17.7. - 1.8. - Laguna Beach - Las Vegas - Zion - Bryce - Capitol Reef - Boulder - Denver - Arches - Canyon Lands - Antelope Canyon - Lake Powell - Grad Canyon - Sedona - Laguna Beach

17.7. - Laguna Beach – Las Vegas
In the morning we had a lot of fruit, as we still had a lot to use which was nice. We drove to the bank and packed our stuff and were on the road again around 11 am. Again we were impressed by the gigantic freeways and the huge cars. Especially crazy are the RVs which are as big as a regular bus and also look like one, and sometimes they tow a hanger half the size of the RV or a Jeep or SUV for small trips around the camp ground. It is crazy! Our first stop was the “Mad Greek Cafe” in Baker. We had an actually really great Gyros there. Except for the Mad Greek there is also the biggest thermometer of the world there, but it was out of order. The next stop was already Las Vegas, with all the crazy hotels. We checked into the Luxor hotel, which involved 30 min queuing. It's a huge pyramid and everything kind of Egyptian style, but they also had a temple in there which looked a bit more Mayan to me. Then we had a long walk along the “Strip”. It was crowded and a bit annoying that many times it was not possible to cross a street on the ground level, but it was necessary to go up on a higher level and then down again. The hotels there are really crazy, to use that word again, but well, it describes the situation best. When starting to look for food we had to realize that prices had gone up quite a bit and so we ended up eating pizza slices in Paris. From there we decided to walk back which was not a long way but took us an hour. Back in the hotel Radka and I wanted to have our free beer we got coupons for. But they wanted to see an ID first. I showed them my student card, but they did not accept it. I asked them why they even ask us and they replied that they have to ask anyone who looks 40 or younger. Well, so we had to go up to our room on the 14th floor to get our passports. Then we got the beer. When we sat down on a table right next to the bar, a woman came and wanted to see the IDs again, as she is responsible for the tables. I told her that we just had to show it to the bartender, who was standing right next to us, but of course she wanted to see them. We also took another beer with Sylvias coupons before going to bed.

18.7. - Las Vegas – Zion – Hurricane
In the morning we went down to the Starbucks in the lobby to get a coffee for 5,5 USD and took it to the room to have it with our own picnic breakfast. We checked out using some kind of check out form, which went faster and drove down the strip to see the parts we've missed the day before by car now. We continued to St. George a typical Mormon town, where we visited the visitor center. We had to ourselves out of a tour they wanted to give us and fortunately managed. We had lunch in town, some huge sandwiches, and continued until Springdale close to Zion national park. There we had a coffee with the famous bumble berry pie. Then we entered Zion on a Bus, as cars are banned nowadays. It's a very nice park and we did a short hike at the “Temple of Sinawa” in the narrows through the river. We also did a small hike to the emerald pools where we saw a tarantula living right next to the path. Then we went to Hurricane where we checked into our hotel.

19.7. - Bryce – Capitol Reef – Torrey
After breakfast we drove the drivable part through Zion over a pass towards Carmel junction. The drive was very nice! Then we entered Bryce Canyon.We had a picknich at the so called amphe theater and visited sunset and sunrise point. It was very nice! Then we drove through grand staircase of Escalante and had a really nice espresso in the Kewa coffee house somewhere after Escalante. It is a spectacular drive! We continued via Boulder mountain towards Torrey. We went into the visitor center of the Capitol Reef national park and then entered the park. We drove all the way in and hiked for about 2 miles into the gorge. Again it was a great place we liked a lot. We also drove a bit into the great wash, but did not hike there, as it was a bit late and thunderstorms were on their way. If they hit, spring floods might occur. It was a very nice atmosphere with the dark clouds. After leaving the park we had dinner in the Rim Rock Inn, with a view of the big wall in the park. The light was missing but it was still nice with the dark clouds. We also saw a lot of humming birds at the restaurant and the food was great. I had pork and we shared a pitcher of pale ale. As a desert we had a pecan pie which was delicious. Then we had a drive through Torrey already in darkness before checking in at the Days Inn.

