Zion/Vegas Trip Day 5: Sand Hollows, UTV’ing! and return to Las Vegas

Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Tuesday was sadly our check out day from Zion. Thankfully though we didn’t have a big hurry in the morning.

The big event for yesterday was a UTV tour in Sand Hollows State Park, en route back to Vegas (about 45 minutes southwest of Zion).

I had intentionally planned for a 1 pm tour to give us some time at the hotel in the morning. (I hadn’t really known at the time that we’d have that long hotel morning on Monday too, and I wanted to ensure some pool/hotel time).

I woke up at like 6! Laid in bed until 6:30 but didn’t want to fall back asleep because I knew then I’d sleep until 8 or something and I didn’t want to miss my favorite morning time.

Patio + tea early!

Moved inside when my mom came down. Such pretty views.

Watching the sun come up over the cliffs!

Drank tea, finally ate some breakfast, wrote blog post, hung out. Finally moved out to the pool!

I swam for quite a while and the water felt amazing.

Others came down in different shifts and were out there too.

Finally showered and packed up. We had requested late check out at noon but left about 11:30. Dropped our rented walking sticks off that we hadn’t returned yet and headed out of town.

45 minute drive to next stop- Sand Hollows State Park.

It was a beautiful drive.

Arrived about 12:40, checked in, watched the safety videos, etc and got our gear! At the last minute my mom decided to sit this out. (Worried all the bouncing over sand dunes would set off her vertigo issues.) A nice young boy who worked there drove her just down the road to the (gorgeous) golf course clubhouse to wait.

Ready to go!!! Ivan was the main driver in ours; my dad drove the other. Since my mom didn’t go, the boys rode with my dad. We had a private guide who drove ahead of us.

Started on flat roads as we got to the dunes.

Then we hit sand! This was SO FUN!!

Really pictures do not do it justice – the views were just incredible. Like, we were literally immersed in the desert but also vast rocks and mountains in the distance.

We spent 2 full hours flying through bumpy sand dunes and also doing a bunch of rock crawling.

These machines are seriously impressive!! I had never been in one like this before. We did a UTV tour in Hawaii but it was nothing like this.

So gorgeous.

You can connect a phone to play music so Ivan and I were blaring rock music as we were flying and bouncing through the sand and it was just a total blast!! Like, wheeeeeeeeee we are adventuring!!! 🤩🤩 Living it up!! 🤘🤘

Half way- a scenery and water break. Our guide Melvin was awesome- nicest guy ever, Utah local, grew up riding these things and is an EMT for his day job. We did this through Mad Moose Rentals and I’d highly recommend!

The four of us:

Cool shot including my dad!

Break over, time for more riding!

The saddest thing here was that you have to be 18 to drive these. Which Ethan will be- in 2 weeks. 😭 The boys were dying to drive these themselves and they would have loved it. Ugh. Bummer. Oh well what can you do! Will have to go back and do it again…

Another amazing scenic spot:

When we had about 20-30 minutes left I finally decided I would try driving. I had signed up as a driver, but was a little nervous! These don’t handle like regular cars in the sand and there is obviously potential to, I don’t know, run into a rock or get stuck in the sand, or god forbid, roll the thing over or something!! 😬

I almost didn’t but then I was like, oh come on Kaelyn, this cannot be that hard. Just do it! (I again thought of Laura Vanderkam’s mantra of “if others can, I can too!”.

Ready to roll!

And guess what? I did perfectly fine- and it was a total blast!! So glad I did it. 😊😊

A pic Ivan took of this beautiful lake in the desert while I drove!

Finally done around 3:20- sandy, thirsty and hungry! It was soooo fun though.

Went to pick my mom up at the golf course clubhouse and were happy to see they had a gorgeous (air conditioned and nearly empty!) restaurant we could eat at.

Asher salivating while looking at the beautiful golf course. Haha. (But oof, would be VERY hot to golf in the daytime. Would need an early morning or later tee time!)

The views from our table were so good!

I downed like 3 glasses of ice water and iced tea and had a yummy chicken wrap and fries.

Then back to the van- 2 more hours to get back to Vegas. Crossing through Arizona on the way:

The drive is seriously so pretty, all winding through the rocks.

Almost there! Vegas skyline.

Got checked in to our hotel and settled in. Love our room- spacious, family friendly place with big separate bedroom for me and Ivan and a full kitchen too and washer and dryer, just steps from the center of the strip (near intersection of Bellagio/Caesar’s area)!

My parents are one floor above us.

We all took showers and cleaned up- I had sand everywhere! I felt like a bit of a mess checking in in the Vegas hotel lobby in my sandy sneakers and hat and probably dried sand on my arm. 😆

We headed to the strip around 8 pm to just start exploring. The boys were pretty wowed by everything!! They were taking lots of pics and videos – Vegas is QUITE the sight at night. 🙂

We headed for Paris first, one of my favorites. So cool.

I really like the casino there with its Parisian theme and the blue skies!

The World Series of Poker is currently being held there!

Note some of these buy in’s: $250,000 buy in?!? 😳😳😳

Cute one of my parents in Paris!

Paris reception:

Next we made our way over to the Bellagio. So beautiful at night.

View from pedestrian bridge:

Got a spot by the fountain to watch the show (every 15 min):

The song was not my favorite for a fountain dancing show (Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk) but it was still cool!!

Next we went into the Bellagio to walk around.

The Bellagio is SUCH a pretty hotel. I was explaining how most hotels have a “theme”… and I said I think Bellagio’s theme is just “I’m expensive”. 😜

We stopped at one of the casino bars just so I could grab a glass of water for Asher and as I waited a friendly woman next to me said, “Hey, Do you have a light?” Before I could answer (no) she kind of eyed me up and down and said, oh, never mind, you don’t smoke. And I jokingly answered, “hey now, what makes you say that?!!” 🤣 And she said, “‘cuz you look like a runner!!” Hahahaha. We chatted for a minute and I said I am not in fact a runner (anymore) but I DO like to exercise and also, I’m a nurse… 😉 She then said, oh I’m an ER nurse! Haha. I was like, why is it always the ER nurses that smoke?! And she said well it’s a very stressful job! Ha. (Then she explained she was really only smoking because she was drinking. I said, well, I’ll give you a free pass today cuz you’re in Vegas so nothing you do here counts, right??! 😝)

The reception ceiling is gorgeous.

In the Conservatory (free to enter):

Finally we needed some food! It was getting late.

Many restaurants are EXPENSIVE so Vegas can be a bit tricky. We ate lunch late too so didn’t want anything huge… it was already after 10, too, and our feet were getting tired and Vegas is soooo spread out. (What looks “just next door” on the map is like, a 20 minute walk. lol.)

We finally just went into the first family friendly looking place we saw, which was a Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant overlooking the strip. Ha. I just got a bowl of clam chowder soup.

Then walk back to hotel, chilled in bed with tea for a half hour or so and then lights out at like, 12:30! Oops, got late but I got a little second wind.

What a FUN day though!!

Today = more exploring Vegas, the Wizard of Oz show at the new Sphere(! Excited about this!) and Mexico plays this evening so Ivan has been eyeing up places to go watch the game.

Have a good one!