After yet another scenic drive we stopped off at Kolob Canyon on the north side of Zion National Park for a quick hike up to the viewpoint. After enjoying the lovely views of the Canyon we hopped back in the car and drove around to the main entrance on the south side of the park. As it is at a much lower elevation the weather was significantly warmer than Bryce or Grand Canyon National Parks and we were able to camp as planned. However, as it was the last week of Utah’s school holidays and a free entrance week for National Parks, it was pretty busy.
We just managed to secure a camping spot on a shared site for the 1st night, but we had to get up early for the bun fight to get a site at the other long stay campground for the next 2 nights. Luckily for us we met Bruce who was moving sites and he let us have his one. We then took pity on a young couple who arrived after us and couldn’t find a site so we agreed to share with them. It was plenty big enough and it meant we split the cost – never a bad thing when you’re on a budget!
On the first night we shared the group site with an American family of 5, a French couple and their baby, 5 Koreans, and an American couple – quite a mix! The 5 year old American boy very kindly made Le Roux and I a “smores” each – for those that don’t know, these are an American campfire classic of campfire roasted marshmallows squashed onto a gram cracker (thin biscuit), sprinkled with chocolate and topped with another cracker – delicious! We chatted with the American couple who were drinking red wine and thoroughly enjoying the antics of the Koreans putting up their tents and the young kids running around causing trouble – it was a bit like a comedy show! One of the Korean guys kindly gave Le Roux and I a taster of his favourite liquor aka “fire water” as it definitely warmed the belly! It was pretty cold that night even despite the daytime was warm and sunny and although we were fine in our 4 season down sleeping bags, the American family must have got too cold as they’d upped and gone by the time we got up at 6am!
Having secured our new campsite we packed our picnic for the iconic Angel’s Landing hike which we’d decided to do. The NP walking guide warns of it being strenuous and unsuitable for children and those afraid of heights. We like a challenge so off we set. The first part was easy and we powered up the switchbacks passing many puffing people, making it to the first plateau with no issues. This was known as the chicken out point as when people see what comes next, many don’t attempt it!
It was ½ a mile of high, narrow ridge which involved lots of boulder hopping and clambering. I have to say that I tried to stay as far away from the edge as possible and not look down, whereas Le Roux was bounding around with no cares in the world! I’ve nick named him Speedy the Mountain Goat as he zips up any terrain with remarkable ease and speed!
The view from the top was well worth the climb and we sat and ate our sandwiches looking out at the scenery. I actually found the way down harder than coming up as you couldn’t avoid looking down! I was glad when I’d made it back to the chicken out point. Having completed this hike in around 3 hours, we decided to pack in another short one to the Emerald Pools. Big mistake. It was heaving with lots and lots of families with little kids and we were permanently trying to squeeze past so that we could walk at a reasonable speed. Also, the so called Emerald Pools were more brown and muddy than vibrant green. A disappointing hike, but at least we’d burnt off a few calories and earned ourselves a couple of drinks. On arriving at the only bar like place in the nearby small town, we discovered that it is illegal to serve alcohol without food in Utah, so we had to have a plate of sweet potato fries to go with our drinks – naughty but nice!
On day 2 we hiked up to Observation Point on the recommendation of one of the rangers and after climbing for nearly 2 hours we were rewarded with a fabulous view of the river gorge and we were able to look down on Angel’s Landing. Well worth the effort. The way down was quicker although pretty tough on the knees and I wasn’t up for a 2nd hike this time!
Our 2nd camping spot was also pretty social as we spent quite a bit of time chatting with the young couple sharing with us, with Bruce and his wife Vivian who’d moved just across from us, with the red wine couple who’d also moved over to the long stay campsite and we also met Aerwyn & Jared and their 6 lovely kids who very kindly lent us foil to make baked chocolate bananas in our campfire. It was much friendlier than being in a motel!
Next on the itinerary was Las Vegas. We had an intro to Vegas on the way as we passed through the town of Virgin and stopped in at the Ragged Ass Saloon which had a mini wild west village out front, including a mini jail – cheesy but fun. We left Utah behind and headed into Nevada, the Silver State.
Where do I start? Las Vegas was all I expected and more – it was fabulous! It is so over the top that it is cool, with everything so well done that it is not in fact tacky. We spent 2 days and 2 nights here and we loved every minute but it was exhausting – there’s lots going on 24 hours a day – the city truly never sleeps!
