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Published: July 13th 2010
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So we seem to have gone a long way! We spent the last night in Vegas having a lovely dinner at our hotel with our $20 off voucher and then walked the strip one more time and even saw an amazing water fountain display at the Bellagio. The bad news is that we thought our winning streak might continue and tried our luck again at the slots but lost a huge $10 this time!!
We set off the next day for the Grand Canyon passing by the Hoover Dam on the way. We managed to get parked about a mile away from it and walked down to get some pics. It was sooooo hot but worthwhile to see. Without the aircon to give us relief in the car it was an interesting day's driving!
Our next stop on the trip was the famous Route 66 and it really is everything you would expect. We stopped in Seligman which is supposedly the birth place of route 66 and we went to this famous diner that did the best peanut butter milkshakes ever-how could we resist?! The guy that owns it set it up in the 1950s and seems to be
well known for his sense of humour and he did pull a few pranks on us. We even met a guy from Kentucky who is famous for visiting every Hard Rock cafe in the world! Maybe this could be our new mission :-)
We arrived at the Grand Canyon in the evening and got set up in our campground. Then we took a drive to the first lookout we could see and went to have a look-in the pouring rain! It didn't really make a difference though-it really is an amazing sight and even though we did take just a few pics, they can't really show off how vast and brilliant it is. The weather did pick up a bit but the rain had cooled the temperature a bit which was great and gave us a bit of a rest from the heat we'd had in Vegas.
The next day we went on a free digital SLR photography course where they showed us how to get the most out of the cameras. We even got to print some snaps and they are going to email all the pics so we should get some really good snaps. From there
we hiked towards the Colorado river, but didn't quite make it the whole 9 miles down! Even a mile was enough and we really felt it on the way back up. We met a man that had hiked from the North Rim the day before-about a 22 mile trip in total and he looked absolutely exhausted. Someone said that it is one of the toughest hikes to do-especially in the July heat.
We spent our last evening at the Canyon near the Desert View lookout having our tea and watching the sunset-pretty good location for it! Then we went back to the tent to get a good night's sleep, which we did, apart from being woken up by rabbits outside the tent in the middle of the night-well, we hope they were rabbits!
We set off the next morning at half seven and hit the road to see how close we could get towards Santa Fe, our next destination. After a few hours driving, we started to think about where we could find a decent bar to watch the World Cup final. We were pretty lucky to come across Winslow in Arizona and a great bar where we
were the first to arrive. The girl was happy to put the football on for us and we settled in, along with a group of English lads who arrived just behind us. They were in an RV travelling from Chicago to LA along Route 66 so it was good to hear about their travels too, and they helped us make up our minds not to stop off at the Petrified Forest, even though it does have a cool name!
It was great to see Spain win and the English guy was pretty happy as a bet won him 500 quid, but it was a pretty forgettable game. It was more interesting to walk around Winslow and see the old concert posters of the Eagles. They have a shop on the corner with the words 'Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona' above the door. The barmaid even told us that the Eagles were actually in Flagstaff when they wrote the song but Winslow sounded better! Now there's a bit of trivia for you...
En route we were going to see a meteor crater sight but they were charging a rather extortionate $15 each so we gave it a
miss-come on, we need that money for important things like wine and beer.
Next stop-New Mexico! Made it all the way to Albuqurque and felt pretty good despite our 8 hour drive. So we found a decent motel and went to the 'grocery store' to pick up some tea. It was so funny. We had already noticed that New Mexico looked like it was full of people of hispanic background, but in the supermarket it was like we had arrived in Mexico! They had Mexican music playing and the only things they sold were tacos, burritos, and fahitas! This is the first place that we have felt really far away from home, it was like being in a different country, but a fun one at that. Sorry to report that we didn't spot any hotdogs or jumping frogs here though...
The next morning we set off for Santa Fe, only about an hour away and we got to our campsite without too much trouble. We had booked a little cabin for the first night which was great and meant we had somewhere to shelter a bit from the heat. We hit Santa Fe right away and it is
probably our favourite city so far. It is so like being in Spain, or a bit Moroccan, with lots of little narrow streets and Spanish style buildings. We visited the oldest church and the oldest house in the US and had a drink at Harry's Roadhouse, a pretty famous diner that has been on Diners, dives and drive ins (You tube it). We spent a chilled out evening at our cabin with a book and a few games of beanie.
So today we moved across the road to our tent site for the night-it's hard work this budget travelling! It has been so hot today that we have had to come to the library to write this and get somewhere nice and cool to sit and relax! The good thing is that it is well equipped with plenty of travel books so we could be here a while! This evening we plan to sample a little authentic real New Mexican cusine in the form of free nachos and maybe a burrito or 2.
Tomorrow we set off for a very long drive towards San Antonio, Texas. We will probably stop off for a night somewhere like Pecos en
route as it will be too far for one day. We decided to miss El Paso as crossing into Mexico from here looks pretty dodgy, but our new route does mean that we go through Roswell tomorrow, home of the UFO mystery! So we'll try to check in again from San Antonio,
Over and Out,
Daz and Debs xxxxxxxx
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Gillian
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True blue
Trust Darren to find a blue moon cafe!!! Fab pics, can't wait to see the next ones xxxxx