Here we are in the US.
Hoover Dam Zion and Bryce Grand Canyon And on

We flew into Las Vegas, where we spent 3 days - everybody said that this city should be experienced just once in one's life - quite agree that once is enough!, We stayed in the Luxor hotel, complete with sphinx and pyramid - pretty silly really. Visiting the other hotels seemed to be our main hobby. The Venetian and New York New York are pictured below. We took in a burlesque show at The Bally and a Neil Diamond (Barbara a recent convert) tribute act at the Riviera - one of the more old fashioned, down market casinos nearer the Downtown area. The wedding chapels were just grotesque but this was put into context when we recalled that the middle-aged couple next to us in the plane out were about to get married in a limousine.

Harry would wish me to point out that he did not take the picture of the Campanile - he would never have chopped its top off.

There are slot machines wherever you go - in fact you can't find the way in or out of anywhere because they seem to bar your way. Sadly we didn't win anything, but then we've never won the lottery either. Come to think of it there could be a very simple reason for both of those ... PS Message to Nigel M - would you make my contribution to Euro Lottery pool plse until I get back

After the pastiche of Las Vegas, next stop was Hoover Dam on the way to Utah (Harry said he could not hold his head up if he hadn't seen this, and Barbara was quite impressed too.)

Drove alongside Lake Mead into the Valley of Fire, where we saw our first (of many) lumps of red sandstone in a variety of shapes. Each area seems to have a speciality in height, shape or quantity depending on the durability of the overlying geological formation (see below for hoodoos) - and on to log cabin in Cedar City - like a lot of places quite pretty but oh so isolated. By the way, this is our car - it wasn't the one we ordered, and it seemed great to be upgraded - until we realised that the boot was not really large enough for five months' luggage.

Next came three days in the Zion and Bryce Canyons - they have to be seen to be believed, these pictures don't do justice to these spectacular and surprisingly little known phenomena. But it would be better to arrive and be surprised anyway. Zion is a closed canyon, and very un-American-like is only accessible by public transport. You park outside and there is a brilliant shuttle bus service. It's speciality is the scour patterns in the overlying soft sandstone (guess who wrote that).

Bryce is unique in setting and spectacle and set at 8000 to 9000 ft elevation - thousands of hoodoos set in a natural amphitheatre. Managed a couple of 500 foot climbs into canyon in quite a rarified atmosphere (rehearsal for Grand Canyon). Again stayed in log cabin in desert in a place that was barely worth naming some 4 miles down the road from Tropic, where even the pizza parlour closed at 8 o'clock. Went back to Bryce Canyon for some slightly-after-sunrise views (taken by surprise by the ever changing time zones) and buffet breakfast in the national park lodge - we had already had enough Egg McMuffins and thought we deserved a treat.

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Next to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, which involved driving through 40 miles of the Kaibab national forest - lovely meadows but appalling fire damage both natural and out-of-control controlled burns by the forest officials. With the benefit of hindsight, we would recommend to anybody visiting the Grand Canyon that they go to the North Rim first to experience both the grandeur and solitude of the canyon, as the shock of climbing out to the south rim after a 7-hour trek, to be met by hundreds of sightseers can be very offputting. We subsequently learned at a ranger talk that 95% of the 5 million annual visitors never set foot below the rim, and only 1% make it to the bottom. On the way round from north to south - 200 miles by road, only 10 for a condor - we managed to find time to take a 80 mile trip north to Glen Canyon and stayed at yet another isolated "town" called Page. The Glen Canyon Dam created Lake Powell and is second only to the Hoover Dam. Page was created to house the workers in 1957, but they had difficulty recruiting personnel due to the lack of appropriate places of worship - hence a town of 6000 people has churches for 18 different Christian denominations. We had a marvellous 16 mile raft trip along the Colorado River within Glen Canyon to the site of the first ferry crosiing of the Colorado at Lees Ferry, which is also the formal beginning of the Grand Canyon. If you don't get out here the next chance is some three days down river and the trip to the end of the canyon is about 16 days by raft. (Our next trip!) By the way, not sure that we mentioned that it gets a bit hot here - around 90 Fahrenheit but drops to 45 at night.

