Tour Diary - Day Two
Nov. 2nd, 2016 01:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanOn the second day... we drove. A long way!! And then... read on
Wednesday 5th of October - Los Angeles to St George
Is 6.30am too early to get up? Well, yes & no... but 12 hours sleep made it as painless as possible. One of the first things that greeted me with the new day was the discovery that I'd slept on my glasses (again!) & busted the frame. Must remember to get a pair of 1.5x magnification cheap ones from a decent petrol station...
Showers, packing, dressing, loading Travis, then out to deal with the traffic as we head east for Las Vegas, then on to Kanab near the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Traffic was actually better than expected, as most of it seemed to be heading into the city & we were heading out. Plus the entrance to the freeway we needed was only a couple of blocks away. We must stay at that hotel next time! Very quickly the outer suburbs of LA thinned out & the Mojave desert began to take over. A lunar-looking landscape, but no less appealing for that, despite the incredible sight of new 'suburbs' being erected out there... in the middle of nowhere. Coming soon - 4 bedroom family homes, now affordable in Nowheresville. Very much reminded me of the Eagles song 'The Last Resort' ("Some rich men came & raped the land, nobody caught 'em. Put up a bunch of ugly boxes & Jesus... people bought 'em")
Breakfast in the town of Mojave in the aforementioned desert - little more than a glorified truckstop with just about every fast-food outlet except the one we were looking for, so Carls Jr it is. We've devised a method for getting through the large serving sizes you get when you order a 'small' meal - one of us orders a meal, the other just orders a burger, then all is shared. Better for both the waistline & the hip pocket... not that it was that expensive, but every little bit helps. Then a couple of photos of the large wind farm just outside town & of the 'Adult Shop' right next to Carl's... Petrol a little later in Barstow (forgot to buy glasses!), & onto the freeway that took us towards & then past Las Vegas... we'll be there a bit later this trip, so no stopping this time
Once you're clear of Casinoville, the landscape begins to get more dramatic, especially when you cross the border into Arizona, where the mountains are formidable, but the carved roadway through them is incredible. Then into Utah, where the landscape becomes redder & there are echoes of the Grand Canyon & Arches National Park in the surrounding hills. We stopped in St George for petrol & In'n'Out Burgers, where Julia was given a hat & stickers. Trying to book accommodation at the North Rim or Kanab was both difficult & expensive, so we decided to just stay in St George & leave early tomorrow for the Canyon
This gave us some sightseeing time, so following directions from the Motel owner, we went up to Pioneer Park above the town, where large-to-huge red boulders & formations again made me think of Arches NP. A popular walking & picnic spot with great views of the town & the surrounding country. Looked great at sunset too...
And then... Walmart!! Ahh we've missed you, it's been so long. Nothing has changed - we saw some prime candidates for the 'People of Walmart' website even before we entered, you can still buy guns & nasty-looking knives & they have 20 varieties of... well, pretty much everything. The store attendant near the gun section was a bit concerned by us taking photos of bright orange & camouflage-pattern shotguns, but relaxed a little when we turned out to be a) Not homicidal gun freaks & b) Australians who can't believe these things are available in a supermarket. We bought jackets & hooded sweatshirts for our desert trip, t-shirts, personal essentials & some snacks for dinner (In'n'Out was still very much in, so we weren't really hungry). Helpful staff helped us spend about $180 with little effort, but I'm sure it was all absolutely necessary... even the popcorn. Forgot to buy glasses again!!
Back to the Econolodge, where Julia 'Macgyvered' my glasses into a functioning state, meaning I can type this without guesswork. We'll try some phone calls home, then time for bed
States travelled through: 4
Wednesday 5th of October - Los Angeles to St George
Is 6.30am too early to get up? Well, yes & no... but 12 hours sleep made it as painless as possible. One of the first things that greeted me with the new day was the discovery that I'd slept on my glasses (again!) & busted the frame. Must remember to get a pair of 1.5x magnification cheap ones from a decent petrol station...
