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Published: November 2nd 2005
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We watched the Grand Canyon get smaller for hours as we drove away…
Seeing the snow capped mountains in the distance amongst the dry rock formations is a beautiful contrast.
We made it to Monument Valley, Navajo Tribal Park and took a bus tour, once again, amazing natural structures. It was very very cold there. The reserve is 16 million acres and Monument Valley is set on 30,000 acres. The Navajo Indians are who the code breaks in ‘Wind Talkers’ the movie was based on, and there is a tribute to these Indians in the Burger King as the owners father was one of the talkers in the war. The Navajo’s are the ‘care takers’ of the land. They have ties with the Tibetan Monks and the Deli Lama as they share a lot of the same beliefs and the Deli Lama has even been a guest at Monument Valley. The Hobi Indians also inhabit this land.
This land has also been mined for Uranium and Coal. They have rattle snakes, tarantellas and scorpions here!! Not really a fun place to camp I wouldn’t imagine!!!
103 John Wayne movies were shot in Monument Valley.
Came back
to our hotel, went to a group buffet dinner, then to Walmart to shop for our ‘Pimps & Hoes’ party schedules for New Orleans.
We left to go to Durango for our extreme jeep tours this morning. On the way one of the hummers broke down with radiator problems so we donated all of our water to the man and after an hour were back on our way! We went down some serious tracks and nearly tipped the hummer right over at one point when we all had to bale to one side to try and stabilise it!!
We went to Colorado today and the Rockie Mountains. There are 52 mountain peaks higher than 4,200 feet in elevation in these ranges.
Durango used to be a mining town and lays claim to the highest elevation in the US. The Rockie Mountain Ranges run for approximately 4,900km.
We arrived in Albuquerque for the night and had dinner. This town has 580,000 people and is the largest city in New Mexico - but it is not the capital.
On the drive here we were shown the site where the US exploded their first atomic bomb, before they
dropped 2 in Japan, one being in Hiroshima - which pretty much ended the World War.
We were also shown where an alleged UFO landed before being allegedly taken to ‘Area 51:
Rio Grande runs just out of Albuquerque right down to the Gulf of Mexico.
I’m hot air ballooning tomorrow so have to be ready to leave at 5.30am! arrgghh!!!
Albuquerque is the home of the world’s largest balloon fiesta every autumn. Ok, well got to go for my very first hot air ballooning experience this morning, and survived it! Can't believe how serene it was and how not scary!! They say that statistics prove that it is much safer to hot air balloon then to drive a car!! Ballooning was the first form of light and was first successfully done in the 1700’s. Our flight went for almost an hour. After a not too bumpy landing we finished off with Marrosa (champagne and orange juice) and muffins.
Then off to downtown Santa Fe, where I tried a tomala - which I have to say just wasn’t really nice as all so I got a fajita from one of the stands at the plaza
instead. We went shopping and got a cowboy hat for tonight’s dinner in Texas.
We then crossed into the Lone Star state of Texas. Everything BIG in Texas!! The Texas Panhandles signalled the start of Better County and farming lands, thank god!! There are 22 million in the State of Texas and Texas is the second most popular state to live in next to California. Until the American/Texas war, Texas was its own country for 10 years going under the name of Republic of Texas. Over the years Texas has flown under 6 different flags. Texas is the 2nd largest state.
The Armadillo is the states animal and it looks like a turtle but it’s a mammal. It always has 4 babies and they are always either 4 males or 4 females, never mixed.
The main industries in Texas as livestock and oil.
Lance Armstrong comes from Texas, Tour De France athlete and author of my favourite book ‘It’s not about the bike, my journey back to life’.
The land in Texas is very flat and green and littered with grain silos and machinery - I could really like it here!!
We then moved
onto see Cadillac Ranch, a tribute to Route 66 & the great American Automobile. It has 10 Cadillac’s buried half way up. You are supposed to spray paint your message on them and then move on…
I'm slowly putting on weight already as expected - it is difficult to find healthy things to eat around here and salad bars are almost non existent!
We are now in New Mexico on our way to Amarillo. Amarillo has the 3rd longest runway in the US and is famous for its helium. Amarillo is also big on cattle and its annual sale sells 500,000 cattle. They supply about 25% of Americas beef.
Had dinner at the Big Texan. The boys took the challenge to eat the 2.7kh steak, shrimp cocktail, salad, potato and bread roll. Three of the guys tried but didn’t make it unfortunately. It has been done, the time limit is an hour and apparently one footballer type guy did it in about 9 minutes - he must have inhaled it!!!! An old women in her 60’s or 70’s had apparently done it before too!!! Better them than me!
We then headed to Midnight Rodeo nightclub where
they served drinks, including spirits for $1-2, excellent!!! Once inside we started playing pool with the locals. We decided to leave and head over to a club called Grahams which the locals assured us we wouldn’t be disappointed with. When we arrived we sure weren’t disappointed, it had 6 rooms. One was a two stepping country room which I really liked!!! Kirk, one of the locals was teaching me how to two step, and I think both Nat and I were starting to get it and we were having a good time! Next was the retro room, then techno room, R & B room, Piano bar and a couple of others. Nat and I tried out hand at cage dancing which made it a fun night!! Hehe!! We rocked back up to our hotel just in time to catch the bus the following morning!!
We have done our fair share of drinking and it would seem that we can survive on a lot less sleep than I had imagined!!!
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