| Start | Reizen | Digi foto's |
| Inleiding | Wetenswaardigheden | Deel 1 | Deel 2 | Deel 3 | Filmpjes | Foto's |
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Friday 8 September: via a transit in Detroit, we arrrived in Las Vegas. Our hotel, the Excalibur, consisted of a big, mostly white, palace with the casino and restaurants surrounded by 4 big ‘Royal towers’ with the hotelrooms. We had a big room with a big bed and a nice view over Las Vegas airport and the south of the Strip.
Saturday 9 September: for those people who know the iceshop concept of “choose ice (taste and amount) + choose toppings (chocolate things, fruit, candy, ..) + sauce (caramel, chocholate, strawberry, ..): replace ‘ice’ by ‘frozen yoghurt’.., that was our breakfast. The rest of the day we read at the the swimming pool. The swimming pool had very few parasols, later we learned this was because they wanted us as quick as possible back in the cool shade of the casino. Foto: Las Vegas, shopping mall |
| Sunday 10 September: Strip-day ;-). We started at our neighbour: Luxor. A big piramid covered in black glass and two towers next to it, all full of hotel rooms. The interior of the piramid was hollow and they put some facades of ancient Egypt architecture in it. And off course a sphynx in front of it. The next casino was the Mandalay-bay casino, known for it’s big pool parties and it’s seaworld attraction: a big walk-through aquarium. After breakfast (after the first day we grow into the habit of ordering just one meal, sometimes with something small on the side, for the both of us) we went to New York New York, a very nice scenic casino, the statue of liberity and a roller coster in front of it. Inside they created a cozy atmosphere with small streets and restaurants. Next stop was Paris. Here we had coke/coffee in something trying to be typical French café. The Eiffer Tower was placed with one foot at the Strip and the other three in the casino. So what else shall we copy? Let’s do Venice. Oh, but on the ground floor we need the casino’s, so let’s put the gondoliers with the water on the first floor. We saw a great canal with lots of gondoliers and a very nice created plaza, all under the blue sky with some clouds painted on the ceiling. We had lunch at the canal listening to the opera performance of two singers in a restaurant nearby. It turned out that Venice is the biggest hotel in the world (2012) with 7000 hotel rooms. Next in line Treasure Island (via a ‘very happy’ fountain) with two pirats ships in front with during nightly shows shooting at each other. Next to that we circled around the vulcano of the Mirage complex (stupidity has no boundaries here) and continued to the Berlagio complex with a nice series of high powered fountains in front of it, playing a tune every so often and blowing water in the sky. Very pretty, it looked just like the one in Dubai (Maarten: dit is een zin van Bas). Last casino to visit was Caesers palace, which was very busy in the casino area. |
Bryce |
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Monday 11 September , shopping day. We also decided to ask for another car, without transmision problems. We could choose “one of those cars in that line”: 20 cars, which one shall we take? “The red one!” someone exclaimed. So, we now have a red car with an on/off button but without a back windscreen whiper. For the guys: a Nissan-Altima. Everywhere we came we heard (good) music (view of Bas: there was noise everywhere and it never stopped), no clocks, no seats (only behind the casino toys), everything to cover your gambling needs. Psychologists are hired to advise on things like the colour of the fishes and the type of music, to enlarge the profit of the casino’s. On avarage one person will give the casinos 150 dollar profit during a visit. Las Vegas has 2 million inhabitants and 40 million visitors a year. Just above 50 people a year will leave Las Vegas with a profit of more than 200.000 dollar. There are alsos of shows in Las Vegas (either Cirque du Soleil something, cabaret, music or strippers). We were very much in doubt wether or not to attend a show (since they are very expensive and we have seen lots of shows) and in the end decided not to spend 140 euro for a show (two tickets) but spend a maximum of 50e gambling. We never reached the gambling-machines, since one hour (10e) of gaming-machines (dance, snowscooter, shooting etc) turned out to satisfy our needs. We finished our evening with very tasty pancakes in the New York New York complex.
Las Vegas by night |
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Tuesday 12 September: after a 2.5 hour drive we reached Zion Canyon. A green valley wedged in between steep cliffs of reddisch rock. Climbing out of the vally on the way to Bryce there were spectacular views of the cliffs with many horizontal lines sculptured into the landscape (unfortunately I hardly made any photo’s of that). After 1.5 hours we were close to Bryce and stayed in our first motel.
Wednesday 13 September: Bryce. This park with mostly reddisch pillars was a beautifull place and we walked around if for some hours while watching the nice constrasts of the green pine trees and the red rock. As the ground drops and rises we saw different layers of rock, each having their own colour, so there is quite some variation. When you have seen the Sallandse heuvelrug you haven’t seen anything yet. Foto: Natural Bridges |
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 | Thursday 14 September: Capitol Reef Park. The reef is a rift streching north to south for hundreds of miles and in this area some beautifull cliffs were cut out, Petra-style. When we were there we were just ahead of the rain and because the rock is very hard there is almost no delay between flash floods and the rain, so normally your path is in the valley where the water also goes.., hence we couldn’t do that walk, but we did another one: climbing to Hickman Bridge on the edge. There we had some fun with chipmunks which came very close by when Kirsten changed her SD-cart which was in a plastic little bag (read: could have contained delicious nuts as well). When we came back at the parking lot the rain started and we went on to the small Natural Bridges park a couple of hundred miles nearby. This park, although very small with a loop-drive of approximately 15 miles, was a very pleasant surprice. The park was following a meandering river. The loops of which had come so close together that the water had cut through to the next loop creating a natural arch. Eventually the arches are cut all the way and collapse. Lucky for us we visited the park in just the right era. The three arches were seen from above and you could walk down for a close-up. As most of the rocks in this area were cut in smooth curves by the river we had to look carefully to spot them. The landscape was beautiful and we enjoyed our walk to the first bridge (going halfway down) hillstorm very much, then we realized that one particular thunderstorm was getting a bit close (how do you get Kirsten quiet for up to 40 seconds: count the time between flash and thunder) and we deceided to hurry back. We didn’t really make it in time, but we saw most of the hillstorm from inside the car. The second and third bridge we saw in between the next two thunderstorms, but at least we saw them, and fortunately the first was the prettiest. Last stop of the day: finding a hotel on the route to Monument Valley. Our choices were the ‘awfull' Kayenta, the ‘dead-quiet' Mexican Hat (gids zei “doodse”) or the ‘lovely' Bluff. Bluff wasn’t on our route, so we settled for dead-quiet, situated next to the San Juan River in a field of huge sombrero shaped rocks. The restaurant wasn’t the best, but our hostess was nice and the room was ok. |