Showers, packing, dressing, loading Travis, then out to deal with the traffic as we head east for Las Vegas, then on to Kanab near the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Traffic was actually better than expected, as most of it seemed to be heading into the city & we were heading out. Plus the entrance to the freeway we needed was only a couple of blocks away. We must stay at that hotel next time! Very quickly the outer suburbs of LA thinned out & the Mojave desert began to take over. A lunar-looking landscape, but no less appealing for that, despite the incredible sight of new 'suburbs' being erected out there... in the middle of nowhere. Coming soon - 4 bedroom family homes, now affordable in Nowheresville. Very much reminded me of the Eagles song 'The Last Resort' ("Some rich men came & raped the land, nobody caught 'em. Put up a bunch of ugly boxes & Jesus... people bought 'em")
Breakfast in the town of Mojave in the aforementioned desert - little more than a glorified truckstop with just about every fast-food outlet except the one we were looking for, so Carls Jr it is. We've devised a method for getting through the large serving sizes you get when you order a 'small' meal - one of us orders a meal, the other just orders a burger, then all is shared. Better for both the waistline & the hip pocket... not that it was that expensive, but every little bit helps. Then a couple of photos of the large wind farm just outside town & of the 'Adult Shop' right next to Carl's... Petrol a little later in Barstow (forgot to buy glasses!), & onto the freeway that took us towards & then past Las Vegas... we'll be there a bit later this trip, so no stopping this time
Once you're clear of Casinoville, the landscape begins to get more dramatic, especially when you cross the border into Arizona, where the mountains are formidable, but the carved roadway through them is incredible. Then into Utah, where the landscape becomes redder & there are echoes of the Grand Canyon & Arches National Park in the surrounding hills. We stopped in St George for petrol & In'n'Out Burgers, where Julia was given a hat & stickers. Trying to book accommodation at the North Rim or Kanab was both difficult & expensive, so we decided to just stay in St George & leave early tomorrow for the Canyon
This gave us some sightseeing time, so following directions from the Motel owner, we went up to Pioneer Park above the town, where large-to-huge red boulders & formations again made me think of Arches NP. A popular walking & picnic spot with great views of the town & the surrounding country. Looked great at sunset too...
And then... Walmart!! Ahh we've missed you, it's been so long. Nothing has changed - we saw some prime candidates for the 'People of Walmart' website even before we entered, you can still buy guns & nasty-looking knives & they have 20 varieties of... well, pretty much everything. The store attendant near the gun section was a bit concerned by us taking photos of bright orange & camouflage-pattern shotguns, but relaxed a little when we turned out to be a) Not homicidal gun freaks & b) Australians who can't believe these things are available in a supermarket. We bought jackets & hooded sweatshirts for our desert trip, t-shirts, personal essentials & some snacks for dinner (In'n'Out was still very much in, so we weren't really hungry). Helpful staff helped us spend about $180 with little effort, but I'm sure it was all absolutely necessary... even the popcorn. Forgot to buy glasses again!!
Back to the Econolodge, where Julia 'Macgyvered' my glasses into a functioning state, meaning I can type this without guesswork. We'll try some phone calls home, then time for bed
States travelled through: 4
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(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-02 10:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-03 10:16 am (UTC)At first, you feel guilty about leaving any on your plate - after all, there are starving children in Africa etc... In fact, there are probably starving children in your town/city who could do with a medium Whopper meal, or even the leftovers from one. But then you see how crippled & morbidly obese even the homeless are & you quickly revise that to maybe the leftovers from a 20 pack of apples/oranges/mango... if you can find any at a reasonable price
We found mango slices at a Trader Joe's in San Francisco. They weren't cheap &, unfortunately, they weren't really good either - incredibly crunchy & quite bland... not the way we of the South Pacific expect mangos to taste
Needed a 3 Musketeers bar & a Coke to get rid of the taste... that was cheap!!??!!??
Only a couple more diary entries before your wedding... What a day that was!!
(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-03 10:45 am (UTC)When we dine out locally we almost always take a box of leftovers away with us. Last night I had bangers and mash, and took away a container of mashed potatoes that will serve both of us at another meal. You'd think restaurants would want to increase profits by cutting back serving sizes to something normal. I don't get it.