Rich and Cat's Travels: Onwards from San Fran

Well we picked up the car and drove to a motel (our first American motel) a couple of hours outside of Yosemite. Our dinner consisted of pasta, which I cooked on our last day in the San Francisco Hostel to last us as long as possible as everything inside and in the surrounding areas is very expensive. We got to the park nice and early (around 8 am) and we tried to decide what to do first as there is so much to see and do. We decided to stop at the large waterfall, which was very impressive, we drove past and we did the short walk to get closer then we decided to head out to another waterfall that you had to hike a couple of miles to. We decided to drive to one of the walks further in the park and we did a couple of hikes. The first one was to go and see a lake called Mirror Lake which was supposed to reflect the surrounding mountains, which it did but it was not as beautiful as Mirror Lake in New Zealand. The second one was called the mist trail and we soon found out why. We had to hike up next to a waterfall and the spray coming off the fall gave the whole area a mist (and a rainbow). The climb was quite strenuous but we managed it in good time. The views were definitely worth the hike. Following that we drove to Mariposa Grove where there were some large sequoia trees, which are large red trees. There are some trees in the grove that are 1800 years old, and that’s old for America! That was all we had time for that day but then we were staying at a hostel closer to the park as we wanted to get there earlier the next day. So we were there by 7am the following day to go and see Glacier point which is a view point that has spectacular views of the park (although due to the size of the park at the most you can see 25% of it from this point). Following some time and some short strolls around the point we headed to Tuolumne Meadows where there are some stunning views as the meadows are nearly 9000ft above sea level. We (and by we I mean Rich) decided to do another walk up a large dome, which was a couple of miles and involved some slightly steep climbing at the end but it was worth it (even though it scared me being up that high). Following that we carried on out of the park to head to our next motel promising that we will go back to the park in order to do some of the longer walks that we didn’t have time to do.

After a night in some random town a couple of hours outside the park as the next day we were heading to another national park, called Death Valley. This park is in the middle of a desert and the heat was apparent. By 8.30 am the temperature had crept up to 90 degrees Fahrenheit and by 10 it was 100 degrees. Our first stop in the park was at some sand dunes which seemed to appear from nowhere in the middle of the flat dessert. We climbed a couple before retreating to our air conditioned car. After that we headed to a short walk through a gorge where we were able to see some rocks and that was about it. After that we headed only to the big touristy areas, badwater (which is a salt flat), Artists drive – which is an area of rocks that are multi coloured, Dante’s view (from where you can see the highest and lowest points in America on a clear day, which our day was) and The Devils Golf course which was an area of salt crystals. After that we escaped from the park and the immense sun and headed to Las Vegas where we were staying for the next few days.

Our hotel in Las Vegas is the nicest hotel we have stayed at in this trip. We managed to get a 4 star hotel rather cheaply due to a billing mix up with the agency we bought it off. The hotel was a nice modern hotel which obviously catered for the new money young crowd by the look of the people at the pool and in the casino, but we didn’t really mind. For our first evening we headed up the stratosphere where we could get views of the whole Las Vegas Strip and try and get an understanding of where we were. We managed to avoid paying for the experience by buying a couple of cocktails (which were on happy hour any way) so it was win win for us. After that we needed some food that was not pasta as that is all we had been eating for the past few days. Rich wanted steak so we did a quick bit of research and found a deal not too far away so off we headed and once we got there and found the restaurant, the other side of the casino, we were told there was a 90 minute wait and that we needed to wait 20 minutes to get a buzzer before we were on the waiting list properly. We did think about going elsewhere but decided to hang about for the 20mins and so we got a membership card, which provided $10 worth of free slot machine credit if you played $10 of your own so we thought why not. After playing with Rich’s money (and finishing with $20) we managed to get our buzzer and then we played with my money and came out even. Another benefit with the cards were they gave you money off your dinner and just as I was finishing my go we were called to dinner (it had only been about another 15mins since we collected the buzzer so we were feeling very lucky). We had a nice steak dinner and a beer each before deciding we needed to head back to our hotel room as the casinos were giving us a headache with all the lights and the smoke. It seems that everywhere has a casino and that no matter where you want to go you will have to walk through at least one casino. It is also a problem as once you are in there it all looks the same and the signposting is terrible so you always get lost. As Rich said it’s like they researched the best through flow for a hotel and then did the opposite so that you got caught up in the casino for as long as possible. Also you can smoke in the casinos over here which was a bit of a shock and does really get to you after a while.

So while we were in Las Vegas we did a lot, we went to most of the big hotels including the Bellagio (where we spent most evenings), the MGM Grand, New York New York, the Flamingo, the Cosmopolitan and Circus Circus. All were very different and crazy in their own way. We gambled in a couple but we just walked around most of them. We also decided to go and have one of the famous Las Vegas buffets so we decided to go to the best and went for the lunch buffet at the Bellagio. It was lovely and had so many different things including amazing desserts. We also made the decision to fork out for tickets to see “0” which is the most famous Cirque du Soliel show at the Bellagio. That was a magical show and the acrobatics were amazing. It is very difficult to describe and there is no real plot to the show but there is a massive pool on the stage and the acrobatics involve the usual flips and turns as well as diving and synchronised swimming. This made the show have more dimensions but sometimes the floor rose meaning there was no pool and then they could perform more acrobatics on the stage. While in Vegas you have to gamble so we did have a try at a few things and even had a Craps lesson, as let’s face it who knows how to play that game, and after the few days we managed come out on top (but only by a little bit) but who cares because we had fun. When we weren’t running around doing everything above we had a little time to chill out by the pool and read our books like people tend to do on holiday, which was nice, but we had to usually do this later in the afternoon to prevent ourselves roasting in the sun.

After a few days in Vegas we had an early start to drive the 4 hours to the Grand Canyon South Rim where we would be spending the day. We go there around 10am and started by visiting the Visitor Centre were we stumbled upon some large deer and as we followed them we found the first breath-taking view point of the canyon. It was so immense and bright that we just stopped and stared for a while, but that was cut short by a viscous hail storm that started and made everyone run. The hail was really painful but we took cover in the visitor centre to wait for it to finish before heading out. We headed to the east where there were a few view points and a walk that went below the rim for even better views. It was not a difficult walk down but for every step down you went you knew that meant you had to walk up. We walked down for about a mile and we stopped at Oh Ah Point and had some lunch with the squirrels before starting the walk back up. The rain had fully subsided and now it was just hot and sunny, which is how it stayed for the rest of the day while we did another 2 mile round trip walk below the rim to see two tunnels and while we visited various view points along the south rim. After a long, hot, beautiful yet exhausting day we headed to our motel in a town on Route 66, which was about an hour from the Canyon. We managed to have a beer before crashing into bed. The next day we had to drive back to Las Vegas ready to catch our flight to Mexico for the next adventure.