Sherry, If you go to see the giant redwood/sequoia trees, please realize that there are dozens of places worth seeing them along the coast from the CA/OR border to central California and in the Sierra Nevada Mountains along the CA/NV border that each have their own unique appeal. It would take a week just to explore all of the big tree NP's, SP's, SRA's, SNR's and Monuments in CA alone. When I lived in San Francisco, Russian Gulch, Big Basin SP and Mount Madonna were favorites, but after I moved to Carmel it was all about Polo Colorada Canyon and the many spots around Pfeiffer Big Sur. I'll have to tell you about my very rare and unique coffee table made from a Polo Colorado Cyn giant and Bixby Creek driftwood sometime. Yes, "mesa" is a term loosly applied to any landform in the arid west with a flat top and verticle cliff sides, and they are quite common. They are also referred to as table mountains, buttes, potrero or tuya depending on how they were formed and their characteristics and can vary from small ones like those in the BDW to the Grand Mesa in CO which is the largest in the world at around 500 square miles on top. Sometimes plateau is also used wrongly. They don't always have the verticle sides and are much bigger covering huge areas up to millions of square miles. Yes I could move back to St.George I guess, although in many ways the cost of living is higher there than Vegas. I'm sure some of my old friends are still there and kicking. But since my Dad lives there now I wouldn't even consider it.

It's been several years since we've been there. It is beautiful. For anyone wanting to visit Colorado, I would recommend going the week after Labor Day. The crowds will be down because the kiddos are back in school and the weather is still nice. You may miss the peak of the wildflowers in the upper elevations by a week or two, but there will still be several flowers in bloom.

I have made the trip from Ishpeming to Redwoods and camped years ago. I would certainly leave the dogs with a friend. Its difficult being in a car with 3 kids --at least we had a motor home the last few years of camping. California and some of the Western states do not have frequent Highway rest stops or they are under repair, so you may have to rely on stopping at restaurants and that won't be helpful to the dogs. In Michigan you could stop in lots of places and let the dogs run--I wouldn't try that in the Western deserts, or the freeways. What you may want to try is what mariend suggested. Join AAA; their trip ticks and State books are wonderful. they will tell you where gas stations are and interesting places to stop. Whats even a good idea is we have a Garmin GPS. It will tell you restaurants, gas stations and give you directions vocally. We wouldn't travel anywhere without that. If your car has one built in--wonderful. I would recommend that with tent camping your options in the West are more limited than you would guess. Unless you have been here --I would suggest a KOA campground every so often so you can wash clothes, etc. Do they take dogs? Redwoods NP is okay--but consider Zion or Bryce. They have huge trees also. You would have to make reservations now (unless its too late) We just finished a 14 hour plane trip and then a 6 hour car trip with 3 kids (at least they were grandchildren) and it was Australia but it made me recall traveling with my own kids when they were younger. You yearn for peace, quiet and a shower at the end of the day. As you travel across the West,available campgrounds aren't at convenient intervals. We live in California and have sometimes hunted a long time when we didn't have reservations. With two dogs you would have very limited choices in some places.

A number of years ago we did the out-and-back Narrows hike in late May or early June (around Memorial Day). Water was moving but current not too strong. It was beautiful but seemed there were a lot of folks out that day and I would like to do the hike again without seeing quite so many people. Same trip it snowed at Bryce Canyon. We stayed at Flanigan's outside of Zion and I would stay there again. There very well might be nicer places but budget was a big factor in our choice of lodging on that trip.