DAY 17 - 20 Gallons of Blood

Our first full day in Vegas!

We decided to have a relaxing day today since we had been driving such far distances for the past week or so. We spent our morning by the pool at the Rio, swimming in the pool and having to sit in the shade as it was so so hot!

The hotel has 3 free pools, all in different shapes. We particularly enjoyed the one with a waterfall!

After it got too hot outside, we returned to the indoors of the hotel for the afternoon. After sharing a burger king for lunch (there's not much cheap food available here in the hotel!), we returned to our room to update the blog and sort out finances and accommodation, after our stint in Arizona with no WiFi. We knew we'd be out late in the evening, so a quick afternoon rest/nap for me was in order!

Well rested and dressed for the evening, we headed out around 7pm to catch the shuttle to the strip. This time catching the shuttle to Harrah's, we got a bit lost inside there and the Quad: neither of which seemed as nice as our hotel! We checked out the Paris for a quick spot of gambling, but were disappointed by the apparent lack of free drinks this time! We headed back over to the Excalibur for dinner, this time snapping a few photos on the way such as the New York New York below. 

For the first time in 13 years, we got Popeyes chicken and biscuits for dinner, delicious as ever, then headed to the floor in the Excalibur for a bit more video poker. And this time, the house didn't win! We spent 3 dollars to make 5, and got 2 drinks for free, aw yeah! Happy with our success, we claimed our money and headed back towards the Planet Hollywood hotel for our evening show.

We had booked 2 VIP tickets to see the Evil Dead Musical, involving sitting in the notorious 'splatter zone' which basically involves having fake blood being thrown over you for 2 and a half hours! We were given our souvenir t-shirts to 'protect us' (like that worked) and taken to our seats, where we were somehow given the center of the front row! I had a bad feeling about this...

The show began and was hilarious, it had a really low budget feel with cheesy costumes and regular breaking of the fourth wall to acknowledge the tongue in cheek script. Filled with terrible puns, dance routines and hilariously written songs, we were pretty much constantly laughing or screaming. And why the screaming? Because we were having that 20 gallons of blood thrown all over us.

Out of everyone in the splatter zone, we proudly took the awards for most covered with blood. Mum, because in the first act she was chosen as the one to have one characters intestines spout all over her for about 3 minutes, covering her head to toe! I laughed considerably at this, but then in the interval it became my turn...

One of the actors came to the stage to chat to the crowd, and upon finding out I was from England chose me to stand up and have my photo taken. I had even more of a bad feeling about this and stood nervously as the count down for the picture ticked down. Facing the audience and unable to see the stage behind me, someone snuck up and poured an entire cup of blood over my head! Now totally covered in the cherry-coke-smelling stuff, I did at least get a free poster and mug!

The second act continued in  much the same way, only with more blood. By this time, we were pretty much immune to it! I won't ruin any story-line, but I will say that I can thoroughly recommend anyone seeing this show if they  get the chance! And to definitely get splatter zone tickets, but not to wear your best clothes! Their website is http://www.evildeadlasvegas.com/ for anyone interested.

The show finished at 2am, and after an odd walk through the strip covered in fake blood, we returned to the hotel on foot and luckily were allowed back in! The blood proved a little difficult to wash off and as we speak all our clothes lay drying around the room, trying not to get any red anywhere....

DAY 16 - VEGAS, BABY!

For day 16, we woke up to a beautifully hot day in Jacob Lake, Arizona. After fresh peaches for breakfast, we began our journey to Zion National Park. Arriving in a town called Springdale (kinda like Stockdale!) on the outskirts of the park and after a kerfuffle with the main car park being full, we were able to catch a shuttle bus into the park. With over 3 million visitors per year, Zion is one of the USA's  most popular state parks and so cars are not allowed within the canyon during peak season: instead we ride the shuttle back in and out with a recording giving interesting information and stops to explore some areas by foot.

