Between 15th and 30th of July we covered 4226 miles in 6 states. Around the 25th it occurred to us to check whether we had a mileage limit on the rental car :-)
Here's my cool map of the Western USA showing our route etc.
:-)
On I-5 in Oregon we saw a sign instructing all Curtins to turn off the road.
"Our town" turned out to be little more than a truck stop and a diner (The
Curtin Kitchen). The owner's son came out to find out why we were
photographing the building. Apparently they get about 100 Curtins a year
stopping there ... we were amazed to learn that this 18-year-old had never
been out of Oregon.
Later, a couple of hours further south was one of the best sunsets we've ever seen.
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It was more, less, and the same as we expected.
We got up at 5am (if you knew us you'd appreciate how big a deal
this is!) to get down to San Diego for 9 for a trolleybus tours to
NAS Miramar (Fightertown USA).
As we got nearer San Diego (and hence the Mexican border) we started to see ominous roadsigns, roughly interpreted as "watch out for illegal immigrant families fleeing poverty in order to clean motel toilets in Los Angeles"
It was a bit tacky, but it was a great tour - we stood at the end of the runway and watched the F/A-18s doing touch-and-gos, then went to the Officers' Club where they were selling T-shirts and, believe it or not, running the "Top Gun" video! I especially liked the reserved car-parking spaces painted in squadron markings with the officer's callsign painted on the kerb.
Apparently the base has problems with people climbing the fence to go mountain biking and even rabbit hunting on their land. We were incredulous - I don't think you'd get a very good reception climbing over the fence of an RAF base carrying a gun.
On the way back to LA on I-5 that night the police directed giant
searchlights into the northbound cars. I guess we looked un-Mexican enough to
avoid being stopped.
We turned off I-40 to drive along historic Route66.
According to the detailed directions on Swa Frantzen's
superb Route 66 site,
this picture was taken between Newberry Springs and Ludlow.
We had a bonus visit as we drove across the California/Arizona line when we saw a sign to London Bridge. We knew it was somewhere in America but had no idea where until we found it near Lake Havasu City. The Americans thought they were getting Tower Bridge instead, but nobody we mentioned it to thought it was very funny ... I must say, the bridge looks a lot better in Arizona.
A friend just learned about the London Bridge case in law
school. It was perfectly legal and though the American purchasers complained
they had no recourse as they were not misled and had simply failed to
investigate properly. The Americans who attempted to buy the Eiffel Tower
could get out of the contract because the vendors weren't entitled to sell
it.
Personally, words failed me. We must have stood in silence for half an hour just gazing into the abyss. A lifetime of anticipation ("no photograph can do it justice") had prepared me for an intense spiritual moment, some kind of deep inner horror at the yawning openness.
In truth, I felt very little. It wasn't as big as I expected :-) The difference between looking at an image of the thing on a photograph, and actually being there, was comparatively small. It is beyond comprehension. I had no idea of scale, and even after spending some time there I had only a slightly better grasp of the immensity of the place.
A series of small experiences gradually gave us a better handle on scale: hearing a helicopter and eventually spotting a tiny, tiny speck (rescuing an exhausted hiker from Phantom Ranch); realising the tiny stripe across a Mesa is a major trail; and of course (and it may come as a surprise to the majority of Canyon visitors that it isn't illegal) walking into the canyon.
We were totally unprepared for the rigours of hiking in Arizona in July. It was 90 degrees at the rim and 110 in the river below. We hadn't brought any water. You may think this sounds stupid, and you would of course be right, but in Derbyshire it would've been OK, though it may not be a coincidence that (as far as I know) there are no signs in Derbyshire saying:
Don't pass this point without a gallon of water or you will die
We took about a hundred pictures of the Canyon. They are among our best photographs, but are nothing compared to those in books such as Grand Canyon: The Great Abyss. Some of the most beautiful pictures are from Spring or Winter: I guess we just need to spend a whole year there. Here are some which looked best on the screen:
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Monument Valley, Utah, is also ossum. The scenery throughout Southern Utah is
breathtaking, though Northern Utah is comparatively bleak.
Utah has more than its share of weird rocks. These were near Lake Powell.
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