Monday 23rd March: Las Vegas to Death Valley

Not such a long journey, 160 miles, and all through desert. The hectic outer limits of Vegas fall away after 30 minutes driving and the traffic reduces to occasional vehicles. It’s all scrub desert, with almost no buildings. We’re climbing very slowly on a vast plain flanked by distant mountains. An hour along the road, we pass an airbase with a pilotless drone manoeuvring over it. A photo shot fails to capture it, but maybe that’s just as well as we are now flying along the southern edge of what was the most secret aircraft testing area in the States. This was Area 51.

 The long, straight road seems to emphasise the empty isolation of the region; it’s the perfect place for secret testing. Most of the USA’s cutting edge aircraft were tested here, and were mistaken for UFO’s when glimpsed in the distance or at night moving at high speed. UFO spotters said that there really were UFO’s that were observing the test planes. It’s comforting to know that everybody seems to be keeping an eye on everybody else!

Pre-dating Area 51, atomic weapons testing took place here in the late 40’s/ early 50’s when picnickers from Las Vegas would drive out to get a better view of the mushroom clouds that were only just visible from the city itself. You can imagine those hordes of luminous returning daytrippers.

There’s just one small town 125 miles from Vegas where we tank up with fuel before turning away from the main highway towards Death Valley itself. The road first climbs to 4,300 feet and then descends quite steeply to the valley floor. The white shimmer is the salt flats evaporated from a huge lake that once filled the whole valley 10,000 years ago.

It’s worth seeing how the impression of Death Valley builds up as the road drops. It looks almost like a bubbling cauldron here; the descent into Hell’s kitchen. 

The rocks reveal a multi-coloured pattern from the minerals they contain, stark and jagged as there is no vegetation to soften the outlines. Just a few bushes at the roadside so you know you’re not actually on the moon.

As the road hits the bottom it all looks empty: nothing, as far as the eye can see. Not even a much-needed ice-cream van.

We have another 20 miles to go along the valley bottom to our campsite at Furnace Creek, the main visitor centre. There are three sites at Furnace Creek, only one of which has electricity. That's full, so we’re at Sunset, which is nearly empty. A bit bare, but remember this is Death Valley; it does have water, toilets and sewerage emptying, and a great view, so an excellent $12 per night’s worth (£8). Our motorhome is equipped with fresh water, waste water and sewerage tanks, and a generator. So we’ll be fine for a week. But there’s also no phone signal or wifi (anywhere in Death Valley)…. suddenly I CAN’T COPE. 

Friday Mar 20th: Red Rock Canyon

Only 10 miles outside the Las Vegas city boundary is Red Rock Canyon Park. You could be on another planet from fun city Vegas. We had with us a family member, Stan, who had recently moved to Las Vegas. We started our tour at the visitor centre, so what better place to kick off with our first photo, of Stan and Jane against the backdrop of the mountains we are about to drive through.

The visitor centre had loads of information about the park and its geological origins. I can’t seem to relate to the timescale of when different rocks were formed, so quickly lose the plot. 10 million years ago feels the same in my head as 100 million years ago; it was all a long, long time ago.

But the rocks themselves were beautiful. This is where we stopped for lunch. One of the few advantages of driving a large motor home around is that you travel fully provisioned so making food on the go is easy provided you can park the juggernaut.  

On another side of the parking spot we saw rock climbers, another recreation provided by the park. Ralph and his friend were here a few days ago doing this same thing. The climber is arrowed in the photo as he’s a small dot, possibly frozen to the spot awaiting a helicopter rescue.

 As the drive continued, we got some great red rock views, like Blackpool rock in some places with the coloured layers.

As the road turned away from the red rocks the views became longer and the road gradually descended back to the visitor centre.

Monday March 16th: Las Vegas

The sign for the campsite sets the scene for our visit to Vegas. This is Sam’s Town casino complex and it’s big, garish and glitzy. Sam’s Town runs the campsite.

Sam’s Town contains literally hundreds of gaming machines, a multi-screen cinema, a bowling alley, live performance theatre, about 10 restaurants and a hotel- and the campsite. The complex is all under cover apart from the campsite; in the centre of it all is a jungle above which towers a 50 foot rock with waterfalls. The rock launches into a 20 minute laserlight show every two hours, complete with animated lifesize bear, eagle and wolf. It’s an impressive use of modern technology and a great spectacle, but a bit cheesy.

You’ve got to get to the Strip itself, 6 miles away, to see the most gobsmacking extravaganzas. The Mirage Hotel features a volcano in its grounds fronting the main street. After dark the volcano erupts every half an hour, appearing to shoot flames and lava several hundred feet in the air. They achieve this with a clever use of water & laser lights, and real gas jets. It’s amazing the hotel itself or onlookers don’t catch fire in gusty winds. 

Up the road there’s the half size replica of the Eiffel Tower, photo below, with the display fountains of the Bellagio hotel loosing off in front of it. This looks quite classy.

