New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Washington State, Nevada, California

---

Leaving Arlington at 5am, we headed west towards New Mexico. The 470-mile trip through West Texas took along roads lined by corn and cotton fields which were empty save for the occasional tumbleweed and 8 hours later, we arrived at our destination, the town of Roswell. The Roswell incident in 1947 has spawned countless conspiracy theories, all given oxygen by the manner in which the government rushed to control the narrative of events in the wake of a mysterious object crash landing at a nearby ranch. Visiting the International UFO Museum and Research Centre in the town, it was clear that the other visitors were a mixture of ‘sceptics’ and ‘believers’- it was obvious which camp the couple walking around the museum wearing tin-foil hats were in though.

The town has benefitted from the attention the incident received over the years and even hosts the annual Roswell UFO Festival every July; most shops along Main St play up the alien theme, even the lampposts are decorated with small alien heads which at this time of year are wearing Santa hats.

There wasn’t much to see in the area and the following morning, we were back in the car to see more of New Mexico starting with the state capital Santa Fe, the oldest own in the west - in fact, when the declaration of independence was signed in 1776, Santa Fe was already 166 years old. Our next stop was through the snow-capped mountains leading to ‘the town that didn’t exist.’ During World War II, the Federal government set up a secret facility in Los Alamos to coordinate the Manhattan Project, resulting in the development of the first Atom bomb. On July 16th 1945 the Atom bomb was exploded at Trinity site near Alamogordo in New Mexico and shortly after, two bombs were dropped on Japan hastening the end of the war. The mesa-top village houses a multitude of top-secret laboratories where classified cutting-edge research still takes place today.

Albuquerque was our overnight stop on this leg of the journey, and we took the opportunity to take a self-guided tour of some of the filming locations from Breaking Bad. First up was Walter White’s house, followed by Saul’s office and the car wash before we stopped for food at Twisters aka ‘Los Pollos Hermanos’.

Our first glimpse of Route 66 came during the stretch between Albuquerque to Flagstaff journey - the ‘mother road’ is one of America’s original highways covering 2451 miles between Chicago and Los Angeles.

It was decommissioned in 1985 and is no longer officially designated or signed as Route 66, although 80% of the road can still be driven and people continue to visit to see the vintage motels, nostalgic restaurants and roadside attractions.

The reason we were in this part of the country was to visit the national parks of Arizona and Utah. After driving 1000 miles in three days, it was a relief to finally arrive in Flagstaff and the entrance to the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon covers a million acres; it is 277 miles long, 10 miles across and a mile deep and is one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Flagstaff is only an hour and a half from the park entrance, so we were able to get there for sunrise, walk the many trails within the south and north rim and were still in the canyon to witness the sunset.

We went straight from the sunset viewing area to the Lowell Observatory back in Flagstaff and made it in time for two presentations that were being presented by the resident astronomers - the subjects of which were the Solar System, and Stars and Galaxies. The observatory gained worldwide fame in 1930 when the planet Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh, however, following an assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Prague in 2006 it lost its planet status and was demoted to the classification of a dwarf planet. After the lectures, and despite the freezing temperature, the skies were so clear that the astronomers set up a telescope to give us the opportunity to view Uranus and Orion’s belt – 4.6 billion miles and 1340 light years away respectively.

Our next National Park was Monument Valley, situated on the Utah/Arizona border. Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park is part of the Colorado Plateau and sits within the Navajo Nation reservation. We stayed at the View Hotel, located inside the reservation, and as it was November and therefore out of season, the hotel was making renovations. As a result, we were given an upgrade to an upper floor with a balcony that afforded us an incredible panoramic view of the nearby Mitten buttes rock formations. Both sunrise and sunset were spectacular, the backdrop of the surrounding desert didn’t look real, it was more like a painting.

After completing the Valley loop drive the next day, we made our way to Zion National Park, stopping off at Forrest Gump Hill – an iconic stretch of road used in the film where he finally decides to turn back from his cross-country run.