In the panorama we see a view of the Court of the Patriarchs, 3 mountains named after, from left to right, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (the white peak just visible behind the redder one in the foreground).

Something I (Jessie) was excited to see were the narrows, an area where the cliff faces come really close together so the path through the canyon narrows to only a river which you can walk upstream through. But apparently I had never read up on this and the route into and through them involves an 8 hour hike which requires relative planning, uh oh! So instead we take the roughly half hour hike to the entrance of the narrows and have a peek down there, me making a promise to come back in the future! We saw plenty of squirrels along with dragonflies and lizards, though unfortunately still no California Condor!

After a few hours in the park we decided we had had our fill as it was getting to be one of our hottest days yet. We stopped for a mega-salad at a deli back in Springdale, only eating half and saving the rest in the cooler! Continuing on, we joined the I15 for the 3 hour drive to Vegas. Part very straight highway, part super windy mountain roads, we witnessed again the slightly crazy American  driving style of slow on straight roads, 20mph over the limit on bendy hills. Over taken by everything, including massive trucks, in the hills, I was then able to do a bit of catching up on the straights, though mum refused to stick her tongue out at the cars we caught up!

As we hit Nevada, the landscape changed to undeniable desert with casinos every 2 minutes! The road into Vegas was a little scarily busy, but nothing compared to the grand exiting of Salt Lake City (see: 2 days ago) so I obviously handled it like a pro and before long we arrived at our lodging for the next 3 nights: The Rio Suites Hotel and Casino.

Parking in what turned out to be the worst choice of car park, though we thought there was only one, we wheeled our suitcases all the way through the massive Rio hotel looking for the registration desk. We went through parking lot, shops and casino before we were finally in the right place. This place really is massive!

Upon check in, we headed to our room to find this place is not only the tower you see above, but also a whole extra tower where we have our room. The room is much bigger than we expected, and you can see it below:

2 queen beds, a sofa and an armchair, a dining table, a large dressing area with wardrobe and a sizable bathroom, our room has floor to ceiling windows with a grand view of the strip which we are just off. So far, we can thoroughly recommend this as a place to stay in Vegas. With a free shuttle to 2 hotels on the strip, it's slightly off strip location is no problem as we are roughly the same distance from the strip's center as you would be staying at a strip hotel at either end you also get a great view of the whole street from the room. 

So, our evening. After the second half of the salad for dinner, we explore our hotel's own casino for awhile, doing our first bit of gambling with 1$ in a one-armed-bandit! We don't win however :(

We headed out on the shuttle to the strip: heading first to Planet Hollywood for collection of our show tickets for tomorrow night (more on that next time!), where we take a look around their casino and shops, buying some delicious brownies for dessert! From here we take a walking trip down the south end of the strip: exploring the amazing New York New York, Excalibur, Luxor and Bellagio hotels. We walk/ catch free trams between these and wow they are amazing! In the Bellagio (where we really wanted to stay but alas, very expensive!), we decide to do a bit more gambling and sit down to play a little video poker. Margaritas in hand, which like all drinks in the casinos are free so long as you are gambling and tip the waitress $1 or so, we actually manage to make ourselves $5! Amazed at our luck, we decide to try a few other games but apparently we are only poker wizzes as this causes us to lose our money again. But oh well, free margaritas and fun!

After a lot of walking around the strip, we have tired feet and after a brief excursion to see Caesars Palace and a little watch of some street  hip hop acrobatics, we catch the shuttle home and head off for bed, me very excited for a my first trip lie in the next morning!

DAY 15 - THE GREATEST EARTH ON SHOW

We leave Richfield early as it is quite a long drive to The Grand Canyon and we want to spend some time at Bryce Canyon on the way.

Bryce Canyon is a drive through park and you can stop at all the picturesque spots along the way.  We see a Peregrine Falcon on top of one of the rocks.  The Aquarius Plateau is phenominal.
It is also fairly cold up here and we have to put on hoodies but being a hardy Brit Jane is still in her shorts.
The Native Indians call the tall mounds of stone Hoodoos (people turned to stone by a Coyote god).  We get loads of great photos.

