This was due to it being the most logical entry point into a trip eventually to Zion. Las Vegas is the closest major city - despite being a good three hours away. Not to mind, none of us were going to abjectly say no to a night in Vegas. Two of my three friends who joined me had been to Vegas a handful of times as adults, something that your trusted world traveler somehow had yet to find time to do.
One night is probably not enough to truly give a good overview of Vegas, but a quick jaunt through the heart of the strip was enough to probably want to come back and do it right one time. We went to the Bacchanal buffet in Caesers, which was great if overpriced (somewhat a tag-line for Vegas, really). Their top dishes were truly top, like a great meat carving station, good Mexican food, great raw bar seafood and of course a giant island of desserts, but there was also a lot of fluff.
We did a bit of gambling. which was a bit too rich for my taste. I did end up around $400, mostly by dumbly winning one of those ridiculous side bets in Blackjack that paid me $500 for $10 on getting two King of Diamonds (again, ridiculous). But despite that one moment of glory, it was a bit sad, to be honest, that I was priced out of the nicer casinos from a gambling perspective. We were not from a club perspective, going to the main indoor/outdoor club in the Encore (we stayed in the Cosmopolitan - both hotels didn't exist when I last visited Vegas as a nice young 13 year old).
Vegas was nice, but Zion was the real treat, and after a few aborted attempts to get out of Las Vegas in a timely fashion on Thursday (in the end, left a 4pm PT - 5pm Zion time), we finally hit the open dessert, stopped at a giant Walmart in Hurricane, UT, to load up on grilling supplies and beers, and then went through the winding road that cuts through Zion to the other side on the way to our AirBNB.
The only mistake we probably made in our trip planning was getting an AirBNB on the Esatern side of Zion - it was close enough to the East entrance, but to do any of the hikes in the park, you need to be near the West entrance to catch the shuttles. Anyway, it got is very familiar with the winding Zion Park Drive, from its unannounced process of turning a 2-way tunnel into a 1-way tunnel in peak hours, and innately used to how stunning it is in daylight, and haunting it is at night.
The AirBNB was a beautiful, large, 5-bedroom log-cabin style house, with a large deck with grill, fire-pit in the backyard. It was stunning, it was spacious, it worked for us - hitting our main criteria of having a bedroom for all of us. Anyway, we had grilled burgers the first night, but the real lasting legacy - or at least one half of it - of Zion was the food in the town of Springdale.
Springdale is the town right outside the West entrance of Zion - closer to where we probably should have stayed. But anway, the town itself is the same one-lane road that then goes through the park, The are some views of the giant hills and canyons that give Zion its name. It is a picturesque little town, reminding me at first of Sedona - but unlike Sedona - overpriced, overcrowded and way too toursity, Springdale was just perfect all around.
Great small coffee shops. Great options of breakfast (brunch really, we don;'t get up early) and dinner. We went for lunch and dinner on Saturday, sandwhiching a trip down the Narrows. Lunch was at Meme's Cafe, which was perfectly decent, but also relatively low priced for a fairly well placed spot a few mere meters away from the park entrance. I had a nice made Crispy Buffalo Chicken sandwhich, and shared a truly nice, light banana and honey crepe with my friend. The coffee was nice, the decor nice, and the fact it was the worst food of the four meals in Springdale said more about the other three.
The other lunch was at a coffee and breakfast szot where I got a really nice dish of biscuts and sausage gravy with scrambled eggs. but the star meals were the dinners, and the thing that made me fall in love with Springdale. The first was Zion Pizza & Noodle Co., which had a 35-min wait on a Saturday, and was fairly slow when we did get seated. They had a really nice, long, curated beer selection of local Utah-ian breweries. We split a couple 'Angel Fire Sticks' which were breadsticks with a strange but great combo of ranch, cheese and hot sauce. Then two pizzas which were both of th4e interesting flavor that places like this can do long - one in the style of a burrito, the other a Thai peanut chicken curry, and both were great.
Dinner on Friday night was at Bit & Spur Saloon, which had a corny name, a corny sign, but turned out to just be awesome. It serves mostly Mexican food, with some Italian pastas thrown in for fun. Not sure why, but one of us five got a pasta and said it was excellent. Truly everything they made was good, both interesting dishes (far from 'standard' Mexican - had a friend get grouper tacos, another get sweet potato tamales with eggplant) and great presentation and taste.
They had one of the better shishito peppers I've ever had. They had a great quesadilla of brie, walnuts, apples, and jalaneno relish. My dish of a chile verde pork pot pie, topped with pobalno biscuit, was incredible - truly just great bite after great bite. I wouldn't make a trip to Zion to eat here (they also had another great beer selection - served with incredibly chilled glasses - as well as a long margarita list), but if you go to Zion, you must eat here.
More to come - on why when you add the actual nature, and hikes, and beauty, Zion is truly up there...