We spent a lot of our time wandering around soaking up the atmosphere and taking heaps of photos. We toured around the many themed hotels taking in the incredible detail – the New York New York had an entire NYC street scene inside, the Paris had a replica Eiffel tower you could actually go up, while the Venetian had gondolas and replicas of the Rialto Bridge and the Campanile Tower, but my favourite was Caesars with the Forum Shops, a Roman street scene complete with fountains, statues and a fake sky – amazing! I also loved the stylish Bellagio which had an indoor garden made from beautiful real flowers as well as a multi storey chocolate fountain! As we explored we passed quite a few homeless people and some were pretty entertaining as they had signs saying things like “why lie, I need a whore!” and “too dumb to work and too ugly to prostitute”, which we couldn’t help but chuckle at.
We stayed in the Flamingo having got a cheap deal and it was brilliantly located in the middle of the “strip”, aka Las Vegas Boulevard. It even had real flamingos in the garden!
There are slot machines literally everywhere and with people on them 24 7 – when we got up for breakfast in the morning there were plenty of people already losing their hard earned cash! We had to have a go so we put a few dollars into the 1 cent machines, but as we didn’t really know what we were doing we soon lost it. Having decided that we’d better find out what “lines” meant before gambling any more of our $100 budgets, we got chatting with this woman who kindly explained what it was all about. We certainly made our money last longer, but still managed to lose it all in the end!
As well as the slot machines we played roulette and black jack. Unfortunately for our low budget, the minimum $10 bet meant we got through our remaining cash pretty quick but I did at least win a couple of times on each before losing it all. At least we were entertained for the evening!
Las Vegas is also known for its shows, so we decided to go to X-Burlesque at our hotel, a sexy dance show which was good. I am in awe of the girls who can hold their whole body weight upside down or sideways on a pole! Le Roux was pretty tired and despite the semi-naked, attractive girls dancing in front of him, he kept yawning and struggled to stay awake – I have to question his red blooded male status!
I wanted to take a photo of the “Welcome to the Fabulous Las Vegas” sign all lit up at night so we drove all the way down the strip with me snapping photos like a paparazzi, of all the neon signs – LV is definitely not a green city and I hate to think what its electricity bill is! Next on my sightseeing list was the neon cowboy on Freemont St in the old town. On the way we passed quite a few cheesy wedding chapels as well as the Stratosphere – the huge tower.
Another must see when in Vegas is the Bellagio fountains. We eventually managed to time it right to catch the show and we were not disappointed – the water shoots up incredibly high and it is really pretty to watch. We were also lucky enough to see it from above when we went up the Eiffel Tower, which also provided us with great views up and down the strip. Somehow, despite my research and planning we managed to miss the Mirage volcano show and the Treasure Island sirens show – next time...
After 2 crazy days in Vegas we headed back into California to Death Valley National Park, which was pretty warm even this early in the year - very welcome after all the snow and cold of the Grand Canyon and Bryce! I hadn’t originally planned to come here, but having heard good things we squeezed it in and I’m glad we did. Despite its name there is quite a bit of flora in the valley and we were lucky enough to catch the end of the pretty spring flowers.
It is the largest national park in the US so we had quite a bit of driving to do to cover the key sights, but the scenery throughout the park was really interesting. There were so many different rock formations and colours, with our favourite being the Artist’s Palette, which was an area containing rocks of many colours. Badwater Basin, a large salt plain, is nearly 300ft below sea level, the lowest point in the US, and as the valley is so hot and dry the basin does not fill with water, which would normally be the case at this low altitude.
There was a great view from Dante’s Point across the salt plain and Mosaic Canyon was interesting as it was very narrow in places with lots of different patterns in the rock, some of which was marble. Unfortunately we didn’t make it to the “Racetrack” as you need a high clearance 4 wheel drive and you have to be prepared to put up with 3 hours of bumping along to get there – we decided that we’d better not risk a large bill for damaging our hire car! We camped both nights in the valley but although it was warm, it was very windy and with no trees to provide protection against the howling gales we didn’t get a lot of sleep with the tent flapping madly around us! I also had a red wine incident as my proper wine glass full of red wine blew over and tipped the contents all over me, just as I sat down to eat dinner! With no showers and not many clean clothes I was somewhat pissed off, although luckily the wine glass didn't break!
