Fantastic 8 mile (13 km) hike in Zion National Park

Up at 6:00am yesterday (Saturday) morning. This was a special free entrance weekend at National Parks in the United States, so we expected things to be a lot busier than normal. The first shuttle bus leaves the visitor's center at 7:00am, so we wanted to be as close to that as possible.

We ended up on the 7:30am shuttle, and we were at the trailhead for 8:00am.

More fantastic scenery in Utah's Zion National Park

We've got a nice campsite, and we don't have to be in Kodachrome State Park until tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon, so we've decided to stay here a third night. Not really much to tell other than we've been enjoying perfect weather and fantastic scenery.

So, let's let the photos tell most of the story...

Campground Full? Not quite...

Lots of fantastic scenery yesterday. Too many pictures to sort through, but you are lucky...you get to see only the best of the bunch!

The plan almost didn't come together though. Let me explain...

My Amazon system works!

Last month, I wrote about a way to "trick" Amazon.com into sending your packages by USPS (U.S. Postal Service) rather than by a courier such as Fedex or UPS. You can read that post here...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2015/03/how-to-collect-your-amazon-packages.html

Yesterday, we drove to Mesquite, Nevada where I had purposely had a package sent to the post office there.

Happy to report that the system works perfectly!

Back with our motorhome!

It was a bit of a long travel day, but it's over with now and we're totally happy to be back with our motorhome here in Las Vegas. Again, we're only in Las Vegas for the convenience of using the airport...so we're leaving today.

We'll be heading northeast up to Mesquite, Nevada where we've got some packages waiting for us at the post office, and then into Utah. Looking forward to seeing some of Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks, and we'll also be staying at Kodachrome Basin State Park for a couple of nights.

Up at 4:00am...

But it's not bad getting up at that hour when you know you're going on a trip! Still, that's a little early. But, the hour long drive to Halifax airport went by quickly, and then we didn't have long to wait for our flight  to Philadelphia.

We're doing the milk run today...Halifax - Philadelphia, Philadelphia - Dallas, and Dallas - Las Vegas.

Three flights, plus a four hour time change makes for a bit of a long day. But, before we know it, we'll be back in the motorhome this evening and we'll be out exploring again on Wednesday!

Life is a funny proposition

Finally, a beautiful spring day up here in Nova Scotia and we took advantage of it by spending some outdoors time at the Ross Farm Museum.

We actually had overnighted with the motorhome at the Ross Farm Museum back in May of 2011. Things were a little greener back then!

A week is just about right...

It's fun being a grandparent, but a week alone with the grandkids is just about enough. I think that we forget the amount of work involved with looking after little ones. Man, it takes an extra half hour or so just to get out the door to take them somewhere.

Thankfully, our daughter and her husband return from Cuba this evening, and they can take over once again!

Dreaming of Fiji

It's another dreary day here in Nova Scotia, so when we were give the opportunity to write about a far away tropical destination we figured it would be a great diversion! So we did some research into visiting the South Pacific island nation of Fiji, and after looking at all of the options, Fiji is definitely on our list of places to spend a month or so!

Today's header picture alone is enough to brighten up my day.

Join us for the 2015 RV and Travel Summit

The 2015 RV and Travel Summit is a free online event that takes place from May 5th to 11th. It's purpose is to promote travel and exploration and to teach you how you can do both no matter what your budget or experience.

And we're excited about our involvement in this project, so we wanted to be one of the first to tell you about it!

On the lookout for airfares

We're not in Nova Scotia to do any touring this time around, so I dug through the photo archives to come up with a nice sunny header picture from when we were in Nova Scotia with the motorhome. There are some really beautiful places in this province...you just have to get here at the right time of year!

Our daughter and her family are moving to Ottawa in June, so it'll likely be a long, long time before we're ever back here again.

Been many years since I built a snowman...

It was snowing pretty hard when we got up yesterday morning, so we didn't take the kids to daycare. But by after lunch, it had cleared up...and it had even warmed up. In fact, it turned out to be a nice afternoon.

And, it was warm enough to build a snowman!

Next time you're at the grocery store...

We dropped off the kids at daycare yesterday morning, and then had a few hours to ourselves. It's actually not called "daycare", they call this one a preschool. Not quite sure what the difference is, but it's probably something like the same way that some campgrounds call themselves a "resort". Likely, it's just a way to justify charging more money.

Why do they make things so complicated? Seems like it was a lot simpler when we brought up our kids.

They're gone!

And they've left us in charge of their kids!

Yep, our daughter Lindsey and her husband Justin have taken off on a well deserved week away from the snow and cold. They've gone to sunny Cuba, for a week of the beach. The only thing ice cold that they'll experience is the temperature of their beer and drinks.

That's okay, it's a pretty safe bet that the snow and cold will still be here waiting for them when they return.

Happy Easter!

Well, Easter is a lot more fun with little kids about hunting for their Easter eggs!

And sure enough, the Easter bunny came at some point overnight.