20.7. - Badlands – Boulder
After breakfast we drove direction Hanksville to the north through the badlands. Very nice landscapes! There was also the factory bute, a nice hill and everything looked a bit like on the moon. We skipped the goblin valley due to time constraints and had a stop on the highway 70 at the St. Raphael Swell view point. We had to turn around on the highway to save us quite some miles to get to the second view point where we had a lunch picnic, before continuing east. Later on the highway, Sylvia was a bit nervous because at first she thought a police car was going after her. Fortunately, it stopped the truck besides us. We've only been 3 miles over anyways. We hit a shop in Fruita and had a salad in Grand junction at Dannys. We had ice cream and then drove all the way to Boulder, Colorado to Derek, Whitney and Lucas. It was very nice to see them again and Lucas, their son, actually for the first time. We had dinner in their house, chicken burger, kinoa salad and beer. It was fun.

21.7. - Boulder
After a relaxed breakfast we planned our trip on to Sedona and Sylvia made some hotel reservations. After that we went on a trip to the mountains. We had a picnic up there and then did a small hike to a historic cabin. It looked like Austria up there (Almen). We had a break there until it started to rain a little which motivated us to walk back. The rain, fortunately, did not get stronger. When we reached the car we dropped the plan of going to a lake nearby because Dereks car had an almost flat tire. We made it to a gas station to pump it up and made it down to Boulder. We walked around in Boulder downtown. A really nice place. It's a vary green city with a lot of students right next to the mountains. We started looking for a place to eat but when we would have had to wait for 45 min. for a table we decided to go to another one. We ended up in a nice Mexican restaurant where we had Mageritas, after showing our IDs again, and great food. I had a long and fun discussion with Derek about eating beef and we decided to meet in 10 years to discuss again. He is certain to meet fat-Bernhard then, because of eating beef. After that we went home and went to bed early.

22.7. - Boulder - Denver
After breakfast we went to the NCAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research. It is a great place with a lot of nice and interesting exhibits. The building itself is also a site by itself as it was built by I. M. Pei. Woody Allen once repelled down one of the futuristic looking buildings in the movie Sleeper. In the basement they have a huge supercomputer and famous Seymour Cray once installed one of his computer there. In the lab they also have a mobile phone tour available, where you call a toll free number and enter the number of the exhibit of interest to get more information, a cool idea. Then we went to Denver to the Museum of Nature and Science. First we visited the minerals and gems section which displayed some great pieces. Then we had a small lunch in the cafeteria and continued to the space odyssey which was also nice. I especially liked the story of the spiders and fruit fly experiment, which spent half a year on the ISS. Then we had a brief visit to the native American cultures section. Back in Boulder we had a beer in the St. Julian hotel (again only with ID) which was nice. We moved on to a nice restaurant where they also had good beer in pitchers half price. I had a slow roasted pork sandwich was great. After that we had a sight seeing or actually house seeing drive through Boulder with Sylvia and Whitney. Then we went shopping groceries and beer. Back at the house Sylvia drove on to the hotel right away to get some sleep, while we stayed in the house having beer with Derek and Whitney. It was a nice evening first on the terrace then inside because of rain. It was fun! We went to bed around midnight and were feeling that we are no in shape anymore, beer wise.

23.7. - Boulder – Moab
After breakfast we said goodbye to Lucas, Whitney and Derek and left around 10. We had a stop in Georgetown along the highway. It is an old mining town and was nice. We had another stop in Glenwood springs to have lunch in the Village Inn. Unfortunately, the service was incredibly slow which cost quite some time and also their promoted peacon pie was far from „the best“. Near grd. Junction we left the highway towards Cisco. Cisco is a very small pretty much deserted village and it was a cool atmosphere there. The approaching thunderstorm added to that. We drove on through Castle Valley, named as such, because the roch formations look like castles on top of hills. Combined with the thunderstorm it was quite dramatic. After that we arrived at Arched National Park. Our first stop was the balanced rock which we got to see in an amazing evening light with dark thunderstorm clouds in the back. We also went to the arches near by. We did not have the time to walk to the delicate arch, which was not in light any more anyways. A reason to come again in this great park! Then we drove all the way back to the Devils Garden where we again had great lighting until the sun set. We had a nice dinner in Fisesta Mexicana in Moab and then checked in at the Riverside Inn.