Harry must have taken 400 photos, but since this is a familiar sight here are two intrepid hikers who walked in and out of the canyon three times, some trails such as Bright Angel Trail follow valleys, others a ridge line, eg South Kaibab Trail, so we had to do both, once going 2/3 of the way down - 1000 metres. Clearly we also came 2/3 of the way up again, we earned our supper that night.
And this picture proves that we did use our tent ... Harry bravely fended off the baby elks with his camera. Cradoc can be seen enjoying his first taste of camping. Unfortunately we have no pictures of him at the canyon as it transpired that he had no head for heights.
Friday started off with Harry indulging himself with a 40 minute helicopter ride early in the morning, which was heaping spectacular upon the spectacular. Barbara opted for the safer option of an Imax presentation of riding the rapids, and was just as exciting. Watch out Owen - this is proposed for your next holiday instead of trail biking the Brecons.
Then we set off south for Flagstaff in search of some real food, which we found in abundance. We stayed in a 1928 hotel with 1928 plumbing. This historic city of a few thousand people was originally a railway junction and lies on the historic Route 66 (more later) the restored downtown part is really quite interesting/quaint and the setting, nestled in a ring of mountains, is lovely. Harry insisted on a 30 mile detour south to Sedona to look at yet more rock formations; rocks OK, Sedona epitome of what America seems to consider tourist culture - returned without stopping.
Saturday started in style when we finally found some real American food - hazelnut and cranberry french toast, eggs benedict with real bacon - which set us up for the 150 mile drive down Route 66, originally built in the 20s to connect Chicago with San Diego. Needless to say, some fantastic Harley Davidsons cruising the highway, and what remains of the towns at each of the juctions from their heyday in the 1950s brings back memories of films like American Graffiti, but rather sad now. Good fun though and a glimpse of things as they once were. If anybody has ever see the film Driver, where a lone car is chased down by a big truck, this is the part of the world for it, as there are no laybys, and the trucks are BIG!. Overnight in a really nice campsite surrounded by cacti and palms in the middle of nowhere - had to put the hood up when the temperature reached 102F, still 92F when we got into the pool at sunset. Cuisine tonight? Rehydrate-in-the-bag chicken gumbo - actually quite nice. Final day in the US, - bearing in mind the reduced weight allowance for the ongoing flight, Harry refused to throw anything away and thought if he packed more quickly it would be lighter. Then drove 140 miles across Californian desert to Barstow, the High Street of which is again on Route 66 - and it is awful - unless you like the idea of a mile of brash motels and fast food joints, surrounded by poor quality housing and RV parks. Why does anybody live here? The trains are impressive though, as Route 66 follows the Amtrak line for several hundred miles. We thought the first two-locomotive train was impressive, three and four also, but five locomotives with 77 (yes, we counted them) double storey container wagons fills the horizon and is quite a sight when set against the mountain backdrops. Route 66 Route 66 goes on and on Harley Davidsons hunt in packs Somebody must live here 1920s hotel in Flagstaff The impression one is left with is of enormous open spaces, little water, no people, no animals, no vegetation to speak of, crappy RV (caravan) parks and very poor quality housing stock except in a few better off suburbs. Looking forward to the contrast of LA!
230 miles across desert and mountain ranges to Pasadena, north of the great mess that is Los Angeles, and then traveled length of Sunset Boulevard which again formed last part of Route 66, and on through Beverley Hills to the the Pacific Coast at Mailibu. - couldn't see LA along the coast for the smog. Returned car after 1800 miles. Lasting impression of American lifestyle outside the big cities really leaves a great deal to be desired - some neat suburbs in a couple of towns, but generally truly dreadful monotony of cheap fast food joints, stupid numbers of motels and hideous collections of tatty RV parks and shacks - too kind to call them houses! Not for us. 10 hour midnight flight with Air New Zealand to Rarotonga and just this side of international date line. Next flight to Auckland, en-route to Cairns in 2 weeks, will take 27 hours! Really impressed with Air New Zealand flight, staff, service and aircraft.

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