Part 2 of a trip made 28th May -- 11th June 2004
Who: Me, the wife and our 2 sons aged 11 and 8.
Day 8: Friday 4th June. Death Valley. Left Furnace Creek and drove up
to Zabriskie Pt for a quick photo and then went back down to the
Devil's Golf Course. Found the whole place to be very strange, but
totally fascinating. The temperature was already over 100F so we
headed out of the valley and drove to Las Vegas. We drove along the
strip past most of hotels, but got rapidly bored and then we got stuck
in a traffic jam so we turned off and made our way to the freeway and
headed north into Utah. We wondered about staying here originally but
we were glad we hadn't. We found the whole place slightly depressing
-- tacky and soulless.
Made it to Springdale, just outside Zion NP, stayed at the Best
Western Hotel unpacked and had a lovely swim in their pool followed by
an excellent meal that night in their Switchback Restaurant.
Day 9: Made the mistake of buying breakfast in the restaurant! Had a
"short stack" of pancakes but could only eat 1 of the 3 pancakes. They
were absolutely enormous!! Went to the visitor centre at Zion and got
onto the shuttle bus. We really liked these free buses in all of the
national parks, many of the drivers were entertainers and tour guides
rolled into one and provided a great commentary for us tourists. Had a
short walk up to the Weeping rock and then made out way back to the
visitor centre. We were on a tight schedule today so no long walks.
We were sat on the bus going back to the visitor centre when a woman
on the bus just turned around and asked us where we had got our sun
hats from? Surprised to just be asked like that we nevertheless
replied "England", "Oh" she said and then carried on talking to her
friends! We found the very direct nature of many Americans strange for
us poor shy retiring Brits!
On to Bryce Canyon, the drive up through Zion was stunning and
required many stops for photos. Got to Bryce mid afternoon, stopped at
Ruby's and got the digital camera memory cards written to CD -- $13 --
a bit steep but then they have a captive market. Then on into the
park, drove to the end and then back to the lodge, checked in, and
then went for an excellent early evening walk on the Navajo Loop. The
colours were superb as the sun set.
Many thanks to everyone here for suggesting Zion and Bryce to me in
Feburary as I'd never heard of them until then. Another high point of
the trip.
Went to sleep tired having started the day with a walk in one national
park followed by an evening walk in another.
Day 10: Woke up early and checked out. Wondered why the US flag
outside the lodge was at half mast. Drove down to Page. Stopped at the
Glen Canyon Dam visitor centre, not to see the dam but to use their
toilets! However, security was ridiculus, metal detectors and
searches, they wouldn't even let my wife in with her handbag -- told
her to leave it in the car, so we left with the kids hanging on until
we could find a better place to stop!!
As someone who has lived through countless IRA bombing campaigns in
Britain (partly funded by US "donations" I should add) it was
interesting to see how security was handled. Some aspects were
discrete and reassuring, but other things were bordering on paranoia
and this was a clear case in our eyes.
Stopped for lunch at Upper Antelope Canyon. As a keen photographer I
really wanted to go here but didn't think we'd have the time, the
others in the family didn't know much about it, but we managed to get
there about 12:15pm. We just missed the jeep ride out to the canyon so
we sat and ate our lunch. We got out to the canyon about 1pm, just in
time to catch the last half an hour or so of the light filtering down
into the canyon. Absolutely fantastic!! I can not recommend this place
higher. If you're in the area you must go!! It made a lasting
impression on all four of us and ranked almost as high as Yosemite as
the 2 totally unforgettable experiences of the holiday. Just the trip
out to the canyon on the back of the jeep was worthy of Disney ride!
On to the Grand Canyon and the Yavapai Lodge. Was slightly
disappointed by the Canyon -- after all the amazing sights we'd seen
on the trip it just seemed like a large hole in the ground! Still,
sunset was stunning and increased our opinion of the place.
Day 11: Hiked down the Bright Angel Trail, our youngest was really
tired so we didn't go down too far, nearly as far as the first rest
point. It was quite hot and on the way back we came across a woman who
was obviously struggling. She had drunk her water so we gave her a
litre and talked to her a while. She was clearly dehydrated. Turned
out her husband had got fed up with her slowing him down so he had
gone on ahead! Only one word for him -- b*stard.
