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Published: April 4th 2014
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The first edition of our American adventures is coming to you from a canyon view room at the historic Cameron Trading Post which was established in the early 1900's to allow trade with the native Navajo and Hopi tribes.
We have just arrived to a bright, afternoon sun burst after a somewhat harrowing drive down from the Grand Canyon in an unfamiliar rental car on the "wrong" side of the road in a snow shower that verged on the blizzardy! Ev is a total champ for driving over here!
But I digress from a linear telling of our journey so allow me to briefly backtrack. The burning question of our friends and family is no doubt how did Katy go on the loooong transatlantic flight?? I will firstly describe the flight from Perth to Sydney. The second she was strapped into her seatbelt on my lap she descended into a performance worthy of Linda Blair in the Exorcist - writhing, screaming and yelling and sobbing. In an experience that bore out Einstein's theory of relativity I thought this went on for at least an hour but turned out to be only seven and a half minutes!! On the flight
to LA she thankfully slept for the first 1.5 hours only to be AWAKE for the next 9.5 and slept the last 2 before landing.
A skip and a hop to Vegas and our hotel where we valiantly resisted the urge to sleep for a day in the interests of getting in the right time zone. instead we headed straight out to The Strip. We marvelled at the gaudy, tacky, seedy, surreal, fast-paced scene that is Vegas, even during the day. During our two days we visited all the big names - Cesar, Wynn, Aria, the Venetian, Paris, Flamingos - and got lost in the labyrinthine gaming floors where time passes unnoticed By the gambling masses.
Overheard - an American Dad at the Grand Canal at the Venetian hotel telling his daughter in all seriousness that it was "the same as Italy"!
Other Vegas highlights included the Atomic Testing Museum (very interesting), the Wicked Spoon Buffet (made to order mac n cheese & marrow bones were highlights), sampling a $9 shake (ala Pulp Fiction - oh so good!!), drinking a large cocktail from a green plastic skull glass while walking down Las Vegas boulevarde, taking Katy to
Siegfried & Roys secret garden to see tigers and dolphins (the latter officially her fave thing of this trip so far) and a cirque de sole show.
Our next day saw us heading out of Vegas to start our road trip to New Orleans - first stop the Hoover Dam then getting our kicks on Route 66 and ending up at the Grand Canyon.
Hoover Dam was amazing. The scale of the achievement is awe inspiring. I love a good dam and this one did not disappoint. But mindful of our distance we skipped a tour and hit the road for Kingman the starting point for many Route 66 pilgrims. The quaint small town Americana of this route from Kingman to Seligman was everything you could wish for. Retro motels and diners and dilapidated weather board road houses only existing for tourists feel a bit theme park-y but not in a bad way. It is kitsch and charming and somehow authentic in spite of itself. Too soon we sadly left to join the I40 and Ev grimly hit 75 miles an hour on the wrong side and had the joy of overtaking countless trucks on the left!
Soon we were winding our way ever upwards towards the Grand Canyon. Hurrying to get there before sunset we were keen for our first glimpse and it did not disappoint. WOW. Incredible.
We were up early for a proper explore in the morning we decided to tackle the first part of the South Kaibab Trail down into the canyon. The views of the canyon were so overwhelming. The scale is just so incomprehensible. The rocky tendrils of minor canyons thread through the greater canyon creating a tapestry of colour and texture that literally goes as far as the eye can see.
It was however extremely COLD. We were mentally unprepared and blithely disregarded as far fetched the suggestion of the chance of snow showers. This turned out to be unwise. Strolling along the canyon rim we felt tiny feathery flakes and were enchanted by the idea of snow. And then it got heavier and heavier until the magnificent views became completely obscured by a complete "white out". Sadly we had to curtail our plans to hike and instead sought refuge indoors and left early. Thank goodness for our early morning and previous evening views. Poor Evan then had
to drive down the mountain in the snow!!
America really is all about size - big canyons, big gaudy lights, big dams, vast distances, and big servings. I conclude with an illustrative photo of our meal tonight - on the left is my "mini" Navajo taco, and believe it or not the centre is Katy's children's grilled cheese sandwich! We are in so much trouble!
Observations: Americans don't use their indicators, there are churches everywhere, it is really hard to find healthy breakfast cereal (even all bran has loads of sugar), the people are incredibly friendly, there are way too many timezones and the Indian reservations don't seem to do daylight savings while the rest of the state does, if it is snowing it is really cold, if you see loads of white clumps on the ground it is probably snow and not a white lichen (hey, we're Australian - snow was not our first thought!), you can shoot a machine gun by the highway just out of Vegas, and americans absolutely cannot make decent coffee!
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