After lunch on the road we drive on to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  We park up and view the smaller Roaring Springs Canyon first then walk 100 yards to the Grand Cannyon itself. It is totally awesome.  I thought it would just be a large barrier where you could look over into to canyon but we are surprised to find that there are lots of trails and quite dangerous climbs you can make to get a better look into the canyon.

Being late afternoon there are no crowds and we are able to climb around to our hearts desire.  I did feel a bit sick when Jessica got up onto the rock above as I realised there was just a sheer drop over the back of it into the canyon.  

We were able to spend quite some time at the canyon as we had gained another hour today and were now on Pacific Time as Arizona does not observe daylight time.  

Before leaving we attended a talk about the Californian Condor.  This bird became almost extinct in the 1980's but numbers are now improving.  They are quite an ugly bird a bit like a turkey vulture but larger.  They have a nine foot wingspan.  However, they only lay one egg every two years and do not have much idea of nest building.  The survival rate for chicks is only around 30% so I don't see numbers increasing much any time soon.

Eventually it is time for us to leave the canyon to find our accommodation for the night at The Jacob Lake Inn.  We have rented a tiny log cabin in the woods and it is extremely nice despite its small size. We have dinner in the nearby Jacob Lake Inn Motel and then go to a very informative talk about the Navajo Indians.  

DAY 14 - UTAH-KIN' TO ME?

We had waffles and juice for breakfast in our motel and then filled up with gas at the filling station next door before setting off to Salt Lake City.  The journey takes about 3 hours.  Jessica has set up the SatNav to take us to an underground parking facility right in the centre of the city next to the Church of the Latter Day Saints Administration Building.  It is so easy to get to and we are soon parked up ready to go sightseeing.

It is lunch time so we go into the food court of the large shopping area and get enchiladas to eat.  We then go to look around Temple Square.  Brigham Young's house is called The Beehive and we get a guided tour from two young girls who are Mormon missionaries.  The house looked quite small on the outside but was large and fairly luxurious on the inside with all the rooms set out as they were in the nineteenth century.  The girls tell us all about the Mormons arriving at the Salt Lake in around 1840 and the building of the city.  They also tell us a bit about the Mormon beliefs and show us the Book of Mormon.  At the end of the tour they ask if we would like them to telephone us in the future so we can ask them questions about the Mormon faith.  They are happy to telephone anywhere in the world apparently.  Jessica and I look at each other and both say "no thank you" and beat a hasty retreat.

 

The Temple
                
We then go and have a look around the Visitor Centre where there is a model of the Mormon Temple (we are not allowed to go into the actual temple).  We also go into a building called the Tabernacle which is a bit like a church with a stage and an organ.  There are seats for an audience so we go sit down expecting some sort of organ recital. Instead there is a girl on the stage ripping up paper and dropping pins.  As we do not understand what is going on we decide to leave.

The city of Salt Lake is very immaculate and clean and looks like a wonderful place to live.  Everyone seemed very happy to be there.

We leave Salt Lake City to drive to our motel for the night which is in Richfield, Utah.  The journey out of Salt Lake is horrendous with five lane carriageways completely filled with cars and lorries travelling at well in excess of the speed limit of 65 mph.  At one stage we notice a set of metal stepladders which seem to have fallen off a lorry into the lane between the carriageways (a pile up waiting to happen me thinks).  Anyway Jessica is driving and she seems to be managing OK although we keep to the speed limit.

Half way to Richfield another thunderstorm develops so we decide to pull over into a filling station to wait it out and fill up with petrol.  The storms here are not like those in the UK, they are over quickly but vast amounts of water come down making it virtually impossible to drive safely.

DAY 13 - Some Old Geyser

For our second day in Yellowstone National Park and surrounding areas, we began with a breakfast of waffles and juice/coffee, before taking the drive back from St Anthony to the park. Taking the southwards route through the park, we very quickly saw our first ever geysers!

