After a rainy night in Grand Canyon we decided it was time to return to civilization. One reason for that was of course also that we needed to return our car to San Francisco in two days. On our way between Grand Canyon and SF we had a few places we wanted to visit, but at this stage it felt natural do go as far away from nature as possible, to Las Vegas! When you go to Vegas it helps if you have a reason to celebrate, and we quickly found one as we booked a room at Excalibur through Hotwire, I had been promoted to manager in my absence! This will of course not affect anything for another year as we are traveling, but definitely counted as a reason to celebrate all night long. :) ... read more

From Salt Lake City we headed southwest with plans to visit three Utah national parks: Capitol Reef, Bryce and Zion. They are all about rocks in different shapes, sizes and colors. Southwestern Utah has the nickname Color Country, and that is not in vain. Already before reaching the first national Park, Capitol Reef, we started seeing orange and red rocky hills coloring the scenery. Our first stop, Capitol Reef National Park, was the most peaceful of the three. We set up our camp again at the bargain price of 10 dollars a night for a tent site, then set off to see what the park had to offer. The park has several orchards where visitors can freely pick fruit to eat. Being hungry, we started by sampling peaches, apples and pears. The fruit were not really ... read more

WOW! One whole week in Yellowstone, a place that seems to have it all in regards of nature. Scenic views, volcanic hydrothermal features, increadible wildlife. There were also a lot of other people sharing the fun and at times it felt crowded, but what can you do, the place is so exceptional so people arrive from all over the world to see it. Our first night we stayed at Madison campground, near the west entrance. This was the first time we used our newly acquired tent, and it turned out to be easy to set up, well breathing and rainproof. It was just big enough, my toes are touching the tent cloth when the pillow we bought from Ikea is touching the tent in the other end. The only thing that wasn't coping with the Yellowstone ... read more

Blue skies, sunshine, a temperature at 23 degrees Celcius everyday. The weather stayed the same for our whole time in Vancouver, but we didn't miss the variation! One of the other guys staying at the same B&B told us this is exceptionally good even for Vancouver, usually it rains every now and then, during our stay I don't think there was ever a cloud in front of the sun. So with perfect weather we might have a more positive picture of the city than we otherwise would have. Our first encounter with the city was not that positive. Not negative either, just a little "so what so special about Vancouver?". During our stay we had encountered several persons naming Vancouver as their favourite Canadian city, our first impression was that it looked only nice, felt expensive, ... read more

Due to the problems with our ride from Quebec City we arrived late to Montréal and because of this we were a little worried about getting into our place to stay. We had again booked through airbnb, a site to find rooms in ordinary peoples homes, and our hosts weren't actually home so we were supposed to get the key from one of their friends. However, when our arrival was delayed she decided to stay at the apartment for the night in order to let us in and give us the key. After the first night we had the whole apartment to ourselves, a town house apartment with a nice little backyard and excellent cooking opportunities at the price of renting a room! Our apartment was only a few metro stops away from downtown, so on ... read more