L'amérique!

Well. I had an amazing trip!

Three weeks. Three states. 2,143 miles. I had some really awesome moments, and I met some fantastic people!

That said, I've come to the conclusion that traveling alone is too tough. Next time, I'll find myself a travelling buddy.

There were a few nights when I was tired, cold, had red sand all over my clothes, was fed up of splitting my non-active time between the car and my tiny tent, tired of cooking the same stuff yet again, often in a hurry in the fading light of the day...

If I had someone to joke with (and/or to hug), someone to share all these things with, even these moments could be fun. And the rest would be made better too. Travelling alone is really hardcore!

I'm glad I did it though. It was better than not doing it!

I hope you had fun following my steps. Thank you!

My last day in the US was quite busy.

I had to drive back to Phoenix. Then pack all the stuff dispersed everywhere in the car into my two tiny bags. And return the car.

On the way, I went on the Hoover dam. They were building a bigger highway there and it was quite impressive.

The flight back went much easier than I expected. And soon I was in the coach driving through the English countryside. It was quite a shock to see how green it was!

Here are a few more thoughts about my experience of the US.

In most states, there is a "selling tax" applied to any sell. It's very annoying because if something is advertised as being $5, you'll end up paying something stupid like $5.43. It's really annoying how unexpected tax keeps on creeping in just as you're about to pay. In Europe, the taxes are usually included in the price!

While driving, I saw countless "Adopt a highway" or "Highway adopted by..." signs. http://www.adoptahighway.com/ I can just see the scene: "Dear, this year for our anniversary, I've decided we should adopt... a highway!"

On a lot of petrol pump, you have only one nozzle and you have to choose your fuel by pressing a button! It shocked me, but I think I've only seen that when you have to choose between different grade of Petrol. Diesel has its on nozzle.

I must have not been careful enough with my mobile phone number, or maybe I was just plain unlucky, but I got a lot of spam on it. Example of text:

"Easter Sunday at Baby Dolls! Doors open at 7p& Juanito will be KY wrestling the girls! Amazing drink specials till 2! Ritmo will be in the house! Plz 4wrd:-)"

What the hell is that about? Actually, I have received that one on April 11, 15:53, which is just a few hours after having bought the phone! It's quite ironic, considering my job is in Antispam...

One last fun fact. Driving long distances in the US is very easy. Sometimes roads are straight for dozens or even hundreds of miles. And with speed control, you don't need to use your feet. A funny thing is that if, say on a 65mph road for instance, your speed is set at 71, you will eventually catch up with people that are set a 69mph. It can then takes several minutes for you to pass them!

Arrived in Vegas from Bryce after hours of driving on June 30th. I had my flight back to England the following day at 7:20 in Phoenix, so this was going to be my last night in the US.

Las Vegas was very busy, it's a big city actually, and there were a lot of road works. It was difficult to drive there. I knew the "strip", where all the insane hotel-casinos are, is located near the South of town, but I arrived on the North side. And then my GPS was dumb enough not to find "Strip, Las Vegas". I found out later that the actual name is "Las Vegas Boulevard". The GPS also didn't find "Caesar Palace" (Maybe because the correct spelling is "Caesars Palace"? It should be "Caesar's Palace", in proper English anyway!).

Anyway, I wondered where I'd be staying. I finally found the strip and which Hotel would have been more appropriate for me to stay in than the Paris? You know, the one with a mini Eiffel Tower on the front!

You can see it was pretty busy.

I had no idea how much it was going to cost and if I could afford it, but I figured I'd give it a try anyway. So I found my way to the free car park and went in the hotel.

First impression, which is valid for any Hotel in Las Vegas, is that it's like a Disneyland for adults. It all seem as fake and there are no kids anywhere you look. The ground floor of the hotel is huge and is organised in "Parisian" streets. You've got little signs indicated the directions of the various places. Every thing is slightly French. You've got signs like "Le Business Centre", "Le Car Rental", "Le Burger Brasserie", and my personal favourite: "L'Eiffel Tour". This is neither one thing ("The Eiffel Tower" in English) nor the other ("La Tour Eiffel" in French), it is so stupid! I got a good laugh out of that.