We stopped at the lower basin to view some geysers, which came in all shapes and sizes (and bad smells!). Beautifully blue water sending columns of steam into the sky, how wonderful nature is!

In addition to the geysers at the basin, we also saw the fountain paint pots: pools of mud type liquid bubbling ominously and again steaming. 

 One other excitement at the basin was some sparring Buffalo! As you can hopefully see in the photo below, 2 were in a kind of headbutt joust competition, running around the plain. No buffalo were injured in the making of this blog.

After the lower basin, we drive on past more geysers, headed to the most famous of all: Old Faithful. This geyser erupts with water every 90 minutes on average and with our luck at Rushmore before, we thought it unlikely we would get to see it. However, on arrival we saw scores of people waiting around the barriers and within 3 minutes we got to see the geyser erupt! A tower of water was thrown up about 3 storeys in the air, surrounded by steam. It certainly was very impressive and we high fived for our good arrival time! 

In celebrtion, it was certainly lunch time! Making some microwave ramen at the local store, we grabbed some apples for dessert ad head off to Yellowstone Lake. Here we took a brave trip down a steep hill to stand by the lake shore, which was vast. We even got to see a miniature hot spring up close!

After the lake we took a trip out of Yellowstone and into Grand Teton national park just south. We visited a relatively famous town called Jackson Hole which we hoped might be full of interesting history but in fact turned out to be full of uninteresting tourist rubbish! We speedily went onwards towards our destination for the night of Idaho Falls, with Jessie tackling her first mountain to drive up and down (I did excellently, of course). We decided it would be silly to visit Idaho Falls without seeing any falls so we took an evening walk from the river bank outside our hotel down to the falls, which were rather impressive, especially as we could stand on a ledge right at the drop. 

After steak for dinner, we have returned to our room as usual to book accomodation, and of course blog!

DAY 12 - PLENTY OF BUFFALO BUT ALAS NO BEARS

After our free breakfast at the motel we head out to the Little Bighorn Battlefield again.  We purchase an $80 annual State Park pass as we are going to be visiting quite a lot of State Parks in the next week.  We only have an hour or so here so visit the Museum to read up on the history of the battle between Custer and his 7th Cavalry and Sitting Bull and the two tribes resisting the forced move to reservations.  Then we go out the the battlefield itself where headstones mark where each soldier was slain.  Over 200 soldiers were killed  because they were totally outnumbered by the Indians.  Custer made a monumental mistake by underestimating their force.  There are signs in the grass warning us not to wander off the paths due to rattle snakes in the grass.

We leave Little Bighorn just before  for our onward journey to Yellowstone.  We drive to Red Lodge, Montana to drive the awesome "Bear Tooth Highway".  This road winds up through the mountains to the top of the world.  There is hardly any traffic so we have a great time negotiating the hairpin bends.  

The temperature drops steadily as we reach the summit.  We park up and get out to take photos and admire the breathtaking views.  We are at 11000 feet. 

Along the roads are the snow markers because in winter the snow up here can be many feet deep.  There is still some snow up here even now.  We then descend the mountains and enter Yellowstone by the North East entrance.  It is not long before we see wild buffalo at the side of the road and at one stage (while Jess is driving) a loan huge buffalo walking in the road which she has to slowly maneuver around being careful not to startle it  as they have been known to headbutt cars doing quite a lot of damage.  

We also see plenty of deer and steaming hydro-thermal springs at the side of the road.  There are many beautiful lakes and rivers.  We were hoping to see a bear (well at least I was, Jess was not so keen!), but unfortunately all we saw were signs telling us to "be bear aware".

We stop for lunch eating our left-over boxed up pizza from yesterdays dinner.  There is a buffalo in the clearing to the side of our car.  Some guy has set up his tripod and camera about 7 meters from the buffalo.  This is way to close in our opinion - the park rules say you should not get closer than 23 meters.  However, the buffalo just keeps munching grass oblivious of the photographer.

