion. Boy were we screwed.
But the guy at the delta ticket counter was so nice, he said had could get us on a flight at 11am but not seated together. Good enough. He charged us a $50 fee each for the ticket change, but waived the $55 increase in fare each, I was very grateful for that. We made this flight with no problem, and the gate agent was even able to change our seats to sit us together.
The flight was uneventful, we landed at McCarrens on time, gathered our bags and hit the shuttle to the rental car lot. I was very pleased with Dollar Rental Car; I had reserved the cheapest car (and had got a really good rate). When we got to the garage they offered us a Kia but I asked if they had any American cars we could choose from and they gave us a choice between a chevy HHR and a 4WD Jeep Patriot. Wow. A 4WD SUV for less than $20 per day including all the taxes and fees and everything. That is a phenomenal deal.
First stop- Walmart. haha We bought a little cheap cooler and some food, drinks and stuff. We might grab a restaurant meal a couple time, but plan to eat cheap as often as we can.
Not much to look at on the drive north on I15, just rocks, rocks and t hen some...rocks. There was one stretch where we drove t hrough some mountains that was pretty cool. Hurricane UT was not much tp speak of. We finally arrived at the little town of Springdale, which is the gateway to Zion. It was absolutely lovely. I expected a commercial strip but we were halfway through the little town before even realizing we had arrived. All the lodges were beautiful and so well built into the amazing landscape.
We arrived at Zion National Park after dark and really couldn't see much of what makes this place so amazing. The people at the Lodge were very nice, and the little cabin we got is small but cozy. It has a gas fireplace in the corner that we burned all night. it was pretty cool watching the fire light dance around the room.