She wanted us to go on but we kept an eye on her from a few hundred
metres ahead for the remaining walk back and another party gave her
another litre of water. We met her again at the top and she was
feeling much better, she thanked us and we recommended that she get a
good divorce lawyer!
Found out why flags were at half mast -- Reagan had died. Sad to see a
person die but as someone who had marched against Thatcher & Reagan in
the 1980s I wasn't that sad!
Day 12: Drove to Anaheim. Only took just over 7 hours, including a
lunchstop. Did a steady 75-80mph all the way. It's nice to see that
you guys are driving at near European speeds - In Europe I would have
gone at 85-95mph on roads like those.
Got to Anaheim, found the Howard Johnson hotel easily on S Harbor
Blvd. Nice hotel, had a room at the back overlooking the garden pool,
very quiet. Had an excellent meal at the restaurant opposite and then
walked to downtown Disney to check out where to go the next day.
Day 13: The kids have magically lost their tiredness! Son number 1 had
set the alarm clock for 7, had jumped out of bed as soon as it went
off and was leaping on ours trying to get us up!! Had our best
breakfast of the whole holiday at the French coffee house in downtown
Disney, a proper French quossaint and coffee. Then on to the main
park. 12 hours later we emerged smiling but exhausted! We'd been to
Disneyland Paris 2 years ago so it was interesting to compare. We
loved Splash Mountain and Indy at Anaheim, but the rest of the rides
were definitely better at Paris, especially Thunder Mloountain and
Star Tours. Despite that we still went on Thunder Mountain 6 times!
Queues were light, 5 - 10 minutes for most rides, except Splash and
Indy which was down most of the day.
Day 14: More of the same as yesterday except that we started in the
California Park. Went on Soarin' first -- fantastic, best ride we'd
ever been on. Then we walked on to Grizzly Mtn River run, The wife and
son number 1 got soaked so we went straight back on again (it was a
walk on), the wife and son number 1 got even more soaked! Me and son
number 2 stayed relatively dry! Then I made a BIG mistake I agreed to
go on the Tower of Terror with son number 1! Trully awful, it really
got to me! Son number 1 loved it! Son number 2 decided he wanted a go,
no way am I going on that thing again I said, the wife looked
petrified -- we managed to talk him out of it !! We'd done everything
by 4pm so back to the main park for more Indy and Thunder Mountain.
Biggest discussion point in the queues was the price of gas! When we
politely informed everyone that gas was still less than half the price
in the US compared with the UK and they didn't know what expensive
was, they were a bit surprised! Some were a bit put out when I
suggested that they drive smaller cars, why on earth do you need a
huge four wheel drive with a 4 litre plus engine in LA? The average
family car in Europe has a 1.4, 1.6 or maybe a 1.8 litre engine. Many
people have small cars with a 1.0 to 1.2 litre engine which does 45 -
50 miles to the gallon and the car will still do 90 on the freeway!
I was surprised that few people mentioned Iraq, but it always amazes
me (and frightens me) how little the average American knows about the
outside world!
Day 15: Checked out, drove over to Beverly Hills/Hollywood to have a
quick look around and then onto the airport. Why are there no signs to
LAX on the freeway? We nearly missed the small sign for Manchester
Ave. Wierd! We checked in, the TSG scanned our bags and asked me to
open one of them. I think they wondered what my camera tripod was! We
were sat down by the departure gate about half an hour before boarding
when they cordoned off our area, and made us all go out and queue up
again. They then checked our passports and all non white UK and US
passengers had their hand luggage searched again! I really think, if
they were going to do that then they ought to have searched us as
well. Apart from that the security wasn't too overpowering and
everyone was very courteous to us. I was quite impressed. There was an
Air NZ flight leaving for Heathrow 30 mins before us a couple of gates
away from us but they weren't searched again before boarding.
Day 16: Arrived home completely knackered and ready for another
holiday. The plane had to wait on the taxiway for 40mins before a gate
became free. Typical! Welcome back to Britain and it's traffic jams!!
On the whole an excellent holiday and one we won't forget!
Cheers and many thanks
Mike
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