The Venetian hotel is themed around central Venice. In a few places it really looks the part, for example, this balustrade and walkway. 

The hotels are all trying to out-do one another to attract your money. They are much more than hotels; they’re giant gambling halls, shopping centres and live entertainment venues. We’ll go inside the Venetian where the theme continues within the shopping area. Would you believe canals with gondolas and gondoliers (hireable) in amongst the imitation Venetian shop facades?

There are 160 shops in the Venetian mall alone, mostly up market. This confectionery shop was selling cones of strawberries dipped in chocolate. They weren’t priced so I can’t amaze you with how much they cost, but no price ticket always means expensive.

Caesar’s Palace is probably the most famous name on the Strip. The foyer is done out in marble with a curved staircase and large water feature. Probably too posh for the real Caesar.

Here the Forum shopping mall goes one better than the Venetian with over 260 shops. The theme is Roman here, but with similar top-end stores. The lighting and artificial sky makes it a bit gloomy inside but I imagine it’s supposed to add to the atmosphere. Cheer yourself up by buying something or having a flutter on the tables.

The gambling areas in all the different establishments looked the same. They don’t put much themed stuff there that might distract you from winning on the machines or tables. Winning of course applies only to the casino in the long run. This is the entrance to one of the gaming areas in the otherwise fabulous Caesar’s Palace.

There are around another 20 of these gigantic hotel complexes on the Strip alone with similar facilities, and many more scattered throughout the city, some with even more bizarre novelties like displaying real preserved dead bodies (didn’t visit this one).

Outside on the Strip, all these competing themes present something of a jumble looking up the street: see final photo below. 

So what’s the verdict?  Technically, and because of its enormous scale, it’s hugely impressive and is great fun; from another angle it’s superficial, touristy and tacky. “You pays you money and you takes your choice”, as they say. 

Wed March 11th: Sedona

The day after our Grand Canyon trip we drove to the red rock country of Sedona. We took the bulky motor home as it appeared to be a fairly easy round trip of less than 100 miles. Problem is, having just visited the Grand Canyon, how can any rock and canyon scenery top that? Well, maybe not, but the red rocks were superb, and carved into all sorts of strange shapes; the one on the left looks like a flying saucer, presumably full of little red men rather than green ones.

 The town of Sedona, in the heart of the rock formations, was far more congested than we bargained for, as was the whole area, but perhaps not surprising given the lovely surroundings. However, it meant we couldn’t park the motorhome to take a more leisurely look or take photos, and by the time we had found a place the red rocks has nearly gone. The parking spot was pleasantly right by the river, so we had lunch there.

There were high cliffs across the road, also in a beautiful setting. The whole area is served by many walking trails, ancient Indian sites and a preserved mining town. We said if we came back we would need to stay in Sedona and explore it properly.

The Sedona area also attracts mystics. It is claimed to be one of the premier places on Earth for vortexes, points at which swirling waves of energy are emitted and can be interacted with. The precise locations are known and draw people who wish to harness these energies. I suppose it’s one of those things you have to believe in to derive any benefit from.

The road follows the same river that we stopped beside for lunch in a narrow canyon. It then climbs steeply from the river to the lip of the canyon wall where we stopped at a viewpoint to look back down the canyon.

A Navajo Indian market was set up in the viewpoint with certified genuine Navajo made goods. But who certifies the certifiers?  Nothing we wanted, although Jane was interested in the beadwork. 

In two days we leave the natural beauty of this area for the ultimate in manmade tinsel town- Las Vegas.

Tuesday 10th March: The Grand Canyon

Yesterday we left Tucson and drove due north to Flagstaff, still in Arizona, and a good base from which to see the Grand Canyon. Leaving Tucson, the road stayed on the flat Sonoran Desert for 150 miles, well past Phoenix, but then steadily climbed towards Flagstaff’s 7,200 feet altitude. We passed patches of snow in the ponderosa pine forest after we passed the 6,000 ft. roadside marker. It wasn’t much above freezing when we arrived and it quickly dipped to zero after sun set, and then on down to minus 4ºC. Come back desert, we shouldn’t have deserted you!

We had booked an organised tour of the Grand Canyon South Rim with All-Star Tours, and I must say they gave us a superb day out by any standards, with precision organisation and an excellent guide. We were picked up at the campsite for the 1½ hour drive to the South Rim. Soon we were climbing again. At the 8,000 ft. marker, snow was thick on the ground as the photo shows. A bit higher up there’s a small ski resort where our tour guide is also an instructor.

We descended again for the South Rim to arrive at Grand Canyon Village, still pretty high up at 6,800 feet. That first view of the Canyon, if you’ve never seen it before, is absolutely breathtaking. It’s 10 miles across, a mile deep, and 277 miles long following the snaking Colorado River.

