L'amérique!

More of the Grand Canyon

Wild? life...

Erosion at work... :o)

Yes, I like to take my shadow in picture!

Blossoming cactus.

Paddlers on the Colorado.

This was before 11 AM!

Resting.

Even down there, you have posting service! "Mail it by mule!"

On the way back up.

More on Monument Valley

Campground near Monument Valley. You get an idea why I didn't stay very long...! The sun is very strong there.

Moab's car show

As I explained in a previous post, this is a bit stupid. The participants simply go up and down the main street in the middle of the normal traffic...

Nice license plate.

It must have so much torque on the rear wheels, you need the little wheels to prevent the car from flipping...

Rafting pics

Preparing the rafts at the put-in.

The government only allows a maximum of 75 persons to go down that bit of the river per day.

Security speech. Or maybe he was just bragging.

Cruising to get to the rapids.

Pause for lunch.

Sorry, there are no pics of the rapids themselves, as my camera was secured inside a watertight box during that time!

After the rapids. I survived! This was minute before my camera fell in the sand... :-(

Canyoneering pics

In nice company (Mina and Jonalyn).

Going down, pretending I was scared. :o)

Down in the canyon.

Waiting for our guide, Jayce, to get down after us in the second rappel.

Many thanks to Jonalyn for sending me the pics she and Mina had taken!

This is me getting out of my car on the day I was moving out. Notice how the mattress is tied to the roof in a way that prevents the doors from opening... This was a lot of fun, actually! I'm glad my friend Yuriko thought of taking a picture, thanks!

Phoenix suburbs. What do they need such wide streets for?

Inside an abandonned miner's building in the Vulture Mine near Wickenburg.

Haha.

Bikers catching up with me!

Saguaro cactus. They say each arm is a hundred years...! The name is pronounced something completely different. Sorry Gayle, I forgot how!

Nice curves going to Prescott.

The Governor's Mansion (an old shack in fact!)

They are so proud of it... :-P

The car I drive is already quite big, by my standards. Yet the white car on the right in the picture is much bigger. I leave you to guess how much bigger the one on the left is...!

A biker in Jerome.

First roundabout I've seen! There are a lot of them in France, and even more in the UK, but not many in the US.

The Oak creek in Sedona.

School bus.

Half-burnt tree. They have a real fire problem around here.

Driving to the Grand Canyon, I feel so reassured that there's going to be a McDonald's there!

You've got mail?

Real cowboys! Yahoo!

Old trading post.

So I was following these few RVs on the road and they were a bit slow (Like 60 on a 65mph road). They were not easy to pass as you have traffic coming in the other direction. I wasn't in a hurry anyway. Then you've got that truck coming behind me.

I couldn't believe it when he went to pass me!

It's huge!

HUGE "car".

The hood is at head-level...

Moab's public library has the crappiest internet access I've seen. The password they give you only gives you 15 minutes and then it locks the session. Then the next person unlocks it and can see whatever you were doing. How crap is that! Also notice the Symantec logo... (but I won't comment on that!)

This is inside a supermarket. You can try out your coffee!

Camping in Moab...

I wonder how you're supposed to fight back a Cougar...

Cryptobiotic soil. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_crust

"This is not a trail". They need to protect the soil crust. I like the big footsteps beyond the sign... Pfff!

Having fun with the balanced rock in Arches (Moab).

Delicate Arch. Symbol of Utah.

Nice bike.

Random dude taking a car in picture.

Me in car.

Stupid ad in a magazine. This is what I was talking about in my post about Arches... :-(

Up-the-creek campground. Very nice trees. (But too many caterpillars!)

"Drug free school zone. Enforced." What the hell does that mean? Is it Ok to take drugs anywhere else?

Here: desert.

Not far: you can hike in the snow!

Boob rock. [sic]

That guy took at least 5 minutes to maneuver his trailer into the alocated spot. It was fun to watch (I had to wait for him to free the passage anyway).

Recreation in America:

Tow your home!


You get an idea of the scale with the man standing next to the car.

Or you can also tow your car from your RV...

Add bicycles and you are all set.

I'm back to England now! :-(

Will soon post more about what I've been up to in the last few days, as well as more details and pics on previous posts. Keep watching this space!

[Pictures will be added later, sorry!]

After Moab, my next destination is Bryce. The drive from Moab to Bryce is long and quite desertic. That said, the road goes through all kinds of deserts, depending on the relief, the altitude, the type and the colour of the rocks. Yellow, grey, white, red, orange... And also green in the mountains where there are big forests. I went by plenty of places that were screaming at me with their little high-pitched voices "Hike me! Hike me!" It was tough not to stop.

Tired by hours of driving, I stopped in the mountains near Boulder (a small assembly of houses that barely merits the qualificative of "town") and went in a random 4-wheel-drive trail. My car didn't go very far, but I went on on foot and made quite a hike out of it (maybe 4 hours?).

