[Las Vegas and into the Parks]
Saturday, 15 January, 2005
Las Vegas was an interesting experience. I don't
think it is a place to go if you have no money, and
its also not a place to go if you have strong views on
gambling. I found it really sad walking around seeing
so many people (particularly old people) wasting away
their life savings on slot machines. I think if you
went there with the money to eat out, go to some of
the big shows etc it would be great. For example,
Celine Dion was singing 5 nights a week for about
$60-$80 USD a show. Not silly prices, but more than
our budget allowed for. There were lots of other
shows like that that would have been great.
We have had a pretty good time over the last few days.
We visited Zion National Park - quite like Milford
but dry. Huge towering faces of rock, deep valleys
and cold. WE went for a walk up a track to a place
called Angels Landing. It was a great walk for us,
but pretty scary. I can't believe they send people
off the street up here. It was hard for andrew and I
let alone any others. There are chains to hang onto
for most of the way up the steep bits, but still, in
places its steep, icey, snowey, and you have less than
1 metre of ridge to walk along and climb on before the
sides of the ridge drop to the valley floor 500 metres
below - literally vertical. YOu could base jump off
most of it. Just amazing. Unfortunately we couldn't
photograph it too well, too big and spaces were too
confined.
We drove through a small town in southern Utah on our
way to Zion and came across a road block. We got out
to see what was happening and before we knew it, we
had Mr Policeman trying to get us helping with
sandbagging. There has been massive flooding all over
California and south western utah. We drove through
this town just as it was getting serious. We drove
down a street with very distressed locals watching a
usually small creek become a raging torrent and take
over their homes. We didn't stay around because they
had enough people, but saw a newspaper today that had
an article on the front to say 27 houses were washed
away in the next town downstream from where we were.
Not just flooded with water, but actually washed away
down the river. Just devistating. So our escapades
into the parks have been subdued since most of the
streams and rivers are flooded.
We have also visited Bryce Canyon National Park today
and yesterday. Again, amazing scenery of red rock
hoodoos (rock pinnacles that are constantly crumbling
away). Very snowey but pretty with the sun shining
over them. Got some more great photos.
It has been pretty cold camping in the truck though.
First night near Bryce Canyon was cold (eggs froze
again), and even our radiator froze. We have put
about 5 litres of antifreeze in it so far, and somehow
it still froze. We managed to unfreeze it when the
sun hit us eventually, and put more anti freeze in it.
From now on however we are heading into warmer
temperatures so things should be better.
Tomorrow we are in Page - more canyons to visit, then
the Grand Canyon and maybe an overnight tramp into the
canyon. We need to be in Tucson on Wednesday to drop
off truck and catch our 20 hour bus ride to San
Francisco (not looking forward to that one!).
Library is closing soon so I've gotta go.
We will be in touch again soon (maybe in Page or
Tucson in a few days).
Bye for now
love nicola
[Las Vegas]
Wednesday, 12 January, 2005
Hi
Just a quickie to say hi and we are just travelling
north again after visiting Las Vegas for two days. It
really was an eye opener - actually is now just a blur
of neon in our minds. Absolutely amazing number of
casinos, silly people betting their lives away and
rich americans shopping at the most exclusive shops on
the planet.
We splashed out and stayed in a flash hotel casino for
about $60NZ total. Was the cheapest place we could
get anywhere and was nice. We saw lots of cool free
shows in the street and in the casino (more about them
later) but mostly just wandered around gobsmacked.
Must say we felt like fish out of water and I actually
didn't enjoy it. Am glad to be back on the road out
of the city. One good thing though was andrew bought
some levi 501 red tab jeans (two pairs actually) for
$40NZ each at a factory outlet. So cheap.
Are heading into national parks again and then to
Tucson to drop off keiths truck in about a week.
nic
New Year
Tuesday, 4 January, 2005
Hi there
We eventually got out of Denver after shopping at all
the outdoor stores and drove west. We camped on the
side of the road somewhere in Glenwood Canyon and the
next day continued into Utah and Moab. We took a
scenic road to Moab and drove through this amazing
canyon (part of the colorado river). It really is
amazing country.
In Moab we drove around trying to find where all the
new years celebrations were happening. The whole town
seemed dead as we drove up the main street. We then
got pulled over by a police woman (who I might add
looked no older than 22) because we were driving too
slow! Funny since we had no idea where we were going
and there was no one else on the road we were holding
up (it was a dual lane road as well!!). She then
wasn't sure if our NZ drivers licence was ok so had to
fish our out international ones. All quite a laugh
and she let us go. We gave up trying to find
somewhere good to go for the new year so drove out of
town and camped on the side of the road and were
asleep by 10pm. Oh well, not quite the exciting new
years we had planned but Las Vegas was just too far to
get to and we were way too tired from driving to stay
up!
We had a day wandering around Arches national park -
an amazing array of sandstone structures - pinnacles,
arches etc. Took lots of photos, and stayed up at one
of the famous arches for sunset.
We then drove north to Salt Lake City to catch the
Morman Tabanacle choir on sunday morning. It was a
pretty good performance they put on. Its broadcast
live every sunday to TV and radio stations all around
the world. We drove out to the salt flats last night
but the weather wasn't so good and we didn't see a
thing. Really thick fog. So back to Salt Lake City
today and here we are in the library emailing.
We are hoping there will be some fresh snow tonight so
we can ski tomorrow, else we will head back south to
see some more national parks.
Well, not much else to add at the moment. Overall the
temperatures here in Utah are heaps warmer than up
Yellowstone way so we are pretty comfortable. No
problems finding places to stay either - rest areas
seem to be ok. We haven't been moved on yet.
Lots of love
Nic
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