The colours of the different rock levels add to the overwhelming spectacle. Our guide took us to a number of different locations from where we could appreciate the subtle differences of the colours and views. I’ll follow with a few photos to illustrate.

The canyon was created by movements of the Earth’s plates with the Colorado River carving a further deep gorge in which it is mostly hidden. It is visible over my left shoulder, a mile down. You can white-water raft it, if you’re brave enough, as the current flows in some places at 20 mph and some of the rapids fall into the most difficult category when the river is running full. John Wesley Powell, a one-armed Civil War veteran, let the first expedition to navigate the Colorado River in 1869. The expedition took rather a long time but then maybe a one-armed canoeist isn’t an ideal formula. 

Our last viewing stop was from the Desert View Visitor Center where an Ancient Pueblo People’s watch tower had been recreated, but with added height, and including traditional paintings in the interior. Not much is known about these tribes so I’m not sure how much imaginative licence was used. 

The tower also gave us a fantastic final view of the canyon including the most visible part of the river. Maybe the ancient tribes built their towers to enjoy the lovely views just like us tourists.

We then headed back the 70 miles to Flagstaff taking another route through the Navajo Reservation. Here we ran along the Little Colorado River that runs into the Colorado proper, and its gorge a mere 1,500 feet deep! This was the site of a tightrope walk by a certain Nik Wallenda in 2013 without a safety net. This kind of stunt is not allowed in the Grand Canyon National Park, but Indian Reservations are legally a state within a state and make their own laws and regulations. I suppose pow-pows and peace-pipes are just as effective as arbitration and conciliation tribunals.  

We were lucky in having a fine clear day, and it had all amounted to a truly awesome experience. 

Saturday 7th March: Tombstone

The town is generally associated with its most notorious event, the “Gunfight at the OK Corral”. Tombstone was more than that; it was a genuine Wild West town, established in 1877 in the empty uplands of the Sonoran Desert.

Its founder was a soldier called Ed Schieffelin from nearby Fort Huachuca. The fort kept an eye on the warlike Apaches whose territory it was. Ed used to wander the desert wilderness “looking for stones”, as he told his fellow soldiers. Their comment was, “the only stone you’ll find is your tombstone”.

But Ed was really looking for silver deposits, and he found them in 1877 in abundance. Word spread rapidly, and fortune seekers followed by service providers soon founded a settlement that Ed named Tombstone after his soldier comrades’ joke. This is a photo of the mining early on. The pack mules are pulling ore drams down the hill. 

Today the general appearance of Tombstone the town is much as it would have been in the mid 1880’s, with some reconstruction following fires and decay. Yes, it’s a tourist town, but with a high level of authenticity.

It was a rough, tough mining town, with drinking, gambling and prostitution amply provided. All were perfectly legal. In fact, the one building that claims to be 100% unaltered from that time supplied all those services and entertainment as well: the Birdcage Theatre. This is the original bar with an original bullet hole in the bar front wooden column about half way down. 

The photo shows the theatre auditorium, with the stage on the left. The theatre boxes on the upper level were furnished with curtains so that customer services could be discretely provided while the performance was in session.

Gambling was laid on in the basement that was so well patronised that the tables ran continuously, 24/7. It you wanted to play, you put your name down and were given a slot. It still holds the world record for the longest continuous poker game in history: 8 years, 5 months and 3 days. This is where it was played. The furniture is original.

The town sheriff had the impossible task of keeping order. He was backed up by the marshal, a government law officer. The sheriff was locally elected so was often tempted to overlook misdemeanours for reasons of personal patronage. The sheriff here allowed a wild bunch called the Clantons a free rein. The marshal, Virgil Earp, had had enough of this and forced a showdown, backed by brother deputies Wyatt and Morgan Earp, together gambling friend ex-dentist ‘doc’ Holliday.

The result was the famous gunfight at the OK Corral, a livery stable in the town at the rear of which the confrontation happened to occur. Three of the Clanton gang were killed, and the rest suffered gunshot wounds apart from Wyatt. The shootout is reconstructed several times a day in the grounds of the OK Corral not far from the actual spot. It’s a bit cheesy, but very professionally presented and acted. I guess they get enough practice.

Next to the OK Corral is photographer C S Fly’s premises. He was a real photographer who actively recorded the events of the time, and the exhibition of his photographs told a fascinating story. He took the very first picture of Geronimo, the Apache chief. His second photo didn’t come out because an arrow broke the lens.

He recorded a variety of scenes from Apache life, like the following photo of an Apache crib and then, beneath it, Apache dwellings called “wickiups”. We aren’t told if these are the ordinary or luxury version.

On the edge of town, the head posts at Boot hill graveyard reinforce the violent nature of many citizens demise.

And if our friend Paul Rook from Bradford reads this, my advice would be, “don’t upset any Chinamen”!

It was a much more interesting day than we expected, and we felt that it had given us a real insight into life in those tough times.