It was all above 9000 feet (nearly 3,000 meters of altitude!) but I was surprised to meet quite a lot of snow! Sometimes it would hold, but most often it would just give and I'd find myself with snow up to above my knees in some cases! I was fun but it made for slow progress and a very tiring hike.

I had no map and no precise idea of where I was. I followed the signs for "Meeks lake". Unfortunately, near the end (I was quite high by that time), there was a lot of snow and it was either hiding the trail or making it impracticable. I tried to find my own way, but progress was slow and I eventually had to renounce.

Even so, it felt good to do something completely random!

Back at the car, it was getting quite late and Bryce was still a fair bit away. I was so cold and tired, I didn't feel like camping at all that night. So I spent the night in a motel near Boulder. It was more money than camping, but after 2 weeks of tent, it felt great.

It was also a good occasion to watch American TV.

One amazing thing I saw was an ad for a sleeping pill. It started as a normal ad, where you see a lady having an insomnia and being unhappy and tired, and then she takes the pill and she is peacefully sleeping and the next day at work she is rested and happy. But then, as the relaxing little music went on, and you could see footage of the lady peacefully sleeping, the voice-over went on for what felt like ages listing all the possible unwanted side-effects, including things like hallucinations and suicide! It was in sharp contrast to the peace of the music and the pictures. This was quite an experience. Only in America.

I also saw a couple of ads for attorneys specialised into helping people claiming "what is fair" from insurance companies. One ad was specialised against drunk drivers!

Today, I'm in Bryce National Park, where I'm going to spend the next two nights. Then I'll probably head to Las Vegas, and then back to Phoenix...

[Pictures will be added later, sorry!]

There was a car show in Moab this weekend. It's the occasion to see lots of insane cars. Most of the "show" consists of the participants driving up and down Main street in the evening in the middle of the regular traffic. There were people sat on chairs on the pavement watching and cheering. It was funny to watch 5 minutes, but overall it was pretty stupid. And noisy. And smelly too! Only in America.

I went rafting on Saturday, down the Westwater Canyon, on the Colorado river! The rapids in this part are classed III and IV (out of V!). It was a day trip but in fact most of the day was taken by getting to the rapids (by car and then on the river) and then from the rapids back to town (again on the river and then by car). Lunch was provided, just before the rapids.

There were 3 boats: 2 paddle rafts (where you have to paddle!) and one oar boat (where you just have to hold on and, from time to time, bail!). I chose a paddle raft. We all did exactly what our guide told us to do and everything went very well. In fact, it was almost too easy! That said, if things had turned wrong, it would have been seriously scary. It's a big strong river. I guess that showed how good our guides were.

After the rapids, we stopped on a small beach to change from wet gear to dry gear, before cruising on the river to the take-out. I could recover my camera from the water tight boxes and take a few pictures. That's when I dropped it in the sand. It has refused to work ever since, beeping and complaining "lens error" :-( The only way to fix it would be to have it taken apart and cleaned by a professional. And that would cost almost as much as a new camera.

Apparently, there is so much sand in the air around here, you don't even have to do anything for your camera to break. During the summer, the guy in the shop told me he sees someone with the same problem every day. The sand here is even in the rain. It rained a bit the other night and my tent and car were both very dirty as a result. This is electronics hell.

I was seriously hit by this turn of events. I loved that camera. And what a lousy time to break it, only two thirds into this amazing trip!

One guy in Moab tried to sell me a replacement. The camera seemed quite good but he wanted $229 for it. A quick peak on Amazon showed the same model for barely more than half that price...! Unfortunately, I can't easily have it delivered on my path, and I'm pretty far from any decent-sized city where I could find a decent shop ("Best Buy" maybe). So I'm reduced to using single-use cameras. That sucks!

But ah well, it could have been much worse.

On Sunday, I had an introduction to canyoneering. It basically consists of rappelling down into otherwise inaccessible canyons and grottos. It was fun! The half-day trip I took had 2 rappels, both around 90 feet. On this trip, I met with Jonalyn and her mother Mina, whose husbands were having fun somewhere else with their 4-wheel-drive jeeps. They were fun company and they took plenty of pictures they promised to send me. Thank you very much!

Our guide, Jayce, advised us on the best places to eat in town. Because of that, I met again with Jonalyn and Mina this evening, this time with their husbands, Dale and Fred. We were all at Milt's, a kind of retro, good fast-food place. It's been operating since 1954! And it's said to have the best burgers in Moab. The burger I had was pretty good, but I don't think it topped the one I had in Jerome! I had a good time eating and discussing with these nice people. Oh, and Jon would be pleased to know my pronunciation of "burger" has improved a bit! :-P