24.7. - Moab - Bluff
We started the day early and drove another time into Arches. This time straight to Devils Garden to hike to the Landscape arch. Really amazing this fragile huge structure. Then we continued to Canyonlands National Park. First we drove a short bit into the Schaffer Trail, which is going all the way down into the vally, though you'd need a 4x4 to go all the way. We drove on to Dead Horse Point which is a seperate state park, where we had to pay extra. It is a cool place where suddenly the plateau dropps dramatically down. In the distance we could see two lakes which were artificial and belonged to a pot ash plant. Looked nice though. We had many more stops on the national park road and at the end of the road we had a small picnic. We drove on to a view point that overlooked Green river and also drove to the Upheaval Dome. That was an awsome rock formation where no one really knows how it came into existance. There are several theories though. One more we drove to Moab and bought some food supplies before continuing to the southern part of the park. We drove to the needles viewpoint which was nice but left away the anticline timewise. We had a short drive through Montichello to see their Mormon temple and continued to Newspaper Rock. That is a rock full of petroglyphs. It is supposedly old but not clear how old. Besides us and a few other tourists was also a huge photography team, of about 15 people, three huge trucks and several other cars, to shoot a picture in front of the newspaper rock, of nothing else but, beetroot. We drove a bit further in the valley but soon returned because the next thunderstorm was on its wayand it was getting late. Again we stopped at the newspaper rock because I had to ask what it was about. Well it was an advertisement for a Japanese mayonese company. We had dinner in Bluff in the Twin Rocks Cafe. The food was great and it was nice to sit on the terrace with lots of humming birds around. We drove on a bit to check in at Jim's Recapture Lodge which had swamp coolers. After check in I walked down to the San Juan river to také some sunset pictures, which was nice.

25.7. - Bluff – Page
We had an early breakfast and had a brief stop at the Mexican Hat, another fampus rock. Monunent Valley was more or less a drive by shooting. We had a short stop at the Burger King with it's Navajo Code Talker display and continued to the Antelope slot canyon. We had to pay 6 USD each to enter the parking lot and another 40 USD each to get on the obligatory tour. Unfortunately we had to wait for an hour for the tour to start. It was boiling hot and we had a very brief snack in the car. Then we went to the very small waiting shack. It was packed with people and it was even hard to find a spot to stand in the shade. Right next to it parked the tourist trucks with seating in the open back part with roofs. On one of the trucks were a young guide and the girl selling the tickets sitting. I asked them if we coud take a seat on one of the trucks in the shade. He said yes, she said no. I asked again and then he said We could sit togehter on a truck and talk. Thats what we did. He was a young funny guy and we had a place to sit. When others later came to ask again she denied them to sit anywhere on the trucks. Weird. Finally, the tour started and many of these trucks were going to the canyon. It was madness. So many people, one group after the other entering the canyon like each minute. Still the guide was very ambitioned to have us take nice pictures with throwing sand up to enhance the light beams in the canyon. But it was always a rush as the next group was already waiting and other groups were going back the same way. Then our guide showed us his gecko catching skills and how nice they work as ear rings. We drove on to the lower Antelope canyon, which used to be freely accessible, but now it was also limited to tours which again cost 20 each. We skipped it. We went on to the Glen Canyon Dam and to the Wah Weep Marina where all the tour boats leave for Lake Powell trips. The trips were pretty expensive and as the light was pretty flat it was even less interesting. We went to the Dams' visitor center where they had nice pictures of the construction which took place in the 50s. It was also quite impressive that it took 17 years to fill the lake. We went to the hotel to check in and had a Margerita at the bar. Then we went across the street to Ken's Salon where I had beef ribs wich was great. There was also nice live music.

26.7. - Page – Grand Canyon – Sedona
We had a breakfast buffet and had a lot of different things before starting the day. First stop was the horse shoe bent of the Colorado river. That was a great view! We also went to the anticline wall view point and went on through the painted desert. Then we had a stop at the Cameron trading post where they have a restaurant with a nice tin ceiling. We went on to the little Colorado where the Indians ask for a donation at the parking lot. Radka donated some more, by buying a dream catcher there. The wall there consisted of pretty big rocks and it looked nice. There was even water down in the river. Then we drove on to the Grand Canyon. At the first viewpoint was a huge watch tower. After enjoying the view standing next to the tower we also climbed the tower with the masses. It started to rain and we had lunch in the car at a viewpoint, with view out of the car. We went on to the grand viewpoint where we stopped of course. Then we went all the way to the Powell monument which involved Sylvia following a car to get passed the barrier. It was raining on and off but sill the canyon was impressive! We had a small stop in the El Tovar lodge, where Sylvia usually spends her Christmases. Then we continued down towards Flagstaff, taking a detour at Valle. Then we continued towards Sedona through the Oak Creek Canyon. A very nice route. Finally, we arrived at Walter, an old friend of Sylvia, in Oak Creek Village near Sedona. We had a nice relaxed evening with Paprika Händl (chicken with red pepper).

