Parks of the Southwest USA 2002-05-13 to 27: the story

Monday 13  —  Arrive in Las Vegas

Robert had been to Honolulu for the Annual General Meeting of the International World Wide Web Conference Committee (of which he was a founder and is now its Treasurer).  This gave an opportunity to take a break and see the parks again which he visited 20 years ago (May 1982).  Susan flew in from Geneva via Frankfurt, and met Robert in Los Angeles in the late afternoon.  She gained 9 hours and Robert lost 3.  Then they both flew to Las Vegas, from where the trip would actually start.

Late in the evening we arrived in Las Vegas airport, but without Susan's luggage! We took the shuttle to the Aladdin hotel.  We strolled around, and found a wonderful Arabic "village" complete with evening skies under cupolas, where we ate in a Mexican restaurant.  Why not, everything here is high-fidelity fake.

There was some stress because of the missing luggage:  if it did not arrive in time, then we could not go on, but all hotels had already been reserved and some had little or no room left on other days.

Tuesday 14  —  Las Vegas - Grand Canyon

Susan's luggage arrived during the night, so all is OK! We rent a car from Avis, since they have an agency inside the hotel.  This takes an inordinate amount of time, as the guy at the desk gives priority to the telephone and also is seldom at his post.  I finally get through, and we leave but not very early.

First thing we do is to stop at a Safeway:  buy a cooler, ice, bread, cheese, mustard, water, napkins, plastic forks & knives, paper dishes and more such stuff for picnics.

We stop in Boulder City and just a little further on at the Hoover Dam.  There is a time zone change here, but Arizona does not go on summer time, so it is still the same time as in California and Nevada.  Because of security, it is no longer possible to drive over the dam, nor to see it, unless you park your car in the (expensive) car park just before the dam.

We follow the route 40 through Kingman and in Williams go North up route 180 to Grand Canyon.  Because of the way the canyons were eroded in an almost level set of sedimentary layers, it is not possible to predict the canyon:  the surrounding landscape looks completely flat and uninviting.

We arrive at the park gates, buy a National Parks Pass for 50 USD, which will allow us to enter all the parks on this trip for a single fee.  We get to the Maswik lodge well before sunset.  Then we take a peek over the rim.  There are California condors! A keeper wields a device to capture signals from the electronic tags that are attached to each bird.  The birds have recently been released in the wild from a captive breeding programme.

It is no longer possible to drive along the South rim drive: population pressure has caused the park service to provide a shuttle bus service.  Buses run every 10 minutes, so it is easy to go to any of the overlook points, see the scene, and hop on the next shuttle.  We do this and stop at several points.  We witness sunset at Hopi point, but due to the absence of clouds and the general haze, it is not spectacular.

We have a strange dinner in the Maswik cafeteria, which is the worst Robert has ever experienced in a park.  The air conditioning is so strong and drafty that eating there is unpleasant.  Robert insists on a glass to drink his beer.  There are only "plastic glasses" says the waitress, but she will (and does) get him a real one.

Back in the room, we open the bottle of Australian wine that Allan gave me in Honolulu, to discover that it is a sweet dessert variety.

Wednesday 15  —  Grand Canyon - Holbrook

We go out again to the rim.  Mules are ready to take tourists down into the canyon.  Breakfast of eggs, bacon, mashed potatoes, fruit juice, and "coffee" in the El Tovar hotel.  This is excellent (El Tovar was Robert's first choice for lodging, but had no rooms free).  In the tourist shop we buy our postcards.  There is lots of Indian jewellery.  A special design called "man in the maze" is very attractive and would please Susan if it were a pendant rather than a belt buckle.  We drift back along the rim, stop at Lookout Studio.  Suddenly Robert realises that we may have to hurry if we want to be in time for our canyon flight.  We check out, drive fast to Tusayan where the airport is, and find we are well in time for the plane.  It's a De Havilland Twin Otter, similar to the one Robert once took to Los Alamos, but with much larger windows and 19 seats.  We have the front row (Robert booked this flight a long time ago).

The flight is well worth it: spectacular views and a sense of how big the canyon really is.  The path goes over the North rim and then back.

It's now almost noon; we drive back up into the park, to the rim and then east to Desert View where the Watchtower is.  Here we eat a salad, shoot pictures and leave the canyon via route 64, stop at Little Colorado Gorges, then down via 89.

We make a stop in Wupatki, and actually drive through the whole park.  This is very interesting.  The road has taken us away from route 89: to get back onto it, we pass through Sunset Crater park.

