This is part FOUR of a multi-post saga about our month long cross country road trip in a prius - a 31 day adventure my husband and 2 dogs and I took in the late summer of 2021 (yes… it’s actually taken me 2 years to finish writing the blog, because I’m a busy lady and don’t blog too often any more)! Anyway, if you came across this post before reading the rest of our journey, you may want to check out Parts 1, 2 & 3 first.
Day 21
📍 San Francisco, CA:
Day 21 was our first full day in San Francisco! Ack, a close family friend hosted us and we had been so excited for the opportunity to pitch our tent in his yard right in the middle of the city - to experience city life but still get to enjoy the cooler weather outside.
We took a long morning hike to the rose garden, around Stowe lake and up to the top of strawberry hill (all walking distance from his home).
We then took a drive out to visit Fisherman’s Warf and explored the cute shopping areas and pop up booths there. We then went to Chinatown and stumbled upon some great vegan lunch (and AMAZING vegan cheesecake) at a little eatery called Vegan Picnic (unfortunately since we went there they recently have closed down).
We grabbed our food to go and went to Crissy Field and Baker Beach. Ack made us a delicious Mexican stir fry for dinner and then we ended the night watching some American horror story in the tent.
Day 22
📍 San Francisco, CA:
This was our second full day in SF and we started our day with fresh homemade fruit and oatmeal bowls with whatever ingredients we and Ack had on hand. This also started my obsession with Saigon Cinnamon which has sooo much more flavor than regular cinnamon.
Our adventures that followed included wandering around the city by foot through Chinese produce markets, dahlia gardens, record stores, and getting high just by inhaling the air on Height street.
We enjoyed a creamy shroom burg from Veganburg, vegan mozzarella sticks from Bizza and a fresh smoothie from Cafe Cole.
We also explored Sausalito and Mill Valley, and then ended our evening with a sunset hike at Muir Beach.
Day 23
📍 Fossil Falls, CA:
Well, our day began at the auto mechanic because the prius had been burning up a lot of oil and we were afraid we may have some sort of leak. No trip is perfect and we had been expecting SOMETHING to happen after all the abuse we’d been putting our car through… but of course they didn’t find anything. We picked up several quarts of motor oil to have on hand before venturing out into the deserted desert to continue our journey with lots of optimism and tasty vegan snacks. We camped at Fossil Falls which was a really neat park with lava rocks everywhere.
Day 24
📍 Death Valley National Park, CA:
Day 24 was spent driving out to Death Valley, where we spent the day wandering, hiking, exploring and ultimately camping out. We initially planned to go to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks but they were dealing with awful wildfires during the time of our visit so we couldn’t go. Fortunately we still made it out to Death Valley, which was by far was one of our favorite places we visited on our trip (along with Joshua Tree).
I’m sure it comes as no surprise that nature’s “Artist’s Palette” was one of my favorite sights to see. The diverse colors in the mountains are made up of natural iron, magnesium, aluminum and titanium. Like Joshua Tree, dogs aren’t really allowed to hike throughout National Parks so we did trails close to the main roads with the dogs and took turns wandered a little further off on our own. Camping was so beautiful and peaceful in the middle of the valley.
Day 25
📍 Las Vegas, NV, AZ & UT:
Day 25 of road tripping was literally a FOUR state kind of day! We left our campsite in Death Valley, CA and stopped in an nearby old mining town called Rhyolite… known as one of the best preserved “ghost towns” in Nevada. Rhyolite was a Wild West gold boomtown in the middle of the desert where they mined tons of valuable gold in the early 1900’s producing what would be worth around $27 million today. But in only a few years the mill declined as rapidly as it came to life and quickly became an abandoned ghost town. It’s a neat place to visit and they even have literal ghost statues that you can pose inside of.
We headed straight to Las Vegas, NV next and topped for a tasty lunch at Vegenation followed by tasty vegan treats from Ronald’s Donuts (and all vegan donut and treat shop!). The BEST was the bear claw! Highly recommend both these places for amazing vegan food (yes… that is a Mac n cheese pizza…. Josh got chick’n and waffles!)
We walked around Vegas for a little and then found another fun all vegan supermarket called Veg-In-Out Market (sadly I found that this supermarket has closed since we traveled there). We stocked up on food and then found another health food store/market in Utah after passing through a scenic part of Arizona…. Of course we grabbed more snacks and canned food and stocked up to the point that the car was so packed and we literally had stuff on our laps and stuffed within ever crevice to fit everything (when camping in the middle of nowhere we never know when and if we will find good vegan food or snacks again…. so better to be safe!)
We didn’t have a reservation or set plans for a campsite tonight so this stirred a lot of anxiety of the unknown. We stopped into a BLM site with dispersed camping but it was completely filled up (an issue we hadn’t faced at any campsite yet on our trip.. but probably because we were getting close to Zion National Park, a tourist hot spot). I had done enough research beforehand and this site supposedly was fine for “low-clearance vehicles” but boy was that wrong. With our overly packed prius, the car was so low to the ground and we kept getting stuck along the rocky and bumpy dirt roads of the dispersed camp loop. It took a LOT of work to get ourselves out of one ditch but we did and ultimately ended up at a visitor’s center where we just “camped” in the car. It turned out to be for the best because the temperatures dipped close to 30 degrees that night. We felt so grateful for our car and the fact it was still running and getting us everywhere we needed to go (even as it burnt oil down like crazy!).
