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Published: August 8th 2007
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Nevada, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Utah Nevada and Las Vegas From Yosemite we entered the blistering state of Nevada and started our travels through the deserts of South Western USA. It seemed to take us forever to make it through the parched Nevada landscape to the outskirts of Las Vegas. We passed the famous Death Valley on the way. The road to Las Vegas passes through an incredible collage of desert vistas, we saw dust storms and mirages, desert yuccas and cactuses and occasional scary settlements clinging onto tiny patches of green grass, breeding gangs of wrecked cars.
The road was the longest and straightest we’ve seen, dipping occasionally so we lost our stomachs. We truly felt we were in the middle of nowhere.
We spent a great night camping in the hills just South West of Las Vegas where the air was crisp and the temperature dropped to freezing overnight.
Arriving in Las Vegas the next day we headed straight to the small North Las Vegas airport where I was signed up to take my first ever flying lesson (an excellent birthday gift from Wendy). We met Anna my instructor who took us straight out to
the plane, a 4 seater single prop Cessna. We did some checks on the plane then clambered in, Anna and I up front, Wendy nervous in the back. Anna proceeded to go through a list of preflight checks (weird things I’d never heard of like trim and aerolons as well as quite important sounding things like fuel and brakes.) Then she gave me a quick view of the dials and controls. The pedals direct the rudder which helps to turn in the air and steers the plane on the ground, the pedals also have the wheel brakes when on the ground. You have a throttle on the dashboard that you pull out to slow and push in to accelerate. The steering wheel type thing turns the plane in flight and also controls the ascent and descent. Phew!
Just as my head got fuddled with all these details Anna announced that she would taxi to the runway and then I would take off! It was at this point that I began to suspect Anna had an inflated opinion of my previous flight experience….
“It’s easy!” she said, “Full throttle, use the rudder at your feet to keep us on
Long straight roads that go on forever
With dips that make your belly turn. Nevada the runway, when you get to 55 knots, pull back and up she’ll go!”
What an experience! We climbed to 5000 ft and headed over Las Vegas to the practice area where Anna instructed me on banking, turning, climbing, descending and an introduction to landing!
Time was running out but Anna announced that we would be able to do two landings. Landing was cool, it felt like we were coming in really steeply and way too slowly, but suddenly we were down. As soon as we hit the ground, we went into take off routine and shot back up again! Brilliant fun.
All in all it was a great experience, definitely something I’ll take up in the future.
The best birthday present!
Arriving in Vegas was a bizarre experience, after hours in the desert we were suddenly in the middle of strip malls and road junctions. Then, just as suddenly, we were driving down the famous Las Vegas Strip, a long line of the most outrageous buildings you’ve ever seen. As far as the eye can see there are casino hotels crowding next to and above each other, trying to literally and figuratively put their competition
in the shade. The Luxor, MGM Grand, Caesar’s Palace, Bellagio, Paris Las Vegas, New York New York and others all dazzled the eye as we drove past.
Then we arrived at our hotel; the Tropicana, a ‘classic’ Las Vegas casino (i.e. huge, old, shabby and cheap!) in the middle of the Strip. It was jam packed with folks checking in or checking out, gambling, drinking and eating. A mad burst of activity after our couple of days in the desert.
We had a laugh in Vegas, but were a little disappointed. We had expected it to be just cheesy enough to be cool, funky and interesting. But, partly due to the unexpected strip bars and porn palaces, sadly it came across as more skanky than cheesy, more dirty than cool.
So we jumped right in and headed to the casino where we promptly lost our agreed upon budget of $100 each on Blackjack tables. I tried the classic gambler line “we’ve got to try to win it back…” and was delighted when Wendy agreed! Three hours later we retired with an overall profit of $50, a very welcome addition to our traveling funds!
We realized there
are primarily 3 groups of people who visit Las Vegas. (1) Gangs of teenagers and bachelor parties whose main aim is to get drunk and get laid (2) The Gamblers; not high rollers playing for huge stakes, but your everyday mom and dad playing with the rent money (3) Funseekers searching for the light hearted cool side of Vegas, this is the smallest group…..
It was good to move on from Las Vegas and great to be leaving with an extra $50 in our pocket!
The Grand Canyon We headed East to the Grand Canyon through Arizona. The road traveled under thundery skies, through barren red deserts and past jagged angry rocks. We sweated our way onwards hoping one of the threatening storms would come our way and cool us down. As we approached the Canyon, the temperature dropped and we climbed through shrub and then into Alpine Forests.
We chose to visit the North Rim of the Canyon. It is harder to get to than the South Rim so is generally quieter. We camped a night 30miles north then got up early to be at the canyon for dawn. Watching the sun come up over the
rim of the grand canyon was an eerie and spectacular experience. The canyon is simply huge, incredibly deep but also long and wide with many canyons clustered together making up the whole. The canyon shone red, gold and brown in the morning sun and the tree lined slopes fell off to the distant base a mile below us.
It was much more impressive than we had hoped for and again we didn’t have enough time to appreciate it fully. We could have spent a week exploring here but instead headed off on our way.
Utah That day we drove 700miles East through the fascinating state of Utah into Colorado. The road through Utah blasts straight through rough red deserts and passed some incredible rock formations. It was hot hot hot so we kept going and only slowed as the sun went down and we approached Denver, Colorado.
Turtles on Tour The Ring As newly engaged finances we have been really paranoid about losing the ring (hopefully this feeling will wear off over time...). When Wendy takes a shower she takes off the ring in case it slips down the drain. As we are traveling we
always keep it in a “safe place” that we are taking with us so we don’t leave it in a random motel room after showers.
So in Las Vegas, I wrapped up the ring in tissue and put it safely in my bag while Wendy showered. 10 minutes later I absent mindedly cleaned out my bag and threw out any rubbish including random tissues... Imagine Wendy’s horror when she dried off and went looking for the ring!
Back Seat Flyer Half way through my flying lesson as I was enjoying banking, climbing and diving, and getting used to the jolting of turbulence, I remembered that Wendy (in the back seat) suffers quite badly from motion sickness. Unable to take my eyes off the controls and foreign instruments I quietly asked Anna to see if Wendy was OK… A little green and eyes fixed on the horizon, Wendy was holding on tightly!
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Christine
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Congratulations
Jsut got round to catching up on your travels. Congratualtions. Nice rock! Great to see you are both having such a great time.