We carry on driving around the Grand Loop to the West Exit which will take us on to our stop off for the night - St Anthony, Idaho.  The accommodation in the park is far too expensive so we are staying in a motel just outside and will come back into the park tomorrow for more sightseeing.  St Anthony is a pretty small town with a few gas stations, restaurants that shut at 9 pm and our motel.  After checking in we use the Wi-Fi to book accommodation for the next three nights and then get a Chinese takeaway for dinner.

DAY 11 - Mount Fogmore

Day 11 saw our trip through South Dakota, into Wyoming and Montana.

We woke up to a surprisingly foggy day, rather annoyingly since our towel and bikinis were outside! Hanging these on the back seat of Carl (the car... have we mentioned his name before?), we head off for a morning of sightseeing!

Arriving at Mount Rushmore, having paid $11 to get in, we were a little surprised to find out it was a little less... distinctly carved than people say, i.e. it looked a little like this:

Can you see it? No, neither could we. Unfortunately it seemed Mount Rushmore was covered with fog and there was nothing we could do about it. We hung around for a bit, seeing some chipmunks and even a goat but alas, no presidents. The fog actually seemed worse when we left! So there you go folks, how many people can say they went to Mount Rushmore without seeing Mount Rushmore?

Continuing onwards, we headed for the scenic and very windy Iron Mountain road and Needles highway. Our first (but not last, oooh spoilers!) trip up into mountainous areas, this was super picturesque with many wooden bridges and terrifyingly narrow stone tunnels. The views from the top looked out to the famous name-sake needles of rock:

The final sightseeing stop of the tour was the Crazy Horse monument. Luckily, as you will have seen from the photos, the fog cleared to a beautiful day! The Crazy Horse memorial was very impressive despite its lack of completion: the project of one man and his family for over 4 decades run only from donations and viewing fees, the statue of important Native American Crazy Horse dwarfs Mount Fogmore. With no date for completion, we are not sure when we will be able to see this project completed but for now we could see the completed head and underway arm of Crazy Horse pointing towards his peoples lands. 

From here, we took off on a race against the sunset to Montana, trying to see the monument to the Battle of Little Bighorn before days end. We managed to gain quite a bit of time on our way out of South Dakota, through Wyoming to Montana. 

In Wyoming, I (Jessie) took over the driving for awhile. However, within 10 minutes of this we began to get rain. And within 30 seconds of this, we caught the worst storm either of us have ever seen! Before I had even had time to put the wipers on full, I could see not 2 feet in front of the car for the torrential rain. With massive lightning striking the sky, I pulled onto the hard shoulder, quickly to be joined by a bunch of American cars, just in time. We sat, pretty scared, for the next 15 minutes as golf ball sized hailstones rained down on us! The road was entirely flooded and the noise deafening, we even experienced a 30 degree Fahrenheit drop in temperature! Eventually the hail stopped, but the roads were covered in ice! Mum bravely took over the reins, and we slowly moved onwards, with the road eventually clearing and Carl seeming ok. 

A little traumatised, we nonetheless still wanted to beat the now returned sun to Montana, so we raced on! With no more natural disasters, we arrived at the battleground a little after 7pm with the sun still out to find the site closed at 6pm, gah! We therefore made plans to find a nearby motel and return in the morning.

Heading to closest town Hardin, just off the Indian Reservation we had been travelling through, we luckily found a vacancy at the first motel we tried and settled into our new room for the night. With Pizza Hut for dinner, we planned our next day with great difficulty due to the unforeseen expense of Yellowstone lodging. We couldn't possibly end the day without one more crisis however! On heading out to get the sat nav (Clint) from the car (Carl), we noticed that our dear Carl had not quite got away from the storm as unscathed as we thought. His bodywork is pitted all over with the marks of hailstones! Hopefully we shall have pictures in a later blog, but he is undeniably dented all over D:

Let's hope the insurance covers it! Dammit Carl!