The list of amazing places within an easy drive from Las Vegas is exhaustive.

It’s downright infinite once you include the drive itself.

The best way to find new spots to explore is by paying close attention while driving to your old favorites.

One such drive is the trip from Zion National Park to Page, Arizona, home to Glen Canyon Dam, Lake Powell and a jumping off point for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

We were lucky enough to make the drive east out of Zion during sunset following a small snowstorm.

The sights were fantastic, beginning with the souvenir shop on Highway 9 leaving Zion, continuing through the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument along Highway 89 and concluding just outside Page at a scenic overlook hundreds of feet above Lake Powell.

Highway 9, aka the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway, is the main road through the park, leads through the Zion’s famous tunnels and exits the east side of the park.

Just outside the park, there’s a small gas station on the north side of the road that also sells souvenirs and coffee.

Some of the merchandise is pretty hokey and the place clearly doesn’t get enough publicity. (A staffer at the gift store inside the park said the closest gas station heading east was at Mt. Carmel Junction, about another 20 miles down the road.)

Besides a convenient spot to fuel up, the store has an old National Park Service pickup truck parked out front near the highway. It’s a great spot for photos.

Continuing east on Highway 9 toward Mt. Carmel Junction is a mostly downhill drive, with thick stands of juniper on both sides of the road, and red cliffs and peaks in the distance.

The reason this drive is so great in the afternoon is because the sun is behind you and casting great light on the scene in front, giving depth and color to even the most distant peaks.

About 20 minutes outside of Zion is Mt. Carmel Junction. (Hint: if a town has the word “junction” in the name it isn’t much more than a crossroads.)

Still, for a crossroads in rural Utah, Mt. Carmel Junction is a pretty happening place.

The centerpiece of Mt. Carmel Junction is a Best Western Hotel with a small-but-scenic par three golf course.

But the highlight has to be Thunderbird Restaurant’s old-school neon sign with the slogan, “Home of the ho-made pies.”

We didn’t eat here and online reviews of the place are inconclusive, some love it, some hate it.

We did, however, score one of the Thunderbird t-shirts with the unintended double entrendre slogan and a long-legged lady in short waitress uniform holding a pie near her hips, it’s reminiscent of cover art on Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” album. Although, it’s doubtful the town’s Mormon founders would see it the same way.

Mt. Carmel Junction is also the spot to pick up Highway 89 for the remaining 92 miles on the drive to Page.

We didn’t make too many more stops because the wind picked up and the temperature dropped to about 40 degrees. But the drive through the Grand Staircase-Escalante area is beautiful.

The drive also goes by Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, which will definitely be a future stop. Here’s a link to a video from the park.

Heading into Page, near sunset, we made one more quick stop at the Wahweap Overlook for Lake Powell. The wind was so strong it was nearly blowing people off their feet, but the view was great.

We also saw a great Range Rover at Lake Powell (last pic), not too shabby.