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Day 1: July 12, 2015
Hello, travelers! My name is Elisabeth Quick, and I will be the Tour Director for your upcoming trip to the National Parks. We're going to visit some amazing and spectacular places, some of the most majestic that Mother Earth has to offer. So, bring your enthusiasm, your hats, sunscreen and chargers, and we'll be off on a great adventure! I look forward to meeting you all in Las Vegas on Sunday!
Our adventure has begun! After meeting at the Las Vegas Airport, we set off on the first leg of our journey across the Mojave Desert. It's HOT in this part of Nevada, but our coach was an oasis of cool air as we took in the vast expanse of the sagebrush-sprinkled desert. Our first stop was the Lost City Museum, an archeological museum dedicated to the Ancestral Puebloan peoples (once called Anasazi) who used to populate this desolate area. They have exhibits and displays of tools and artifacts from their archeological finds, as well as an actual section of an archeological dig inside the museum. Outside, there are reduced-scale reconstructions of the pueblo structures that the native peoples once lived in.
After exploring the museum and pueblos, we continued our journey, traveling through the dramatic Virgin River Gorge. The tilted rock layers jut at sharp angles upward, making dramatic silhouettes against the sky. There was a mountain sheep sighting for our first wildlife encounter. We had a wonderfully abundant dinner at the Italian family restaurant Buca di Beppo before heading to our hotel for a swim or lights out.