We avoid Flagstaff, go back onto 40, through Winona.  Before Winslow we go off to see Meteor Crater, which is a private park.  There are many boasting signs along the road, one of them says "Prototype for all impact craters".  The visitor center has very much improved since Robert was last here in 1982:  there is a lot of information about the geology, comparisons with other impact craters elsewhere on the planet.  There is even a simulator were you can choose the size, weight and speed of your meteorite and see what it does to the Earth (for one setting the Earth gets destroyed completely!).

Finally we arrive in Holbrook.  By coincidence, the Adobe Inn turns out to be the same Best Western motel where Robert was before.  There is not much else in Holbrook anyway.  The "city" has seemingly lost much of its activity:  several places seem abandoned.  Fortunately there is a good restaurant just next to the motel.  We enjoy the food and the setting.

Thursday 16  —  Holbrook - Gallup

We leave at leisure, enter Petrified Forest from the South.  There is a special tour with a Ranger (Rita Garcia).  She takes us off the paths into an area where we can pick up things and study them.  She talks about the fossils, the age (Triassic: before Jurassic), what you can and cannot do as a visitor to the park.
But she should NOT do US propaganda!   Lots of people from the US South in our group, one wearing a "God bless America" t-shirt.  We get sunburnt in Crystal Forest.

At Newspaper Rock it is again obvious how much tourist pressure has changed what one can do:  we cannot get to the rock, only view it from a high-up platform through binoculars.  But Robert has a photo of it from his 1982 trip.

We leave through the north:  vistas of Painted Desert.  We walk around in the Painted Desert Inn which has a nice ceiling of painted glass panels.  On to Zuni.  Find yet another road that is not on the map: none of the maps have been any good in their details. 

We buy Zuni jewelry in Zuni.  Search for a "man in the maze" pendant, but though the desing is present on a few ornaments, there are no pendant forms.  There is a very small museum of the Zuni.
We try another shop too, but leave it at that.  This is New Mexico, which is on summer time so it's an hour later.

Arrive in Gallup.  The Ambassador motel is really low-end!  Nothing really unacceptable, but somewhat depressing.  Robert's fault:  could not know from the www page through which he reserved, though the price offered should have given it away.  There is a TV on a wall bracket, with the space for luggage beneath it.  Twenty years ago, also in Gallup, Robert hit his head against such a bracket and had to go to the hospital...

The road through Gallup is the legendary Route 66.  Across it from the motel runs the equally famous Santa Fe railroad.  Robert films an incoming Santa-Fe train.

Then there is the problem of finding edible dinner.  We cruise around a long time in search of a suitable restaurant.  This lets us discover quite some nice, unexpected neighbourhoods on the hill.  Finally we end up on Route 66 in "El Rancho", which serves a nice dinner (Robert eats too much again).  This place is old.  It served as a hotel for film stars during the 50's (westerns).  All rooms have names of stars: Ronald Reagan, John Wayne,...  As the Ambassador is just down the road, we decide to switch to this place to sleep.  First we are given the "John Wayne" room, where the shower does not work and there is again an ominous big bracket for a TV (with no TV).  The plumbing stinks (literally).  We obtain another room ("Mae West") which is OK.  Gallup does not seem to agree with Robert, even 20 years on.

Friday 17  —  Gallup - Chinle

This is going to be a long day:  we need to go through the Navajo and Hopi reservations, the Hopi mesas and reach Chinle.  But part of the road will be pretty bad and all of it will be slow.  Robert thinks we will gain an hour because we return to Arizona, but the reservations are on summer time!  What a mess.

Things have changed however: the road surface is good (except for one little stretch).  We drive through Window Rock and Ganado.  Here we stop at the historic Hubbell Trading Post (still functioning but also a park).  There is an auditorium.  A Navajo woman shows rug weaving.  A class of kids takes a Navajo history lesson from a video tape.

There are oil wells on the Navajo range.  We get to the second mesa, up into the village on the top.  There we enter a shop, and see more silverware.  No "man in the maze" pendants here either.  But they have a good selection of big katsinas (katchinas).  Robert asks for one to keep his enemies away.  The first proposal is 450 USD! A second one is only 45 USD.  He buys that and a book.  The woman advises us to go back to Polacca to join the road to Chinle, rather than take the route Robert was planning to take.  We do this.  The road is quite lousy, but we make it.

Chinle has grown.  Twenty years ago there was only the Thunderbird lodge and a gas station.  Now there are several hotels, supermarkets etc.  Very much accrued pressure again.  The receptionists at the Thunderbird Lodge are totally disinterested in tourists, they do their job like robots.  The rooms are standard.  The restaurant is usable, though not good.  Navajo carpets are on display.  One goes for 5'000 USD.  The restaurant is built around what once was a large "safe" where goods were kept in the trading post.

