From Vegas to the Parks

Bryce Canyon Sunday 20 June

Did I mention early morning start? Howard was up at 5:30am, my eyes didn’t want to get up at all but eventually I coaxed them into life. The early morning air clarity was beautiful and I couldn’t resist the temptation to photograph the surrounding mountains once more. A phenomenon known as checker boarding, caused by wind and rain lashing, has marked the sloping face of a mountain on the road in a chequer board design. This this time we were able to stop and take a good look, and we also stopped at the buffalo meadow to take a look at a herd of what we now know are North American Bison and then continue on the very scenic road toward Bryce which was dramatically changing. We were gradually gaining altitude and the pine forests increased together with green valleys. We parked the car near the Bryce National Park entrance and took a shuttle bus for a look see. This park is smaller by a long way and the main attractions are easy to reach so we opted for the Navajo Loop Trail, but found part of it was closed due to rock falls, so down in the valley crossed over to the Sunrise Trail. This took us about ninety minutes and we declared our morning exercise complete, besides it was getting pretty hot by now and we still had the drive to Las Vegas.

That drive took us through and over Cedar Breaks National Monument (a mountain range nearly 10,000 feet high) with remnants of snow in the more protected and shaded crevices. I have decided that most of west USA is sand, here too the terrain was multi coloured sands. In just a few places we passed rich dark ground that looked as though it had been freshly ploughed up, but mostly, sand. There were fields of deep green too and further on we drove through the Virgin River Canyon which was sandstone piled high and rough.

The Big Gamble

Then a rest stop for a late lunch and a fuel and shopping stop in Mesquite we continued into Las Vegas to see canyons of a different type. We could see the tall buildings from quite a distance off and of course the road widened. Nearly forgot, the road changed to good then very good the closer we came to L.V. The wages of sin paying dividends! No getting lost here, although Google took us off the Interstate 15 way to far up the road and we slowly cruised down Frank Sinatra Drive. We saw the monstrosity of Luxor long before we came to it and had no trouble finding the huge car park entrance. There were droves of people walking toward the long covered walkway to the building’s entrance, some looked entranced, like people being pulled toward a flying saucer parked in a field - we’ve all seen those films. Another few minutes navigating our way through alleys of poker (slot, fruit) machines, and they allow smoking in here, the first time in the US that we’ve come across public indoor smoking. We had to line up, as if at the airport, to check in. Asked whether our room had a fridge and told no, we were offered an upgrade to a suite for $40/night extra so we took that and spent another 10 or so minutes working our way through a labyrinth of corridors to the lifts to our “suite”. What we came to was an hotel room not as good or roomy as last night’s, with a fridge that had trouble keeping our food cool and no freezer compartment. Luxury is not a word that could be used here and I can’t imagine the size of an ordinary room here either, if ours was supposed to be a suite. We overlook several car parks close in and desert escarpment in the distance. Another several trips to the car and we were unpacked, ready to ice bucket our wine bottle and relax in for the evening. Each time we arrived downstairs we were accosted by floor walkers hawking something or other either to do with the hotel, casino or another property.

This morning we both woke early and decided to take advantage of the early morning cool for a walk around town. Wrong! At 7:00 am it was anything but cool. How could this be different to Zion where it was mid morning before the sun had any warming effect? We made our way to The Strip, the main wide Boulevarde on which most of the biggest casinos are. There were people out having a look, just like us and people out jogging as well. The pedestrian walkway wove it’s way around and past all the big places, sometimes the path led through another casino to make you walk through them. At around 8:30 am we’d felt that we’d done our morning exercise and headed back down the other side of the street and by now there were crowds of people out walking. Some stardust must have rubbed off on me because I dragged Howard into a souvenir store to check out stuff and T-shirts for the grand daughters and worse, further down the street while Howard was buying a trick toy for AJ (No.1 grandson), I became very interested in some wrap skirts - they can be worn 20 different ways and convinced myself that the daughters in law needed at least one each if not two. One may have been light, but five will add substantially to the baggage weight next week. All along the way we were accosted by people trying to sell tours, condos, time shares, holidays, shows, girls in your room, you name it.

A housekeeper was working opposite our room when we returned and begged to be let in for 10 minutes because her shift was almost over and her supervisor would have sent her to another floor to do more rooms, so I relented and let her in - there went half a dozen towels some unused!. There are phones next to the toilets which they have to use to check in and out of each room they service. This lady was about 70 years old and couldn‘t thank me enough! And, to my shame I completely forgot to give her a tip.

