There is truly something about getting out on the open road. The constant hum of the tires on pavement. The change in scenery as you tick off the miles. How the air around you gets easier to breathe the further out into nowhere you find yourself. These were just a few of the things I was looking forward to on my westward journey.

I’ve mentioned before that I own a women’s clothing and home decor boutique in the quiet little beach town where I live. Throughout the year, I attend various wholesale markets where I get to choose inventory from the upcoming trends and styles to sell in my shop. During my second year in business, a fellow boutique owner mentioned that she begins her market season in Las Vegas at a show called Magic. Ever since that conversation I have wanted to check it out. I had only ever experienced the World Trade Center in Dallas, TX where I could literally find anything and everything that I wanted, so I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. Why would someone travel across the country when they could get everything they needed just a couple hours away? Were the markets really all that different? When a deal came across my email that would allow me to travel to Vegas fairly cheap, I decided to jump at the opportunity and use it as an excuse to experience Magic for myself!

At first, I thought I would fly out there, but my mom has been my market buddy since opening my shop in 2019, so I talked to her and my dad about us making this a mother/daughter road trip. My mom was down for the adventure, and my dad was good with keeping all four of our dogs by himself for 10 days, so the planning began! I lived in my atlas for about a month, planning out which route we would take both coming and going and all the things we would stop to see along the way. I decided we would take a southern route, navigating I-10W all the way to Nevada. Then on our return trip, we would drive a more northern route so that we could see different things as we made our way back home. This weeks blog is completely dedicated to making our way out West, but you’ll have to come back over the next couple weeks to read all about our route home, as well as find out what we got into while staying in Vegas.

Westward Bound Stops:

• Big Bend National Park
• Big Bend Ranch State Park
• White Sands National Park
• Saguaro National Park

Being away from the shop for too long is difficult, logistically, so I only had 10 days to play with. The deal that I scored in Vegas was for 5 days, 4 nights. This gave us two nights on the road going, and three nights on the road coming back. While I knew my planned stops for the couple days before Vegas were lofty, I was hopeful we would be successful to see them all, even if only for an hour to stretch our legs and break up the long drive.

Our first stop was Big Bend National Park. We drove for 10 hours with the historic Gage Hotel as our official stopping point. Even though The Gage is 40 minutes outside of the park, our last name is Gage, so obviously we had to stay there! We arrived after dark, and after a very close call with an extremely large elk that came out of nowhere. The hotel is amazing! Every detail is a nod to days gone by but with a luxurious and inviting feel. The reception was warm and cozy with a large fire crackling in the background. The stairs whispered a faint creak from welcoming generations of travelers. The halls smelled of leather, and the key was an actual key that you turned in the lock. I loved how everything was preserved rather than changed into a “modern upgrade” and how mom and I were being woven into the tapestry of the hotel’s long standing history. Since I knew we would be getting in late and wouldn’t feel like going down to dinner, I arranged to have a meat and cheese tray and two prickly pear margaritas waiting for us in our room. Everything was delicious, and it was the perfect start to our epic adventure.

The next morning, we loaded the car early, took some quick pictures, grabbed coffee and scones from the V6 Coffee house a few steps away, and took off towards Big Bend.

Since we had another long day of driving ahead of us, I planned to only have an hour to explore here. As soon as the Chisos Mountains began to form on the horizon, tears began to collect in the corners of my eyes. I have wanted to come to Big Bend for several years now, and after two failed attempts, I was finally here! How on earth was I going to be ok with only spending one hour here? Already, I knew that I would have to come back, and soon!

We checked in at the entry gate, and I purchased my first ever Annual National Parks Pass. I knew this would come in handy with the other stops I had planned on our trip. As we ventured further into the park, it became very clear, very quickly, just how massive this place is and how spread out everything was going to be. We needed to pick just one main spot to see, so we set our sights on Santa Elena Canyon! It took forever to get there, but the drive was gorgeous!!! Once we arrived, we got out to explore for a little bit, hiked down to the Rio Grande, took some pics, and then had to force ourselves back to the car to start making our way out of the park.

When I first started planning this stop, it looked like there was a road on the atlas which showed we could exit the park a different way than we came in and it would put us in the right spot to continue on to Big Bend Ranch State Park. After speaking with a ranger, we discovered that the road we saw is private and not open to visitors. We would have to go back out the way we came in. Due to the incredible size of this park, and how long it would take us to get back out of it, we had to make the disappointing decision to miss both Big Bend Ranch State Park and White Sands National Park. With the Chisos in our rearview mirror, we started back West to our next hotel in Benson, Arizona.

I was super bummed about missing White Sands, another bucket list destination for me, that I spent an hour on my phone that evening looking at maps trying to see how much time would be lost if we back tracked from Benson the next morning to see White Sands before venturing on. Unfortunately, this stop just wasn’t in the cards for us. Our second morning, third day of driving, would be a shorter day, so we took our time getting up and loading the car before making our way to Saguaro National Park.

We loved this stop! The dessert landscape full of jumping chollas and towering saguaro cacti were beautifully set against an ominous sky as a storm seemed to be pushing in.

We drove down winding roads, and watched the different desert plants dance out our windows until we officially made it to the park. Lightning started to show up and the wind got wild, so we did a short hike and a couple pull offs alongside the road to quickly explore and take more pics until a hail storm sent us running for the car.

Laughing, and smiling ear to ear, we turned the radio back up, put the car in drive and started the last leg to Vegas! As we drew closer to Las Vegas, we knew we were back in high elevations because our ears were popping as if we were on a plane.

It was pitch black out our windows, though, so we couldn’t see exactly what we were driving through. The only thing we could bring into focus were headlights, barricade railings along the roadside, and the flashing red dots that hovered in the sky from the tops of wind turbines. This was all we had to look at for what seemed like miles until the view in front of us opened up to reveal the valley full of all the dancing neon lights of Sin City!

I had been to Vegas before, but I flew into the city and landed during the day so this was not the welcome I received. But here we were, a mother & daughter team coming around the mountain in our horse-powered jeep trailhawk, and when the mountains opened up to reveal the city below we both gasped with excitement! Up until that moment, Vegas itself wasn’t really something we were looking forward to (other than market), but her grandeur from a distance had us suddenly singing a different tune! I knew in that moment, that our week in Vegas was definitely going to be one for the books!