Bright Light City

We spent two nights in Las Vegas. It is what you expect - really busy (the traffic is nuts!) and bright and exciting. The photo above shows one of the hotels - Caesars Palace (apart from the street in the photo,it is ALL just Caesers Palace!). We really liked our stay. We stayed in a casino hotel (of course) about a mile as the crow flies from the strip. It was not one of the bigger resorts with only about 1,850 or so rooms. It did provide a free shuttle to and from the strip though more often than not there were more people waiting than the bus could actually handle.

We wandered the strip and checked out a few places though it is still really hot here at this time of year. On the first night we managed to get tickets to Cirque Du Soleil's "Mystere" at Treasure Island. This show was brilliant - so good that instead of taking in a musical (there are dozens of shows all over Vegas to choose from) we decided to take in Cirque's latest, "Zumanity", billed as the show showing the sensual side of Cirque Du Soleil. It had a R18 rating. What a contrast and a disappointment. Zumanity is just awful rubbish. Certainly it is for adults with lots of bad language, constant reference to sex, semi clad people and a drag queen as an MC. We expected a lot of this. What we didn't expect was the lack of circus performance. There were four or five acts you could call circus related, including a contortionist, two topless and very flexible women swimming in a giant champagne glass and a couple of aerial performances that we could not see because the balcony blocked the view. The rest of the show was a series of acts whose only relevance was that they were related to sex (though the relevance of the two men play fighting in a cage was totally lost on us). We think most of the cast are erotic dancers not circus performers. Honestly, if we wanted something like this, we could have paid far less to visit a strip show which would have done it better. Despite the high ticket price, a number of people walked out and we considered it but waited, hoping it would improve. It didn't. Shame.

Zion National Park

Forget everything we said before. Zion National Park left us astounded and speechless (and left Jenny more than a little nervous in some places). The natural rock formations here have to be seen to be believed. We were there, we saw them, but I am not sure we believed them! Watch this space for more.

Zion is a "must see" in our opinion. Regrettably we only had time to ride through it - there is much much more only accessible if you take the free shuttle further into the park. With this option, there are also what appear to be some brilliant hikes available. We just did not have the time which was disappointing. Once again, the phots do not do it justice but check out the hole ion the rock in the photos. This was one of the ventilation and light shafts in a vehicle tunnel that extends a mile through solid rock.

What A Hole

As we checked out of the hotel in Flagstaff, we ran into another biker – Mike from San Francisco. Mike, who rides a Ducatti, generously invited us to stay with him if we were in San Francisco. It turns out he has been to New Zealand and one or two people were nice to him so he wanted to return the favour. Mike is an ex Navy diver and spent some time in Papua New Guinea – as did we. Ric’s Dad and an Uncle are also ex US Navy so we had some things in common to talk about.

The Grand Canyon is … well… grand. It is huge and beautiful and awesome and has to be seen to be believed. We rode there from Flagstaff on a cool but cloudless day to arrive at the Grand Canyon mid morning. Beware! Some of the businesses our out to fleece you! We stopped at McDonalds for a coffee and were charged US$4.50 for two very mediocre cups of filter coffee. We also had to pay $24.00 to enter the Grand Canyon National Park but to be fair, this was for a 7 Day pass. A single day pass is not an option.

As we approached the Grand Canyon, Jenny became more and more nervous. She is not at all comfortable with heights, or more specifically, she hates big and sudden drops. And guess what? The Grand Canyon is the biggest, suddenist drop on the planet. Yes, the views are nothing less than stunning and while you should check the small selection of photos on our site, believe us when we say that these in no way do this geological masterpiece justice. For sure, you cannot get any sense of the sheer depth of the canyon. Jenny was brave enough to get reasonably close to the edge to get her photo taken but you can see she did not enjoy it. In fact, two seconds after the photo was taken she was on the other side of the track – as far from the edge as she could get, clinging to the fence. She was not alone. It does take a lot of courage to confront your fears like this and she did very well.