Howard is having his grandad nap and we are now waiting out the midday heat before going out to join the evening circus.

Bright lights big city

Evening came (around 6:00pm) and we ventured out. The sun still high in the sky and hot, we joined the masses walking the walk. Hundreds of touts offering girls delivered in twenty minutes with silly girly photo cards awash in the street. The lights start to come on by the time we reach the Venetian. I wanted to see the canal boats and had a really good laugh when I did. The “canals” may be the size of an Olympic swimming pool in total, what a rip-off, they charge you about $16 for a 15 minute paddle in front of the hotel and in view of the passing parade. Across the street to start our walk back, I dragged Howard to one of the Mirage’s bars, conveniently sealed from the throng by plate glass walls, but he jacked up at the $12 price of a glass of wine and took off complaining. Five minutes later he relented and said ok if you really want to have a drink there, I’ll just come and sit with you! Oh sure, that was going to happen wasn’t it? We are both getting tired and a little bit grumpy by now. On with the walk and we continued on to Caesar’s Palace, just past the Forum and because we didn’t take the winding walkways we got tangled up in the vast car entrance and it took a while to escape and find our way to the wide path in front of the Bellagio when we realised that we’d forgotten to return to buy a shirt for Michael way back down the Strip near the Venetian. Oh crumbs, with feet already complaining we turned around when the Bellagio’s bells rang and their first water fountain play of the evening started, so we stayed and watched the fountains dance, very attractive it was and the gathered crown thought so too. OK so now we are walking faster, away from our hotel to find a shirt which half an hour ago was a “maybe”. Touts are selling ice water for $1 a bottle, that’s still $1.50 cheaper than in bars and cafes back home, we buy one to sooth our parched throats. Search out and buy the shirt and head for home when a bang takes our attention, followed by more and coloured lights. It’s the light show from Treasure Island, with a perfect view from the Mirage bar - not - we headed once more for home, against the tide it seemed at times. Ordinary people were out having fun though I fail to see much fun in just walking around with a drink in the hand, looking at other people, hoping something would happen. The casinos I feel, aren’t attracting machine players as they once may have done so they pressure people to buy what once was free, for example the shows. A near seventy year old Cher, her advertising hoardings anything but showing her age and then there’s Donnie and Marie, their hoardings about 30 years old. And of course, don’t forget to add tax to that advertised price! And soft porn being peddled everywhere. Look but don’t touch.

It was almost 10:00pm when we finally arrived back at our hotel and were seated in the Pyramid Café for a long awaited reward for our stomaches and those aching feet, hell, this walking is supposed to be good for the arthritic toes isn’t it? Howard’s chicken and veg pie hit the spot, as did my selection of three side orders, vegetarian sausage, fries and coleslaw. I’d asked for the fish & chips, hold the fish and replace with veg saus. Never mind, the end to a very interesting but long evening, and in fact ,visit to Las Vegas, once done, never needing to be repeated.

Not such an early start Tuesday morning, with a bit of a thick head(s), the soles of the feet and Achilles tendons still complaining, we did a floor hop to find ice for our esky - our fridge being too feeble to freeze our bottles and the ice machine on our floor empty. The long and arduous journey out to the car park, it struck me that we hadn’t seen too many happy faces in our short time here, including ours I think, though, being fish out of water we did try to put a positive spin on the adventure.

Once around the block to find our way to the Strip and the entrance to our highway we drove for nearly half an hour before we were near the edge of the desert city. Imagine, 37 million visitors a year, that’s probably around 500,000 sets of sheets or more per month, and they want to change the towels every day as well. The water usage, electricity and oil use must be tremendous and not a solar panel or wind turbine in sight! Most drinks and food sold in take away containers even when you eat in a café! Anyone heard of recycling, reusing or reducing here?

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/irenewheatley/DeathValley?feat=directlink

Here is where we’d made alterations to our itinerary, We were going to drive through Death Valley and head up to Mammoth Lakes and take in Yosemite Park, then drop down to Sequoia for a visit before driving back to San Francisco, but we worked out that was too far from Yosemite. The roads are winding and the driving is slow. Our new plan was to turn south once through Death Valley, and drive through the Sequoia State Forest up toward the Sequoia National Park and continue north to Yosemite. We already couldn’t book accommodation inside Yosemite in January which was why we had chosen Mammoth Lakes, but Mariposa sounded a lot closer (and it is).