Day 26
📍 Zion Canyon National Park, Red Canyon, Bryce Canyon National Park, UT:
This day was one of the most beautiful! We saw breathtaking mountains, lakes, hoodoos, rocks and canyons, plus a rainbow and even some prairie dogs popping up along the prairie land near Bryce Canyon.
These adventures were all followed by an AMAZING dispersed BLM campsite we found in the middle of Dixie National Forest —- quite a stark contrast to our attempt at dispersed camping the night before! The site even had plenty of free firewood which made building a fire easy… and we really NEEDED it as temperatures once again dipped and were far below freezing through the night leaving a sheet of frost over our tent and car! The site even had enough cell service for us to watch some American Horror story by the warm fire before we went to sleep. This was definitely the COLDEST night we have ever camped in our lives and we had a ton of layers. At this point the dogs were also feeling very OVER the idea of camping because they are Floridian dogs and don’t like to be cold.
Day 27
📍 Dixie National Forest & Escalante, UT:
One of the most beautiful days (okay.. we’ve had a LOT of beautiful days) but the scenery of Escalante was absolutely one of my favorites! Grand Staircase-Escalente National Monument is a humongous, completely dog-friendly (unlike most National Parks), FREE area that has a lot of natural features that resemble Zion however it’s much more quiet and less crowded. Dogs can go on any trails and there are endless places to explore. We loved driving through Zion but the beauty of Escalente is unmatched in my opinion and I can’t wait to go back here in the future… I wish we had a whole week to explore this area.. I don’t think we could have gotten sick of it or found enough to see and do there. Driving on the way in and out through Dixie Forest with colorful aspen trees was also iconic and memorable and I think of the beauty of those forests quite often. We camped out again in the forest.
Day 28
📍 Grand Canyon & Flagstaff, AZ
We woke up around 3 or 4 am to a massive storm rolling into the forest and packed up and got out of there in the nick of time. We knew it wasn’t worth sleeping a couple of extra hours and having to pack up in a freezing cold downpour. Fortunately this gave us a good head start to the Grand Canyon which was quite a drive away anyway. We arrived at the northern rim early in the morning but the bad weather and thick dense fog made the visibility not so great.
We decided to make the 3 hour drive all the way around to the south rim side and made the long trek an adventure. We stopped at a Colorado River overlook bridge and explored the depths of the insanely gorgeous Vermillion Cliffs!
On the other side of the Grand Canyon we got some better views which we fortunately caught in between raindrops and dark rolling clouds coming in.
Afterwards, we stopped in Flagstaff for some tasty eats at Java Juice Cafe - which had all vegan food - including crepes (both sweet AND savory options), smoothies, juices, coffee, an entire menu of food, and a bajillion flavors of homemade ice cream and milkshakes. We got SO much food here and zero regrets about it. This alone made the extra roundabout journey well worth it!
We continued on our drive (with a rainbow following us the whole day!) until we arrived in Santa Fe.
We had an awful experience finding that every hotel in town was fully booked up (even though we tried reserving a room over the phone and they said to not bother because they had so many rooms available just a few hours before we arrived…) so after midnight we had to head back all the way to Albuquerque to the only place we could find with an open room available. We were tired and exhausted and frustrated about the situation but had no idea what a silver lining this would bring for us the next day….
Day 29
📍 Alberquerque & Santa Fe, NM
Although we had such a hard time booking a hotel the night before, the process made us aware of the Albuquerque International Hot Air Balloon Festival going on - and ironically the only hotel that had availability for us (where we were staying!) was literally right around the corner from it! So we woke up really early to go see the balloons lift off the ground and cover the sky in the hundreds. Every type of balloon - varying from penguins to leopards to rainbows to dogs and paw prints and cool patterns galore. What a magical experience to see! Then we found a beloved Trader Joe’s nearby to stock up on goods and get some breakfast on the go (bananas, pumpkin spice cashew yogurt, tonic shots and smoothies) - a major unexpected silver lining because if we had stayed in Santa Fe as planned we wouldn’t have had this experience at all.
, don’t ya love when that happens?Days 30 & 31
📍 OK, AR, TN, AL, FL
On our final days, 30&31 of travel we gradually made our way back home (Gainesville, FL) and stopped along the way in Oklahoma City, OK, Arkansas, Memphis, TN, and Birmingham, AL for new adventures in between covering miles on the road. It was mostly driving so in my notes I had clumped these two days together as one since we were covering more miles than actual adventures (but we did still fit in a lot of adventuring!) We stopped overnight at a beautiful visitor center in Arkansas that felt like a state park and we got a nice secluded spot and slept in the car.
Some highlights along our drive include delicious mushroom “wings” with banana fries from Cafe420 / The Alkaline Plant Based Shop, dog park stops, pumpkin patches, pretty city parks, pumpkin spice vegan cream cheese on bagels, cool shops in each little city and town we passed, fresh juices from Raw Girls in Memphis, TN and very loaded vegan cinnamon buns from our FAVORITE…. Cinnaholic in Hoover, AL. After all that we safely made it home and our trip came to an end. We loved EVERY second of it, but were eager to sleep in our own bed!
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