27.7. - Sedona
We had a relaxed breakfast in Walters nice house and then went up Schnaebli road, which one can only go up with a 4x4, in Walters Jeep. It is a nice view up there and it was amazing how many tourists went up there by the Pink Jeep tours. At times, it was almost like a convoy of these great looking jeeps. Radka and I also did a small hike up a small rock where we met a snake, which triggered excitement in me and fear in Radka. :) After that tour we drove into Oak Creek Canyon and had a stop at the river in Junipine, near a natural slide, where Walter often goes to take photos with his amazing (historic) photo equipment. We had a lot of blackberries there. It was strange that right along the path everything was loaded with blackberries but no one was eating them. That wouldn't happen in Austria. Then we had a stop at Indian Gardens to have sandwiches and coffee there. After that we went shopping for a huge Letcho, which mainly Radka prepared, but I helped cutting a lot. It was a great dinner and the evening we spent watching the (prerecorded) Olympia opening ceremony.

28.7. - Sedona
After breakfast I went swimming to a public pool with Walter and Sylvia. Radka was to tired and relaxed in the house. We had a short stop in a second hand shop, where Sylvia and Walter bought a vase and a drinking bottle but I did not find a jacket or anything else that would be worth carrying it for the whole journey. Back home, Walter showed us his self built motor sailing model planes and his dark room. The dark room was impressive. He had so much great equipment and he does a great job using it. He also showed us his old cameras he still uses with huge slide formats. Then he showed us some pictures of his WW2 army training on Planneralm and the Kemeterhof in Haus im Ennstal in the early 40s. We again had Letcho before visiting the neighbor Don. He is a really nice guy and quite a character. He showed us his solar power panels which he likes because they work for him. He used to own a pool hall and he told us about the “pool hall rule” he learned from another pool hall owner where he had worked before, which made his also a success. From that times he still has a Rowe jukebox. He also put up quite some of those in other places. It was fun to select songs on the jukebox. We had beer and he also told us about his rat hole theory. You always gotta have another rat hole, not only one. So that was why he had also other business besides his pool hall. Later we went back to watch the rest of the Olympic opening ceremony.

29.7. - Sedona
After breakfast we visited another neighbor, Tony (from Schwaben, Germany) and her husband. They had a enormous hose which other people of the area, and also they themselves, would considder small. There was a TV with Olympic games on, in every room. It was fun to see that and talk to them. Then we went all together swimming again. After that we had a short stop at the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona which was built by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright and is indeed a really nice place. Back home we had lunch and siesta. Later we drove to Oak Creek Crossing and cruized around through the area. In the evening we had a BBQ and Walter prepared some huge delicious steaks, some 2 inch thick, to show us the American way of BBQ. Before we had the BBQ there was an amazing thunderstorm and a bolt of lighning hit right next to the house. Leter we watched some Olympia before going to bed.

30.7. - Sedona – Laguna Beach
Right after breakfast we said goodbye to Walter and drove to the Sunset Crater near Flagstaff. The black lava fields are quite impressive and we had great lighting there. After that we had some short stops in Kingman and had lunch at the Dam Bar and Grill. Another stop was the funky gas station where we refueled. We had another stop at Seligman where Radka was successful finding a skorpion key ring she wanted to buy already earlier but didn't. We also had a short stop in an Outlet center where I stocked up boxershorts and Radka got a T-shirt. We also had lunch there and it was it was there that I realized that my credit card was blocked. Then we drove through to Laguna Beach where we arrived late after 3700 miles of driving. We watched a famous TV show of a comedian at 11pm, which was fun and then went to bed.

31.7. - Laguna Beach
We spent the day planning our trip up north and I was trying to find out why my credit card was blocked. Apparently, someone must have copied it and used it in Mexico. The interesting thing was that this happened right now and not weeks ago when we were in Mexico. I guess it was copied in the US. We researched lots of rental car options and Sylvia had to fix some problems with her tenants. Except that nothing exciting happened that day.