So, once more into the desert. At a little place called Amargosa, not on any map, we took a left and think it should have been right (we were looking for a crossing and a straight through, not a T intersection), but this took us through from the southern end of the Valley and so we saw so much more. Driving toward Death Valley was scenic enough but once into the mountains which border it we were awestruck by the rugged beauty of it and the changing looks. Sandstone, volcanic rock, sand dunes, salt lakes, rocky jumbles, you name it, it’s out there looking grand. The plants are amazing as well. Recent or ancient rains somewhere near here have benefited the valley because there was green here. The road rose to 3800 feet before dropping to the valley floor. The wind by now, something we have come to expect every day since Joshua Tree. I was right, most of western USA was underwater once, right to eastern Utah, that must be where the good earth starts. So Death Valley was part of that sea, interrupted by volcanic disturbance and plates pushing and mountains forming, wind, water and sand wearing in all to what there is today. Stunning and the photos won’t do it justice at all even in places where we stopped to get better shots.

We stopped for lunch at Furnace Creek - that’s where the ranger, pay station and visitors center are at 192 feet below sea level and 1020F. Sat ourselves at a bench under a willow type tree at the side of the road. Heard croaky sounds and looked about to see a trio of road runners had come to check us out. Quick get the camera, and was lucky enough to get a few shots before the guys ran off. What a great surprise that was.

Our drive out of the Valley took us over two more mountain ranges - the eastern border, which rose to about 5000 feet or more. At one point we could see the sometime snow capped Sierra Nevada Range in the distance, our destination tomorrow. Heading south we couldn’t find the road we wanted to take, some of these roads don’t have signs, some are closed to through traffic or are only 4x4 roads, you wouldn’t know unless you were a local or had the information, so we continued on south toward Los Angeles (urgh) until the junction for highway 178 to Isabella Lake where we’d hoped to find a bed for the night. The scenery was changing to greener here and we passed a couple of villages before taking the exit to I.L. No hotels here, not ones that were currently open. Some R.V parks, camping grounds but no beds. Fishin’, huntin’ and motorised water sports are the go here. Do we turn back or head out to Kernville to try our luck? We turned back a few miles and turned into a motel drive - no one here, the sign says “closed” open again at 8 o’clock. There was one more choice, Paradise Cove Lodge, yes, we have a room, take a look and if you like it let me know. The caretaker was a talkative friendly guy, which helped, we’d been in rougher places but there wasn’t anything bad about this one, just a bit used and dated. With a bucket of ice, we refreshed our esky and set about plating a couple of dinners from our salad selections. Another milestone passed, good (reasonable) food, a cool drink, Harry Potter on the box and slept like babies.

Wednesday morning, packed up with more ice, drove up through Kernville and various lodgings and then over winding road following the Kern River, then ever increasing height and changing vegetation. It looks like Cooma our here, the rolling brown hills, few trees - (Cooma, for our non Aussie readers is about 300 miles south/south/west of Sydney and used to be sheep, wheat and other vast crop country and is called the gateway to the ski fields). The road rose to over 10,000 feet, it was wonderful to see tall trees, vanishing snow up high, rugged, green. We were driving in the Sequoia National Forest and stopped for a walk on the 100 Giants Trail in the forest - short but that’s ok because our neck muscles were going to be stretched to their limits. The air here was so fresh and sweet with pine. Snap back to reality, continue the drive, about one hour to descend the range, back and forth, switchbacks they call them here, the Australian zigzag seems better applied. Unbelievably the further we went the closer we came back to cactus land. By the time we reached the valley, we were in country that resembled the Cooma hills. And hot! West of Santa Cruz now we were in orchard country. This is where the famous Californian oranges come from, and olives, stone fruit, grapes and more. A slight highway malfunction, another stunning Irene U-turn and we drive on toward the Sequoia National Park. Our destination tonight, Three Rivers, yes there is a river behind the motel, not three, the others must be around here though ?

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/irenewheatley/FindingTheSequoia?feat=directlink

The count down to home time continues. We have become content to do the tourist thing rather than keep up the exercise walks. The days of driving is catching up with us. Howard has been doing most of it and sometimes he loves to drive out onto the wrong side - he says he is dreaming of home.

We found it ok, checked in at about 4:00pm after shopping and that was the end of the day for us, we didn‘t go out of the room again. Yet another earlyish start and here is where I say goodnight. We are in Mariposa tonight having been to Yosemite today and what an amazing drive that was. Stay tuned!