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Published: August 7th 2007
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5 Day road trip
Us at the Grand Canyon Hi Everyone, After finishing off in Las Vegas we took ourselves to the airport and rented a car. (Carries idea not mine I had to drive lol ) We decided to do a road trip for 10 days making our way from Las Vegas to Denver stopping at Bolder city, Grand Canyon, Zion Canyon , Bryce Canyon and Salt lake city and then finally finishing off in Denver. We phoned the airport and got quoted 600 dollars for the 10 days which we thought was brilliant, when we got there after adding on insurances etc it was 1100 dollars LOL what a joke!! we took it anyways and decided to leave it back after 5 days but we squeezed it all in near enough anyways.
1st off we headed from the airport Las Vegas to Bolder city which was about 20 miles away!! that took us about 3 hours after driving around Las Vegas in circles and not having a clue where we were going, plus there were no sign posts which didn't help but anyways low and behold we made it to bolder city so we decided to stay just outside there for 1 night and start driving again
1st thing in the morning. When we were in Bolder city we stopped off just outside it at the Hoover dam and Lake Mead, Apparently Hoover dam featured in one of the James Bond movies it was crazy looking down into it, it was massive!! How they ever build that i don't know but once ya cross it your entering Arizona !!
After crossing the Hoover dam we started making our way towards the Grand Canyon, little did we know we were on our way to the north rim as apposed to the south but it was just every bit as nice to view its supposed to be a lot more rugged. Apparently its 10 miles from the north of the canyon to the south as the crow flies but if you wanna drive its 250 miles so we though f**k that LOL we had just drove 300 miles. On our way there we stopped outside the Grand Canyon national park and stayed in a little cheap motel in a small village between Williams and the Grand Canyon as all the places to stay in the Grand Canyon national park were way to expensive. When we were in
5 Day Road Trip
Hoover dam "from the famous bond movie" this wee village we decided to buy ourselves a wee tent and jezuz i mean wee it was 6ft by 4ft LOL we thought it could save us some cash if we camped out for most of the nights so we threw it in the boot and thought we'd try her out in Zion.
We only stopped at the Grand Canyon for a couple of hours took some pictures and started making our way towards Zion Canyon which is in another state beside Arizona Called Utah. When we got to Zion National Park it was a spiral drive down a mountain and threw tunnels. It was really something else. Anyways Finally got to the campsite and circled for a while til we found a good spot to throw her up. We'll we got the tent up and headed for the store for some beers and a gas lamp, After sitting playing cards and having a few beers it started getting really dark so we though we'd go to bed. Well, such a laugh that was...... The tent lied it wasn't 6ft by 4ft it was what felt like 5ft by 3. We could do nothing but laugh it felt
5 Day Road Trip
Colin at hoover dam like a sauna we couldn't even lay straight and the smell of sweaty boots and trainers would have knocked you out!! LOL After trying to sweat it out for almost 5 minutes (thats all we could last) we jumped in the car and headed for the closest motel. Thank god it wasn't that far it was only 5 minutes down the road, we rapped on the door and whilst we were waiting for someone to answer a big taranchula spider (the size of the palm of your hand) was just cruising about!! now that was freaky but apparently there harmless and the people over here love them the freaks...Anyways we got the motel room and crashed for the night! (and what a luxury room it was, probably the nicest we have had).
The next day we took the free tour bus around Zion Canyon, and walked up to the weeping rock, it was class, the top of the mountain was dry and in the arch of the rock it was like a mini waterfall -like it was crying.
The heat in America has really been unreal, it was so hot in Zion, the air con in the car didn't
5 Day Road Trip
having a pitstop - Carrie even do justice.
4hours drive later we ended up in a town called Provo, just for one night on our way to Salt lake City.........we just relaxed and ordered a big Dominos-we were starved.
The following morning we only had a 40 mile drive to the Airport to drop the car off, after we'd done that we went into the Airport to see if there was any cheap flights anywhere leaving that day......our luck had ran out.
There was no shuttle bus into town so we had to settle on a taxi that got lost and the meter was up to 40 dollars, There was no way we were paying that, he finally got us to the right place.....and what a fcuking dump it was.
The guy showed us to a room that looked like it hadn't been cleaned from the day the place was built, there was no way we would put our sleeping bags on the bed, the kitchen was covered in mold, grease and covered in off food. The full place was just a dump.
We left our backpacks there anyway and headed out to get some lunch and talked it over and thought we'd do
a runner as we hadn't paid yet. (they didn't have change from a 100 dollar travelers cheque) what a laugh we had sneaking in so no one could see us, lifting our backpacks and running up the street but there was no way we could stay there, and felt bad as the guy was so nice showing us around.
We finally made it to the Greyhound station and ended up having a fight with a member of staff and also the manager as they wouldn't break that 100 dollars travels cheque for a bottle of water, even though they had the change, they said you could only use them when buying tickets.......what a joke. We were really pissed off by that stage and tried to buy a discovery pass but they wouldn't sell us one and said that we had to book it online....what another joke as the pass was over 1000 dollars (about 500 quid).
4 taxis later we made it to an internet cafe, booked the passes got back to the shitty Greyhound station of Salt Lake JUNKY City to find that the Queue for the bus going to Denver had over 100 people in it and we
were at the back, (even better it was full of homeless, junkies, basically all the riff raf of the day, so we felt like we always had our guard up and always having to keep that 3rd eye on our stuff. The first bus went and we were to get the (8.15pm) it seemed we were no further up the What felt like a soup line Queue to be told that the second bus was delayed for an hour, we made quite a few normal people that we were able to talk to and it wasn't really that bad.
Finally on the bus and setting off at 10.15pm the driver thought he was a race car driver, nobody slept, we he was turning corners we thought the bus was gonna topple, he was a mad man, the trip was suppose to take 10 hours, we made it in 7 and a half and that was with food and smoke breaks. We arrived here at Denver this morning and the hostels weren't even open lol we had to wait an hour in the Greyhound station, finally got threw to them, got a taxi, got dropped off...............at the wrong address..we'll it was
right but they had moved and they didn't say on the phone, another taxi, 8 dollars later, we finally arrived at the hostel, which to be honest is 1 stage up from the one in Salt lake City, but hey beggers cant be choosers, when we had no sleep and that guy was letting us check in about 6 hours early.
well thats us for now, taking a break today as we are exhausted.
Colin and Carrie xx
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