If you haven’t read it yet, you may be interested in the first part of our adventure: Westbound.
As we continue our road trip West, the roads are still very straight, but the formations on the horizon leave little doubt …
… we are now squarely in another mythical American universe: Western territory.
It’s childish, but the brightly colored, breathtaking scenery makes us feel like we’re walking right into a Lucky Luke album…
At the same time, we are shocked that the Native American reserves are set on such arid, desert lands. The native dwellings we see are precarious and poor.
I find a petrified tree just off the road, crumbling into pieces. I pick up a few slivers – pretty and surprising: they look like wood but feel and sound like stone.
But our biggest shock comes with our approach to the Grand Canyon …
… the most amazing landscape I’ve ever seen. The sheer scale – over 6000 feet / 1800m deep – is staggering, and thinking that one seemingly inoffensive river carved this is mind-boggling. Impressive demonstration of quiet, unassuming power, applied over sufficient time…
To get a concrete feel of the size of the structure, we decide to hike down to plateau point, about 3000 feet / 1000m down, where we can get a view of the Colorado river. From the top, the trail looks very far and small…
Although clouds make the hike less strenuous (even though I still drank 7 liters of water – almost 2 gallon), we hurry back as we are concerned a storm might be coming… I only brought one pair of shoes for our road trip – and really not the right kind for this type of hike! I almost destroyed them…
We continue to the next “larger-than-life” landmark of the West – man-made this time: Las Vegas.
As we cross the desert in the direction of Sin City, a first casino appears on the horizon like a mirage.
Soon, we are on the Strip, right in the middle of one of the most hallucinating artificial environment ever built, right in the middle of the desert…
The night glitters with bright colorful blinking lights and neons everywhere…
… and some of the craziness and excesses of Las Vegas are on display, like the possibility to get “instant weddings” – as long as you pay of course (but as “all checks are OK” you should be fine!)… This reminds me of the lyrics of the Eagles song “the doctor says he’s coming… but you’ve gotta pay in cash“…
[Technical note: the very limited capabilities of my film really show in night shots… and make me so grateful for the dynamic range offered by modern digital cameras!]
The casinos compete in kitsch promises to attract tourists – and their wallets!
Inside, the show goes on 24 / 7 / 365, sometimes literally above the heads of the crowd, and everything is done to keep people roped-in, and spending.
This is fascinating, but not our type of vibe. We hit the road again.
On our way out of Vegas, already in the desert, a desolated bar and its lonely cowboy feel quite spleen-inducing…
Onward, to another stunning and extreme natural environment, the Death Valley. We just passed an empty gas stations. A sign informs us that the next one is in 90 miles…
Surrounded by 3000ft / 1000m mountains, the Valley is actually below sea level. The heat is scorching. It’s a fascinating, other-worldly experience in a truly extreme environment.
As we leave this stunning but highly inhospitable place, we go through the most intense experience of our trip…
Although we have diligently refilled the car’s cooling water tank at every opportunity, it turns out to be insufficient: the head gasket of the engine blows (having a mechanical engineer on the crew is very convenient in such circumstances, at least for the diagnosis part!). It was already the evening… We decide to freewheel back down the valley to the closest source of water, and spend the night. Then, as according to my companions I am the best able to speak English of our lot, I am assigned to call our rental agency to deliver the news and request/beg for support… For a long time, the Philadelphia employee I finally manage to get a hold on just refuses to believe our story, telling me “Come on now, stop bullshitting me, just tell me where you really are so we can help you”. After a semi-local garage turns out to be particularly unhelpful, we have to force the car out of the Death Valley – another couple hundred miles – in order to get proper support – even though we know it will “finish” the engine. Eventually, we are able to get a replacement, brand new car (the price tag is still on!). This gives us opportunities to talk with many truly fascinating people, but this adventure costs us 2.5 days…
We are very relieved to get back to civilization, and human-friendly natural environments.
The Sequoia National Park is another larger-than-life American experience. It contains five of the 10 largest trees in the world, including the General Sherman, largest tree on Earth by volume, and estimated to be… 2300 to 2700 years old! Walking among these old giants is a humbling experience. As we are camping, we have to be particularly careful to not attract bears, which apparently are quite fond of the food tourists bring!
The Yosemite park is another “must stop” for us… Being able to contemplate the scenery so famously immortalized by Ansel Adams sends shivers down my spine…
The El Capitan rock face, highest in the world (close to 3000 ft / 900 m!) is particularly impressive.
I wish we had the luxury of spending ample time to explore the park and see these magnificent landscapes under a variety of weather conditions and light but after our Death Valley incident we are unfortunately particularly rushed, and we will need to be contented with fairly basic snaps.
Still, a couple hikes enable us to explore some of the highlights – we are in awe of nature.
Camping next to a beautiful river, we are so surprised when we actually find gold flakes in the sand! Sifting the sand is fun, imagining the pioneering gold-seekers and their adventures…
I really want to come back!
But we need to move on, toward the next milestone of our journey: the West Coast!
Didier.
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