I finally found the "Reception" and queued to check-in. In my flip-flops and hiking clothes, I didn't feel very appropriate. People around me were all good-looking--or maybe more appropriately "looking good" (i.e. well groomed)--and with an attitude. I thought "what the hell", and was curious how much it was going to be. Their cheapest room (which is in fact quite big, with a huge plasma TV and a fantastic bathroom) turned out to be only 90 dollars! So I checked in. After 3 weeks in the desert, it was very nice to take a bath and use all the mini-bottles of grooming products they provided.

Then I went to walk a bit outside. Looked a bit at the zombie-people gambling. Walked to the nearby Caesars Palace. Same crap, different packaging. I saw Jerry Seinfelf on a poster and enquired about it. It'd have been awesome to go at his show! But unfortunately, he will only start here in August. Right now, Cher was here. No thanks!

Lacking Jerry Seinfeld, I set out to look for the Pussycat Dolls Lounge. My Lonely Planet guide mentioned it, so obviously I had to check it out! :-D I got a VIP pass for free and was told to come back after 10:30 PM. So I went back to the hotel to catch a couple hours of sleep (I was exhausted), watched a weird program about a group of amateur mechanics that changed an old van into a cow-milking truck (that was quite an experience) and came back to the club. I got almost denied entry because of my hiking T-shirt and pants and flip-flops, but I got in anyway!

Unfortunately, disappointment awaited me. I discovered that only the terrace was going to be open that night (Thursday). That meant no shows. So I only had a glimps of the "dolls" from behind a VIP ruban. Apart from that, the club was quite boring. As you've probably figured out, if you've read a bit of my blog, clubs are not really my cup of tea!

On the way back to my hotel, I met Elvis and Marilyn and got my picture taken with them! The picture was taken by Tommy & Lisa, from Alabama. They were kind enough to promise to send me the picture, thanks!

[Note: excuse the poor quality of the pics... single-use cameras suck!]

I arrived in Bryce Canyon National Park on the 28th of April, and left on the 30th. In the afternoon of the 28th, I did a bit of drive-and-shoot like I did in the Arches--and it got old even faster.

The following day, early in the morning, I hiked down in Bryce Amphitheater. This is probably one of the most eerily beautiful place in the world. There's something about these orange hoodoos, with the green of the pine trees below. It is very peaceful. The silence down there in the early morning, before the hiking path becomes crowded with people, is very powerful. It takes a while to slow the pace down enough to take it in.

• * *

I've been re-reading "Into The Wild" a bit. Because he was often sleeping rough in unsafe places (like under a bridge, for instance) whenever he was crossing a city, Chris (or Alex, as he used to call himself), made a habit of burying his money and other important belongings before he entered into town, retrieving it when he was leaving. Before spending some time in Las Vegas in February 91, he buried his backpack in the desert. As his journal says:

"On May 10, itchy feet returned and Alex left his job in Vegas, retrieved his backpack, and hit the road again, though he found that if you are stupid enough to bury a camera underground you won't be taking many pictures with it afterwards. Thus the story has no picture book for the period May 10, 1991 to January 7, 1992. But this is not important. It is the experience, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. God it's great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you."

May I find some inspiration in there!

• * *

That night, I went back down there under the moon light. My initial plan was to do some stargazing. The altitude on the rim is between 2,400 and 2,700 meters above sea level. The air is very pure, and there is very little light pollution. Unfortunately, the light of the moon hide a lot of stars.

So I did little little stargazing and instead did a one-hour hike. It is very weird hiking under the moon. You can kind of see most things, but it's very dark. Yet, if you switch on your head-lamp, everything else but the very thing your lamp shines at disappears. It was quite scary too. I was so alone down there, it was so still and silent. I'd be watching for any kind of movement. I'd stop to listen intently everytime I thought I heard something. You could say I was afraid of my own shadow! But it was cool.

Speaking of cool, the nights were freezing (literally!) in Bryce.