We left the Grand Canyon but as the road followed the canyon edge for about 25 miles, Jenny had a death grip on the pillion passengers panic rails the whole time. In fact, her fingerprints are now permanently embedded into the plastic. We stopped at one of the scenic viewing stops for another look at the Canyon. We should mention that this is Navajo Country and the Navajo have set up stalls at every scenic spot selling jewellery and ceramics made on the reservation – really nice stuff, too. We had just pulled up at one of the spots when our new best friend, Dan from New Jersey turned up. Dan had been riding almost as long as we had and seemed genuinely impressed that we had clocked up so many miles and had been riding for so many days.

We bought some Navajo jewellery and said goodbye to Dan and headed off to follow Highway 89A – a designated Scenic Highway. Again, check out the photos we took, especially at Marble Canyon. While Ric was admiring the beautiful surroundings, you can see that Jenny was praying that this ordeal from Hell would end soon. On the other side of the Canyon, we filled up on gas and spoke to the Ranger who tried with only limited success to assure Jenny that the road ahead was really pretty good and that the chances of her dying were actually pretty low. He didn’t help.

Painted Desert

We rode to Flagstaff, Arizona from Cortez via US 491. The only reason this is significant is because apparently it is the deadliest stretch of highway in New Mexico! We didn't find out about that until we stopped for fuel and coffee and saw an article about it in a local newspaper. It used to be called Route 666 - aka The Highway to Hell.

We rode through the Petrified Forest National Park which also contains the Painted Desert. Both are well named. The Painted Desert is just full of colour changes while the Petrified Forest is literally an old forest (obviously the trees have fallen down) which has become petrified. It is very eerie seeing acres and acres of petrified logs (sometimes entire tree trunks)lying about. While it is illegal to remove anything from these National Parks, someone told us the National Parks Service estimates they lose up to a ton of petrified material a day to souvenir hunters.

We also managed to find - and ride - some sections of the legendary Route 66 so added yet another great experience to our trip.

Reaching For the Gods

We feel like we have run out of adjectives because we have over-used expressions like "awesome" and "fantastic" but once again, we have been left awe-struck by some of the things we have seen. We did leave Durango and managed to stay dry for the short drive to Cortez. After one look at the bluffs of Mesa Verde, Jenny decided she was not going up there on the motorcycle! Imagine being at 6,000 ft and seeing vertical and near vertical cliffs that rise another 2,000 ft. That is the first sight of Mesa Verde and the road into the park (which goes for 20 miles or more) clings to the sides and tops of some of these bluffs much of the way. It is definitely not for those afraid of heights or vertical drops - and Jenny is uncomfortable with both! Mesa Verde was home to the Ancestral Puebloans - native Americans whose origin is not exactly known. Some say they are descendents of the original inhabitants - the hunters of the sabre tooth tiger and woolly mammoth. They established villages - pueblos - in a number of areas including Mesa Verde and they are intriguing because they built masonry structures - sometimes 3 and 4 stories high - in the sandstone overhangs high on the side of the mountains. The group that established in Mesa Verde lived there from around 850AD to 1280 AD and then they left. No-one is quite sure why they left but one theory is that the weather patterns changed, adversely affecting their ability to grow sufficient crops.

We were once again lucky with the weather on this visit because while it was pretty cool at the top, at least the sun was shining. The following day, it was cold and wet and miserable in Cortez and the surrounding area and we believe they had snow on the top of Mesa Verde. We kept the rental car for a second day in Cortez as once again, we decided the weather was not great for motorcycling. We did do some exploring including a visit to the Four Corners monument - the only place in the USA where four states meet - and to the ruins of another Ancestral Puebloan group.

We left Cortez this morning (it is October 7th) and rode to Flagstaff, Arizona via the Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert. But that is the next instalment. While the sky was cloudless the whole way, it was a really cold start - we had ice on the motorcycle cover this morning - and it took till the middle of the day for it to really get warm.