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Friday 15 September: after half an hour drive the Mexican hats had turned into actual Mesa’s and Butts (Mesa’s being wider than high, Butts the opposite). Many old western (plus a more recent Clint Eastwood movie) were shot in this area. We entered the Navajo-controlled park and drove the circular route past the monoliths in 27km (2 hours). Afterwards Bas wondered if he was actually allowed to take the car into this park, as on some streches there was almost no ground clearance (read: we touched down thrice). The view of the restaurant was one of the best so far and the Navajo food was excellent value for money. We drove on to Chinle and walked an one hour tour down and up the canyon using a wonderfull and almost natural descent to see one the ruins of a former Indian manor house against the cliff-side.
Saturday 16 September: first stop was Painted Dessert. It took us a lot of time to find it on our maps (since it was not on most of our maps). On the other hand Petrified Forest Park was found on all maps. Turned out that the visitor center of Petrified forest was the same as painted dessert: painted dessert was just on the north side of Petrified Forest. Unfortunately the painted dessert was not what we (Kirsten) expected. Halfway down the (south) park we stumbled upon an area called Tepees which was a hill scene with lilac and white striped rocks in it. Now, this is what a painted dessert should look like. At the southern edge of the park the Petrified Forrest layed scattered around the hills (threes sulked up sillicoin with water eventually petrifying them). On the way to the exit they actually checked the carrs as one block the petrified wood has a high market vallue. |
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And then…, when Bas was a little boy...8 years old…he read a lot in “a book” with lot’s of info on geology and among others it contained a picture of the Arizona Crater. So 40 years later this crater had reached legendary status in his mind, so off course we had to go there. For those we didn’t read ‘the book’: it’s just a stupid piece of nickel and iron plummeting out of the sky some long time ago (een meteoor dus). The Meteor Crater had it’s own highway exit as it was the only thing in the area. The road to it had a maximum speed of 50 miles an hour, but meteors were allowed to go 35.000 miles an hour. The Crater was green on the inside and they put down some telescopes in fixed positions to help you see some items like the steam engine (lier) next to the shaft drilled in the center where they tried to find some remnance of the core. For meteor craters this one was quite big, however we have been walking around vulcano craters quite a bit larger. Still a dream of still a little boy came true. Dinner was great too: a real American T-bone steak and spare ribs for Kirsten plus a salad bar. Let’s describe the salad bar: ice cream, fruits, salads, taco’s and filling, monchou-dressing and chocolate pie (and ‘broeder’ as well)/ it seems that anything not meat is salad here.
Sunday 17 September: Grand Canyon day. The Colorado river is a 2330km long rivier, crossing 5 states and flowing among others through the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon park covers an area of 4856 square meters. At some places the canyon is 1829 meters deep and almost 29km wide. Before they builed the Glan Canyon dam, creating Lake Powell, the river would carry 500.000 tons of sand a day through the canyon (that’s a lot of sanding). We didn’t particularly care but geologist loved the canyon as the exposed layers cover about 2/5th of the age of the earth (as the Colorado river cutt through the rock, tectonics pushed up the rock ceating the canyon, which is why canyons with this depth are so rare). We visited the south-eastern part of the canyon and walked down a bit to the ‘Ooh-Aah viewpoint’ and a lower point. The trip should have been 3-4 hours, but within 2 hours we were already up the parking spot. We walked one hour at the rim of the Canyon and then deceided to fill our stomaches with strawberries and little-hand-made-pizza’s on the way back to Flagstaff. Off course we ended up in the same restaurant as yesterday. |
Grand Canyon |
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Monday 18 September: in 2.5 hours we drove to Page/Lake Powell, coming though the gap in the little village Gap. First stop was the Antelope Canyon, which we saw a couple of days ago in a flyer. Arriving there we saw lot’s of tourists and we read it was only possible to see the canyons with a guide and group, which kind of ruins our days so we drove on, one canyon more or less who cares? So we went to some viewing points of Lake Powell. This lake has been created by the Glen Canyon damm which has been build in 1959. It took 17 years to fill the lake, which makes you wonder if this was really usefull. Nowadays the talk of the day is the weather and the lack of rain and good winters (more meltwater) as the basin does not fill up fully anymore. Some also worry about the changes in the ecosystemen (water temperature raised confusing the fish, lack of flash floods and transport of sand downstream). Note that this dam has been build to serve for a period of no more than 300 years ;-), tourism grow and grow, and quite recently it was proposed to the Congres to demolish the dam. It was rejected which only a few votes in favour. Back to the viewing points: it wasn’t that great. A bit downstream from the dam the river curves 300 degress and creates a beautifull picture point with the blue and green of the river and the red of the canyon wall: horsehoe bend. We loved it, it was an unique view. The rest of the day we enjoyed our time at the hotel pool and Lake Powell overview panorama restaurant.
