Day 1 - June 1st - Travel to Bryce Canyon N.P.

Our day started out early, we woke up at 5 AM and was out of the house by 6 AM for a 9 AM direct flight from Cincinnati to Las Vegas.  Now, I thought 6AM was a little early to leave the house considering it's only an hour and a half to the Cincinnati airport, but thank goodness we left early because going through security took a very long time.  By the time we got to our gate and sat down, they started calling for boarding of the plane.  

The flight was particularly uneventful and we arrived in Las Vegas at 9:40, 45 minutes ahead of schedule.  Only one problem, my bag didn't arrive.  For some unknown reason it took a detour through Atlanta and was not scheduled to arrive until 3 PM.  The baggage agents were very nice and tried to be helpful and said that they would drive to bag to us.  This wouldn't have been a problem if we had planned on staying in Las Vegas, but we were planning on renting a car and driving to Bryce Canyon right away.  After they researched how they would be able to get my bag to Bryce Canyon it became obvious that I might be without a bag for the night as there were no flights that would connect together to get it there by that evening.  So we made a slight revision to our itinerary and went to Hoover Dam to kill some time until 3 PM when we could reclaim my bag.  

We had actually planned on going to Hoover Dam anyway, but not until the end of the trip when we returned to Vegas to catch our flight home.  Hoover Dam was awesome.  While there we couldn't help but notice that a new bridge is being built across the canyon.  It is going to be a new interstate, and once completed, in 2010, people will no longer be able to drive across the dam.  We are so thankful that we decided to go when we did because driving across the dam is truly a marvelous experience.

We were back at the airport by 2:45 and it wasn't long before my bag came down the chute at the baggage claim area.  I went over to the baggage agents who had helped us earlier and thanked them for their assistance.  Being nice pays off sometimes.  She gave us a voucher for $50 off our next flight, that's on top of the meal vouchers she had given us earlier this morning to get something to eat.

We finally left the airport at 3:15 and were on our way.  After 3 hours of driving we pulled in at Cedar City, Utah to get a bite to eat at Applebee's, realizing we could not make it to Bryce Canyon Lodge in time for our dinner reservations there.  From Cedar City we continued our drive to Bryce Canyon along the very picturesque Scenic Byways of SR14 and SR12, finally arriving at Bryce Canyon Lodge in the dark at 9PM.  It was a very long day and we hit the sack immediately.