The journey from Death Valley to Yosemite was somewhat longer than we’d expected due to winter extending into spring and probably into summer this year! The mountain pass we needed to take across the Sierra Nevada mountains was deep in snow and therefore closed which unfortunately meant we had to take a 200 mile detour around the top of the mountain range and back down the other side to enter Yosemite NP – very frustrating! We went from dry barren desert to pretty snowy mountains to rolling green hills all in one day. It was odd going from flip flops and shorts at breakfast to thermals and fleeces by lunchtime as we stopped off at Mammoth ski resort! You can in fact ski here till the beginning of July.
The drive was pretty long so we stayed in the old gold mining town of Sonora for a night. As we’d expected to be camping we’d bought dinner provisions so while Le Roux did our laundry, I cooked up dinner on our little gas stoves on the floor of our motel room – it must have looked very odd!
Unfortunately the weather in Yosemite was pretty wet, which was disappointing after nearly 3 weeks without any rain – I guess we were overdue some. We lucked out and managed to get a tent spot in Camp 4 as a couple were leaving early having put up with rain all week and they’d finally had enough. When we checked in the ranger warned us about the bears and explained that we had to put all our food and toiletries in the bear locker and leave nothing in the tent or car. You’d have thought things would be safe in the car, but the photos on the side of the rangers hut showed me how wrong I was – there was this great picture of a huge bear sitting in the driver seat of a pick up having broken the window and bent the door open – incredible! There had been sightings of bears in the park as they were just coming out of hibernation and were hungry. I kind of hoped that we’d see one, although not up too close, but it wasn’t to be. We did, however, see plenty of squirrels who were definitely not going hungry – they were the biggest, fattest squirrels I’ve ever seen - they needed a trip to fat camp!
We managed to get the tent up before the rain started coming down harder and having donned all of our warm and waterproof clothing, we headed out on the Yosemite Falls hike. Even though the weather was rubbish we were visiting the park at the perfect time to see the waterfalls in full flood – nice but they weren’t Iguazu! We’ve been forever spoilt now that we’ve seen that magnificent set of falls. 
We had hoped to walk up Half Dome, but again we were there too early in the season and the walking route wasn’t yet open. Most of the time we were in the park we couldn’t even see Half Dome so the view from the top wouldn’t have been good anyway. After our wet and windy walk we made ourselves a hot chocolate with marshmallows to warm up – yummy! We shared our marshmallows with the family on our campsite as the kids were keen to toast them over our campfire. They had great fun burning them to a crisp! We continued to brave the cold and rain to cook dinner but afterwards we headed for the nice cosy lodge for a drink and to play some cards. I had hot cider with spiced rum and ginger syrup – delicious!
We spent our 2nd day doing the Vernal and Nevada Falls hike which was nice, although there were some tricky bits as avalanches had covered the paths and we had to clamber around them. Le Roux or should I say “Speedy the Mountain Goat” had no trouble and was whizzing on ahead while I wobbled and scrambled up the uneven path!
The park was very busy as it was the end of the school Easter holidays and that combined with the cold wet weather meant we didn’t see the Yosemite at its best. It is a beautiful place though with towering granite peaks, lots of lovely waterfalls, and plenty of trees and wildlife – reminiscent of Torres del Paine NP in Chile, in some ways. What I hadn’t realised until I read the Yosemite article in the May edition of National Geographic is that Yosemite is a rock climber’s mecca and some of the crazy things people do seriously scare me – free climbing up El Capitan, which is 910m high and includes a major overhang?!?! It is actually surprising that only 83 people have died while climbing in the park if this is what they get up to.
Yosemite was our last stop before returning to San Francisco. We had to switch hire cars which was a bit of a pain, but we managed to organise our luggage and make the switch without too much hassle. For this visit to the city, we were very kindly put up by my work friend Simon, his wife Collette and their little boy Josh, in La Fayette which is a district of San Fran over the Bay Bridge.
As we’d not managed to do all the sights last time, we had to pack in cycling over the Golden Gate Bridge, visiting Alcatraz, wandering around Fisherman’s Wharf, climbing up the steep zig-zag stretch of Lombard St and riding on the other cable car. We had a beautiful sunny day for the cycling and the bridge looked great as we appreciated views of it from various spots along the route.
The weather stayed nice for the boat ride to Alcatraz and we enjoyed learning about the jail and its history, particularly the escape attempts, as the audio tour was excellent.
We’d now completed the first part of our US road trip, the San Francisco loop taking in four states (California, Arizona, Utah and Nevada) and we’d thoroughly enjoyed it. The US is definitely exceeding my expectations, with great cities, beautiful National Parks and very friendly and helpful people.
Part three to follow...
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