The Grand Canyon & Vegas Road Trip

So as you will probably have interpreted from the last entry, this one slots in the middle of it. A blog sandwich, if you will.
So in our car we sped off in a slow upwards gradient all the way up to the Grand Canyon. The view on the way included lots of dessert like terrain, and then as we got higher the road ploughed through flintstones-like boulders and finally 'piney' forests filled with snow. Quite a variety of things to see in one road trip, I'm sure you'd agree. But I hope it helps to draw the picture of how huge everything is in America, it really does boggle the mind after a while. Yes, you have the obvious things that we have come to expect like - why have a normal sized beverage when you can have a 2 litre Urn of Pepsi? But this concept might actually be able to be explained - the terrain is so spaced out and extreme in distance or in size, perhaps this affected the minds of early settlers so that the seed was sown to create a society based on everything being bigger - and arguably that making it all the better??? Food for thought!
We were blatant criminals in the canyon, but we are very much broke at this stage of the game so that makes it justified, we think. Far more important for us to spend money on trinkets in a Fijian village, than be honest and pay the camping fee at the canyon. After a rough nights sleep in the car we started off early by firstly speeding out of the camping zone and getting our hike-action on. Even though it is early springtime the Northern Rim of the Canyon is still closed off to snow at this time of year. This meant we stuck to hiking around the Southern Rim, in the snow, unprepared - but lugging about all the camera equipment all day got us warmed up. It would take me hours of chuntering to try and convey how amazing and grand a canyon can be, after all it is basically a big hole in the ground - but it really is spectacular and awesome. To try and understand it even when you are standing there with wide eyes trying to process the facts and figures about the place, that are displayed on the usual info stands you can find at most National Parks leaves you baffled.
After a brisk walking day we stopped at the seediest motel we could find, which was located at the rough end of Route 66. Not in the majority of preferences we know, but when you have seen as many brilliant films that have motels like this in them as we have, you might be able to see why we wanted to check it out first hand. We were really hoping to find a coin operated vibro-bed but alas the place was comfy and hygienic......
... That was of course till I got reheally sick in the wee hours.
In my refusal to let a few hours of hurling get in the way of my adventure, we got back on the road towards Sin City. I managed to keep a twinkie down for an hour or so - so this was my basis of trying to convince Thom that I was well on the way to getting better.
We got to Vegas fine, but as our getting there coincided with the Easter weekend - and with that- the College Spring break, we did not experience the common story of scoring a fabulous room complete with hot tub and you own singing Elvis, and 4 queen size beds. We were in a back block room behind one shady casino - were wearing Cowboy boots and Fluro Leg-warmers was perfectly acceptable. I counted a few occasions of prime hick-like moments, which made us chuckle. Sights like brides shuffling downtown in white trainers (still in the wedding frock) whilst the groom in "Hanging Back" to perve on podium dancers. Or where the Vegas experience has become "The Family Holiday" - Dad drunk on a Fruit Machine, while Mom flicks her fag ass onto her baby in the pushchair and she leans over to roll the dice and the Craps table. Juxtaposed with this is the classy side of Vegas, where betting is much more upmarket, Poker games require a small mortgage for buy-in, and chandeliers are the size of hanging vehicles. Like I said before we are very much broke at this stage of the trip so we decided not to be foolish and bet big, and instead spent our money on the crazy buffets.
Even though I was still ill, this culinary extravaganza was something I was not going to miss out on. So here's the deal. You queue up like at the beginning of a ride at a theme park, you pay up then you are kitted out with eating irons galore, then you are free to Ready, Steady, Eat! You think of it - the full food experience was here. From muffins the size of a baby's head right through to jellyfish appetizers. From Steak dinners through to Express Omelette stations. Accompanied by our amazement at the food we could go eat was the horror at our fellow diners. I am sad to say that we have never witnessed such grotesque amounts of wastage ever in our lives - it truly was disgusting! This gave us grounds to carry on bashing the free champagne rule - to find a way to deal with our horror. A hypocritical statement there? No! At least we were finishing the glasses of booze here. A family of 3 lard asses behind us had a stack of 10 plates filled with food that had one bite of everything taken out of it then pushed aside to their "Done" pile. This was 20 minutes into their dining experience. I gave my best scowl to the child as he shuffled back to the table proud at the amount of tiny dessert plates he had managed to pile onto a larger plate, all balanced upon his vile little belly. It was like a missing chapter from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Roald Dahl manages to depict greed in it's most gruesome form. The food we ate was indeed fabulous, but I feel the need to investigate exactly what The Bellagio does with their wasted food from this all singing and dancing buffet. With starving people in the world in one part of the world and then people literally killing themselves with greed really makes you wonder about the state of things.
Lightening up somewhat then! We finished up Vegas with the conclusion that it would be a place better enjoyed with a big wadge of cash next time. With this we headed on back to Pasadena, and this is where that lower slice of blog bread comes back into play.

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