Foto: op vele plaatsen kom je ze tegen. |
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Tuesday 19 September: in 6,5 hours we drove from Page (west side of Las Vegas) to the Death Valley (east side of Las Vegas), stopping on the way to have lunch with pancakes in New York New York Las Vegas. The first 600km went smooth to the Death Valley so we deceided to add some more km to see the Death Valley already in the diminishing temperature. We visited 6 points of interest, unfortunately the first two points were the best ones: Zabriskie point (a beautifull overlook over the yellow and different kinds of brown hills) and the Golden Canyon (a nice hike in 38 degrees, the warmest we had so far. But then this tis he Death Vally which has to keep up it’s reputation). The max temperature measured by our car sensor was 43 degrees, so a cold day in paradise/hell. The highest temperature ever measured on earth was 59 degrees in 1913, 10 July in this Valley. The valley attracted gold and silver diggers, but in the end the extraction of borax made the area rich. The other points of interests we saw here were: Devil’s Golf Course (a salt lake where the crusts had curved up to create coral-like structures), a natural bridge (not that interesting), the Artist’s Drive (a nice roller coster ride, American Style -no hiking needed, you don’t have to exit the car to see the points of interest-) and the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes (almost no direct sunlight anymore, which might have affected our appreciation). Our motel in Beatty was called ‘Exchange Club Motel’, our diner was in a look-alike “Buurman-pizzaria restaurant of Groningen” with a nice atmosphere.
Foto: Death Valley |
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Wednesday 20 September: travelday to Yosemite Park. Nice winding roads through the lower parts of the Sierra Nevada. We arrived in Lee Vining at about noon and preceeded to visit the salt structures of the edge of the Mono Lake. The lake was being fed by streams and had no exit, so it was kind of salty and salt structures formed at the bottom of the lake. Later San Fransisco started to tap the streams and the water level of the lake dropped bringing them into view. We had a lovely walk here. The restaurant afterwards promised steaks cooked to perfection, in contrast to the restaurant next door which had the text “We can’t guarantee that steaks would be cooked as requested”, and we were lucky the spare ribs were at least good.
Thursday 21 September: Yosemite park has four entrances. Three of them are open all year round. The fourth is almost always open from start of May -sometimes end of July- till November. We found that the elevation of the passes is such that when it rains there it snows and the passes fill up quickly with snow and ice sheets and got impassable. According our travel guide the avarage days of rain in September is 2. One of those two days was Thursday 21 September, hence the pass was closed. We went to the visitor center and found that the thrird north was open and the others were all closed and that more rain was expected in the afternoon. So again we had a beautifull scenic drive through the lower Sierra Nevada and we’re halfway up the pass when it started to snow. We couldn’t see very far but it was a beautifull area to drive through and we were lucky we left early. Driving south again we finished our 4 hour detour and took up residence in the Groveland hotel near Yosemite valley. We had the haunted room and got for some reason a big discount. In the late afternoon we visited Hetch Hetchy lake in Yosemite park. We had diner in a Mexican restaurant eating come kind of fajitas plate which was great. |