Saturday 18  —  Canyon de Chelly

We have a full-day tour of the canyon.  The trucks still look the same, but instead of being alone on the trail, there are many others including private tour vehicles and vacationers in private cars.  After about two kilometers into the canyon, the truck breaks down.  Battery failure:  the terminals are completely covered in sulfides.  Another truck is called up, arrives, the mechanic replaces the battery, but we all have to sit in the replacement truck and make the tour in that.  The guide (Vinni) is good, but he keeps the tourists under control.  He will not let us out of the truck except at specific places.  Hence Robert cannot make panoramas where he likes:  a few good opportunities are lost.  He complains about it, and gets satisfactory replies but no extra stops.  The other people on the tour are quite nice, the lunch is edible, the sights good. Filming from the moving truck is impossible.

Sunday 19  —  Chinle - Mesa Verde

Leave Chinle early.  We decide that we will skip Aztec ruins if we don't get to Shiprock before lunch (12:00).  Of course, as we go back into New Mexico, we gain an hour.  No, we don't, because we were in a reservation in Arizona...

The Chuska mountains are in the way, so either we attempt to cross the pass (Robert tried that unsuccessfully in 1982) or we go down South around and up again.  This is a long way with nothing much to see.  The road signs are not very good:  at one junction there is no sign from the direction we come, so we miss it and lose half an hour.  Up 666, past the geologically famous Ship Rock, through Shiprock city, where we do arrive in time (ten minutes left to noon!) for our decision.  So we go to Aztec.  Disappointing:  much less impressive than Robert remembered.  We just have a look around and press on to Mesa Verde over Durango.

It's a long drive up into the Mesas.  There is a spectacular view at "Far View".  We arrive early enough, and though the park newspaper warns that tours in the ruins are booked full, we can actually get in on two of them:  Cilff Palace and Balcony House.  In 1982, Cliff Palace was closed for maintenance.  We check into the lodge and then drive down the Chapin Mesa.  The weather is not too good, a rainstorm threatens.  Worse than that however is the fact that one needs to go down a steep path and climb up a ladder again for the visit.  Susan declines to go.  Robert goes with a small group led by a ranger who knows a lot about Indians and the archeology.  He gives an excellent talk, though aimed at a very large section of the general public.  We spend an hour in Cliff Palace.  Actually the ascent on the ladder is not too difficult, but the group has its share of rather overweight persons who pant and wheeze at the slightest effort.  Then we drive to Balcony House for Robert's next tour.  A different ranger, but much of the same group.  One of these is a "pipe carrier", i.e. a native Indian involved in rituals!  Balcony House is very interesting as there is much more left:  roofs, stucco with paint on it, large beams, etc.  To get out, we need to traverse a tight tunnel and then climb a set of steep ladders.  Apparently quite a few people "freeze" here for fear of heights.

Finally we go around some more:  square tower, Spruce tree house, pit houses on the mesa.

Then dinner in the Far View Lodge:  excellent!

Monday 20  —  Mesa Verde - Bryce Canyon

We leave as early as possible:  the drive is calculated to be long.  We decide to skip Hovenweep.  Into southern Utah.  Gas needed in Bluff, where we buy some lunch (there must be more plastic wrapping in this shop than food) and mail the postcards.  Stop at Gooseneck Gorges (San Juan river) which is worth seeing.  A little further there is the Mexican Hat rock, very famous but not very interesting except that it is so close to the road.  Into the Navajo reservation again, but by now we have abandoned setting clocks.  Approach "Marlboro Country".  But it takes a while to find the entrance to the Monument Valley park: the orientation on the map seems strangely out of phase with what we observe.  Too many photos.

On through Kayenta, off the 160 onto the 98 to Page.  A long drive takes us to Page, past the Navajo power plant.  Page has grown too.  The dam has a visitor centre.  A short excursion to the Wahweap campground on Lake Powell.  This is Robert's miscalculation:  we should have stayed the night here because otherwise the day trip is too long.

Then along the 89 to Kanab and Bryce Canyon.  We get tired and hungry, so we stop in Kanab for chicken enchiladas in a local restaurant.  Very good, pleasant place.  This is like it should be:  uncomplicated food in a simple place.  We are now in Utah again.

We press on for Bryce, finding out that not only should we have cut this leg in two at Page, but that Robert miscalculated the distance by at least 80 if not 100km!  We arrive at Ruby's Inn when it's already dark.  This motel is not to be recommended:  very impersonal, no bar (Robert would have liked a drink after that drive!), and a huge shop which displays the largest collection of kitsch we have ever seen.

Weather forecast for tomorrow is bad.

Tuesday 21  —  Bryce Canyon

Bryce Canyon is not a canyon but a long, crazily eroded cliff.  We spend a lazy day here.  It was almost freezing when we went to breakfast.

