This is turning out to be a trip of contrasts. After a week in the busy Apple and a few days in the more sofisticated DC, we've now spent a week in Vegas, with a couple of days on the road to see Grand Canyon and Death Valley (we'll write about this in separate posts). Vegas is a bit of a disappointment. We thought is was going to be even more surreal than what it actually is. The Strip, or Las Vegas Boulevard as it's actually called, is littered with flashy casinos/hotels (to get to the front desk you have to get through a maze of gaming opportunities - do they want you to go bust before you even check in?), and every 3-4 blocks there's a deserted plot of land or a building site. Our ... read more

It's nice to get out of Vegas for a while. So, we rented a car and drove east. First to the Hoover Dam on the Nevada/Arizona border. It was completed in 1935 (we think) with the purpose of regulating the Colorado River. Must say its a very impressive sight, which is hard to capture on camera, without being in a chopper. Been there, done that, so we're moving towards our real goal for the day. On the way we stopped at a cafe, where we had to leave our guns in the car. Yeah right. No way! A few hours later, after what we think must be one of the longest straight roads in the world (around 50km), we finally got to GC. The morning had been sunny, but by lunch a blizzard hit the area. ... read more

There's a roach in my bathroom what am I gonna do... (Swedish below) Having been stuck on the plane for 90 extra minutes (something to do with bad weather at Heathrow, surprise surprise - we're used to the British definition of bad weather though...), we were quite tired when we arrived, but couldn't sleep very well, especially as it turned out we were living next door to a building site! Not a big problem really, as we're not here to sleep all day... First people we meet (at breakfast): 2 Danes and a Norwegian bloke. Please, we're on holiday, don't want to speak Swedish!!! One of the 2 showers on our floor had a nice little cockroach, but it vanished after the first day, someone must have killed the poor thing... Shopping the first day, H ... read more