Zion was Utah’s first national park and attracts 3 million visitors a year. Within the park lies Fremont cottonwood trees that grow to over 100 feet amongst the red and white sandstone cliffs and narrow canyons with 3000-foot vertical walls. The centrepiece though is the photogenic checkerboard mesa rock, where a series of vertical and horizontal cracks generate the unique pattern.

We woke up in the morning we were going to Bryce Canyon to be confronted with the results of an overnight snowstorm. It has been a long time since I’ve seen snow, let alone driven in it and it took a little bit of time to adjust to the road conditions – luckily the snow ploughs were out in force to clear the highways. Inside Bryce, many of the roads and trails were closed but it didn’t prevent us from making our way to the main lookouts at Inspiration and Bryce points. Having a couple of trails closed is a favourable trade-off against avoiding the crowds of high season in my opinion.

Bryce is part of the Grand Staircase rock formations and isn’t actually a canyon, but an amphitheatre eroded from the cliffs. The main section is made up of distinctive Totem pole shaped spires called ‘hoodoos’ – the colourful limestone rocks formed by the erosion of frost-wedging and rainwater. We made our way down the treacherous trails into the Juniper forest at the lowest area of the amphitheatre, and we couldn’t resist a little snowball fight which ended after I realised that Melissa is probably the type who would put rocks in hers. After arriving at the visitor centre, I discovered that ‘someone’ had put a snowball in my coat pocket. Melissa denied it was her, so it remains a mystery to this day. Must have been one of the chipmunks we passed on the trails.

All the national parks were amazing, and each one we visited was completely different to the last. The time we spent in Utah and Arizona was definitely among our highlights of the states and were some of the most impressive natural sights we have seen anywhere.

On the way to Salt Lake City, we stopped off at the Sundance Mountain Resort, birthplace of the annual Film festival – the biggest independent film festival in the US, founded by Utah resident Robert Redford and named in honour of one of his most iconic roles.

Salt Lake City is the world headquarters of the Mormon faith, and the heart of the city is dominated by buildings belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The 2002 Winter Olympics were held in and around the city, and the events were such a success that the state is readying a bid to host the games again in 2030.

The following morning, we awoke to the results of another overnight storm and proceeded to dig the car out of the snow before setting off in a blizzard that continued on and off for the 340-mile stretch to Boise, Idaho. Boise is another state capital, which means another state capital building - this one came with a snow-covered statue of Abraham Lincoln sitting out front.

From Boise, we continued north-west up the I-84 to Portland, Oregon - a city famous for due to its role as the forerunner of the craft brew culture in the US. Coffee houses are another of the city’s most popular businesses in addition to the incredible Powell’s city of books. The world’s largest new and used bookstore takes up an entire city block with 9 rooms, 3 floors and 3,500 sections housing over a million books. Reception also offers a much-needed map to find your way around.

We spent a long day visiting the craft breweries, with a couple of ‘cideries’ thrown in for good measure, and at the end of the evening we went off in search of some food. Options were limited, and whereas I opted for the crab cakes, Melissa decided on a giant bowl of Brussel sprouts for some reason. The following morning, we set off up north to into the neighbouring Washington State. Seattle is known as the Emerald city due to the year-round greenery of the surrounding area. It is also one of the most innovative cities in America with businesses such as Amazon, Starbucks, Costco and Boeing originating in the city - Microsoft also has its headquarters in nearby Redmond WA.

Pike Place market, situated on the waterfront, is the most popular tourist area in the city – it contains the country’s oldest farmers market, houses 500 local residents and is also home to the world’s first Starbucks. After an obligatory walking tour, we took a ferry over to nearby Bainbridge Island, the journey across Elliot Bay offers some of the best views of the city skyline and we were accompanied by a pod of whales on the return trip. We were amazed that we enjoyed blue skies throughout our time in a city renowned for its rainy climate, particularly at this time of year but despite cramming as much sightseeing in as possible, there were still a couple of things to see on our drive out of the city. We stopped off at the grave of Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee at Lakeview Cemetery, before passing the former home of Kurt Cobain, and scene of his suicide at Lake Washington Boulevard before making our way to his hometown. The city limits sign reads: ‘Welcome to Aberdeen: Come as you are’ in homage to the town’s most famous native. There is a memorial to the musician at the side of the Young St Bridge where he once lived rough on the banks of the Wishkah River – a period in his life that became the inspiration for the song ‘Something in the Way’ from the ‘Nevermind’ album.