Too many photos again.  Robert forgets the memory card of the camera, so we go back to Ruby's for lunch.  The buffet is not bad because you can at least choose edible stuff.

There is a nice walk to a stand of bristlecone pines.

What did we have for dinner?  Can't have been exciting.  Stay away from Ruby's Inn.

Wednesday 22  —  Bryce Canyon - Las Vegas

Frost on the motel roofs at dawn.  Service at breakfast is outright lousy.  Fill up, and off to Las Vegas.

We visit Zion.  Here too, one can now only take a shuttle bus to go into the park.  Lovely flowers, green trees, water, wildlife.

On to Las Vegas, where we arrive at the MGM Grand hotel.  This again is not to be recommended:  full of robots, you have to walk through the casino with the luggage to get to the room, the interior is not pleasant, parking is only by valet service.  It's so disappointing that we return to the Aladdin for dinner:  very good but pricey compared to what we get at home.

We go out to see the Bellagio (not as impressive as we expected), the Paris, Caesar's Palace (in need of renovation) and then back.

Thursday 23  —  Death Valley

First we go to "downtown" Las Vegas, where the original casinos still are (Golden Nugget etc.).  This part looks tiny compared to the newer part of the "strip".  We have a coffee and press on.

Death Valley:  we get in via the South entrance and go to Dante's view first.  Then to Zabriskie point and on to the visitor centre at Furnace Creek.  This is nice:  lots of stuff about the uses of borax which was mined here.  Drive down the road to the South part.  Badwater basin (there is actually water there) is the lowest spot in the USA:  86m below sea level.  Then Devil's golf course of course.  A winding road via Artist's Palette, the ruins of the Harmony Borax works (hey, we're in California!) and spectacular sand dunes (are there dunes not made of sand? Like wooden planks?).  Finally up to Stovepipe Wells where we have our room reserved.  The reception door says "RECEPTION -- Internet available".  It's cold enough in the evening that we don't have to run the air conditioner but just leave the window open.  There is a restaurant with a reasonable buffet dinner, but we have once more to ask to be reseated because of the draft and cold of the conditioners.

Friday 24  —  Death Valley - Sequoia

A long drive again:  we need to get around the Sierra Nevada (Mount Whitney is the highest mountain in the continental US at 4'418m).  We stop in Olancha for coffee which becomes breakfast (nice place with friendly people, but drafty cold air again).  Then an attempt at lunch in Visalia where we must be content with a cookie and a coffee.  Coffee in the US has improved a lot.

Drive into Sequoia via Lemon Cove and Lake Waweah, which is now full but was nearly empty when Robert was here in January with Allan Ellis.

Arrive in Sequoia National Park.  We visit some of the groves and the visitor centre, in an attempt to see it all today because tomorrow is a long drive too.

Arrive at the lodge.  Staffed by robots, who decline any attempt at conversation, especially after Robert's comment on bears.  He has to sign a "bear awareness" declaration.  Dinner is good, but the table is so greasy that our glasses literally stick to it.  The waitress apologises for hte house (it's not she who cleans the tables) and insists we get dessert free. The wine is good.  This is the most expensive room of the whole trip but certainly by far not the best one.

Saturday 25  —  Sequoia - Cupertino

We get up early, leave without breakfast and make our way to the coast.  This is another miscalculation:  it takes forever to get down to Fresno.  Traffic is heavy, the road is slow.  At lunch time we are still nowhere near the coast.  Finally we call David from Gilroy.

Robert tries but fails to get to the ocean in Santa Cruz.  With some help we do get there in the end.  It's windy and cold and overcast.  There are surfers though.  We try to drive up the coast, but the road is often too far away from the sea for a view.

Then we realise it's time to go to David's and we head inland to reach the 280 somewhat above SLAC, drive down to Cupertino and get to David and Shirley's place.

They invite us out to a very good Chinese restaurant where (again) we eat too much.  We spend some time in discussions, heading for bed after midnight.

Sunday 26  —  Cupertino - Geneva

Get up rather late.  Decide to pack the stack of books anyway rather than leave it to David to send them.  But we forget the battery and charger of Susan's camera and Robert's GSM phone.  We take the 280 north (over SLAC again), then the 380 across to the 101 at the airport.

Queues are long, response is lousy, security checks are irritating rather than comforting.  The plane leaves with more than an hour delay, but we do still get the connection in Frankfurt.  Needless to say the luggage does not arrive in Geneva (it is delivered later the same day though).

We ended up with 1801 photos and some film. It took far too long to put it all into this site: in fact Robert had to develop software to do the page linking automatically.

We hope you enjoy it, we did.