From here, we joined the 101 highway – the world-famous Pacific coast scenic drive - one of the principal reasons we came to America. Our first stop was in the fishing town of Astoria close to the location where Lewis and Clark’s Corps of discovery expedition reached its conclusion - it is also the hometown of the Goonies.

As we made our way down the rugged Oregon coastline via the 101, we encountered fishing villages, tourist towns, forests, lighthouses, waterfalls and lots of cliff top drives. It was similar to the Great Ocean Road in Victoria but on a much bigger scale. Along the way, there were plenty of lookouts and attractions such as Devil’s churn, Cannon Beach, Ecola State Park, and we made overnight stops at Newport, Crescent City and Fort Bragg.

We had been lucky with the weather up to this point, but the rain finally made its appearance during this stretch of the drive. A cold swirling fog accompanied the showers, but instead of ruining the views, it actually helped to make the viewpoints more dramatic if anything.

On the old highway 101, we toured the 31-mile long Avenue of the Giants, the largest strand of giant redwood trees in the world. Here we took the typical tourist postcard photo opportunity of driving the car through the living Chandelier Tree.

Before reaching San Francisco, we stopped off at Sausalito on the Marin County side of the Golden Gate bridge. The vista of the bridge from the headland allowed us to get up close to the structure with views over the bay and city in the background. We had a full sightseeing day planned for the next day and managed to tick off the Palace of Fine Arts, Fisherman’s Wharf, Coit Hill tower, Chinatown, telegraph hill, and the Painted ladies. Towards the end of the day, we made our way to the Haight Ashbury district which is the origin of the hippie counterculture movement and birthplace of the summer of love in 1967. We had visited Alcatraz island before so we gave it a miss this time. We covered a large percentage of the city on foot, which is no mean feat; even short distances become hard work as there always seems to be a hill to negotiate. No wonder Uber started out here, the demand must’ve been overwhelming for it. Melissa was content though as she’d achieved a personal best of over 45,000 steps.

From San Francisco, we continued south down Highway 1, taking in the coastal towns of Santa Cruz and Monterey. A little bit further was the 17-mile scenic drive through the exclusive Pebble Beach neighbourhood – home of the Pebble Beach Golf club, which in 1972, the made US Open history by becoming the first public course to host the championship. The nearby town of Carmel-by-the-sea gained recognition in 1986 when local resident Clint Eastwood successfully become mayor – a campaign he fought on the bizarre platform promising to overturn a ban on selling ice cream cones on the streets.

Finally, we made our way over to Death Valley, the second biggest national park in the US after Alaska. The area’s below-sea-elevation contributes to the extreme weather conditions that are prevalent here, and on July 10 1913, Death Valley hit 134 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest temperature ever recorded on earth. Evidence of these harsh conditions can be seen in the ghost town of Rhyolite, an old gold rush settlement where rubble and scrap metal from vehicles lie in the main street along with abandoned houses and businesses.

We arrived in Las Vegas in the early evening and went rather than stay on the strip, we ventured downtown to the bars of East Fremont and also to see the light show. Unsurprisingly, it was a late one and three hours after getting to bed, I was back downstairs in the casino bar to watch what turned out to be Mourinho’s (thankfully) last game at United. I had been to Vegas a couple of times before, and it doesn’t really change too much - what you see is what you get. It was weird to go into bars where smoking is still legal though. After a final night in Santa Barbara – one of the west coast’s best towns in our opinion – we headed to LAX for our flight to Hawaii. After seven weeks on the mainland, in which we drove a grand total of 8400 miles, it was back to Honolulu – the place where it all started almost a year ago to the day.

---

Comments

[JuanCarlos]

New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Washington State, Nevada, California
very nice