Author: jason

We checked out of the hotel and I drove us down Lombard Street all the way from Alpha Inn & Suites to the famous steep zig zag road. Hilarious road everyone was driving down it. We then drove to Coit Tower. It was $8 to go up the elevator to the top and look out of the tower at a great view.

We had a look around the shops and bought a few little gifts. An example of a market shop below.

We went all the way back to Roxie Market in San Francisco for the best rolls ever. We said we travelled all this way back to this place for a lovely sandwich and made her feel a little guilty. The lady ran out of bread so I suggested maybe she could use bread that is for sale down the Isles on the shelves. She was happy to do that and made me and Ryan a regular sandwich which is a monster! It is like a Subway sandwich but a lot more filling and a lot bigger and so tasty!

We then took a random drive to try and get one last picture of San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge.

We then returned the car a little early to Hertz and got a receipt. I took a video of the condition we left the car in for peace of mind.

We then got our luggage sorted went through security and checked in.

The plane we had was a lot more posh on the way back with USB charger and touch screen.

I am typing this at 17:51 whilst we are waiting for our National Express coach which is due at 18:45. We will arrive in Poole at 21:40. Ryans parents collected us and took us home.

We had an all you can eat buffet in a restaurant in the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas.

We checked out of Palms Hotel and had to pay our compulsory restort fees on exit. That were a hidden cost to when the room was booked. Looking online a lot of people dispute these fees and state how unclear they are. You book the room for two nights and pay then when you get there they mention resort fees of about $25 a night on top. Misleading but to be honest if you dont pay the fees you wont get such an interesting hotel like we did so in that case it was worth it. The hotel had a pool, spa, restaurants, casinos and pretty much most things you can think of.

Good view from the room and also if you go upto the club at night on floor 55 that has a brilliant view with a roof party/club. Watch out for the ridiculously priced drinks! $26 for two drinks. Daylight robbery!!

We then went to The Gun Store in Las Vegas.

I choose my own guns and had double the ammunition.
I chose a Thompson, Desert Eagle and the AK47 and then chose the targets I wanted to shoot.
Wow the recoil was so much more than I imagined.
The Thompson was heavy and I was very accurate with this.
The Desert Eagle had some huge recoil for such a small gun and i got all headshots with this.
The AK47 had some impressive recoil and I found this the hardest for accuracy due to the sites and the recoil.

My favourite was the Thompson for accuracy and comfortabilty although it was heavier than all the other guns I fired.

I fired the Thompson at the target below:

I fired the Desert Eagle at the target below:

I fired the AK47 at the target below:

We then visited Hoover Dam and the bridge and took a few photos it was 106F that day so we decided not to do the helicopter ride as we had a good view from the bridge anyway.
It was too hot! We stopped in the shop at Hoover Dam for a drink.

We travelled to Pahrump and booked into the Saddle West Hotel, Casino & RV Park.
It offered a pool, spa, wifi, parking and also a cheap buffet breakfast in the morning. $53.41 for the room and $6.95 for the buffet breakfast, all you can eat.

We woke up and had breakfast. A really busy breakfast room and I had cereal and coffee.

We then went over to Adrift Adventures and caught the bus to Colarado River which was around 25 mile drive.

We rafted down the Colarado River for around 7 miles from Hittle Bottom to Rocky Rapid. (AM half day trip.)

A lot of gentle rafting and some class 1 rapid all the way up to class 3. Some were pretty cool and we got completely soaked.
It was pretty fun although I will say I expected more rapids it was fun but not as adrenaline packed as I originally thought. Good experience and we can now say we have rafted down the Colardo River.

This same river can offer upto class 5 further south.
The class ratings are given to how dangerous the water is at that point.

We drove quickly around Arches National Park and took a few photos. The arches are cool I guess but the viewd are not as good as the ones we have previously seen. So we left the park pretty quick. We had a 4 hour drive so couldnt be there long anyway.

We drove all the way to Panguitch in Utah which was an interesting drive. We stopped at Cowboy’s Smoke House for dinner.
Wow the best beef ive eaten! Just fell apart and the fat was tasty. It was so moist.
I then saw an Orio desert so had to order this even thou I had no room!

I had a strawberry lemonade which was huge!

We then travelled to Crimson Hill Hotel in Parawan near Panguitch in Utah and were told to keep an eye out for deer and police as its graduation day today.

We woke up at Wayside Motor Inn in Marichello and had breakfast.
Chocolate flake cereal, coffee, boiled eggs and a donut.

We made our way to Moab and we had already booked are expensive Super 8 hotel there ready for us to check into later as hotels and motels in this area are very expensive. So had to book this in advance to get it cheaper.

We went to a few places on the main street through Moab to get prices and dates for rafting. I found a place called Adrift Adventures and we decided to book the rafting in the morning as the water will be more rough and it allows us to travel and relax on our way to Arches National Park. It only cost $55 and we have to meet at their shop and then they drive us to the part of the Colarado river that we will be rafting down. They will then return us to the shop.

We then went to Dead Horse Point State Park.
$10 to get the vehicle in. Then we walked around the whole walk apart from the last viewpoint as the weather was a bit stormy and windy.
Amazinf views here highly recommend the first part of the walk from the visitors centre. The last part was less interesting but still worth walking. We saw lizards, birds, chipmunks and insects.

We saw several lizards.

We checked in at Super 8 Hotel in Moab which was £92.27.

We then had dinner at Dennies and I had a Bourbon Burger for $12.79.

Another photo of our beast.

Some small cars we saw.

We had breakfast in the Econo Lodge which had the biggest selection of food so far.

We visited Mesa Verde which was a huge place and plenty of driving and view points and places to stop. The views from up top were great.

Look closely underneath the cliff.

We had a quick selfie with a wild bear at the side of the road.

We stopped for a Navajo Taco at Jack & Janelles Country Kitchen for a small bite to eat. It was an amazing taco and I had salad bar with it for an extra $1.25.
Let me mention this is the biggest Taco I have ever had and also the biggest meal I have ever had. I struggled extremely hard to eat this and had to ask for WiFi access to buy a little more time to eat this and update the blogs as I am behind with the posts. I also left them a 5 star Google rating on Maps.

We then got some fuel and washed the car and drove to Monticello and stayed at Wayside Motor Inn for $93.91.

We woke up at the Glen Canyon Dam took a few photos then went to Dennies for an ‘All American Slam’ which is scrambled eggs, sausage, toast and bacon. Unlimited refills on coffee was cool.

We stopped at a view point called Glen Canyon Dam Overlook near Dennies. A great view.

We then went to Horseshoe Point which was a 3/4 mile walk up and down hill on sand. That also had a great view and it was very busy there.

Monument Valley – Cost $20 and the Navajo’s own the land I believe as they work at the barrier and in the shops. A very impressive view.

Forest Gump Point – We took photos of the famous Forest Gump road from the Forest Gump film.

Natural Bridge National Monument – It was a bridge that had formed from water running into the stone and eroding it. It was pretty boring or maybe this was because we were both so tired. So we took a few photos and went quickly.

Devils Canyon Drive – We drove down this dirt track which got worse as we drove down and thought it would be a good idea and and a good view. We soon realised this was a bad idea. We got there and the cliff was not near enough to us so we carried on with the drive.
We saw some giant turkeys and some deer in the woods.

We drove through Blanding.

Marichello – We visited the Dollar store for some snacks. Most stuff cost more than a dollar. Must mean a dollar and upwards..

Cortez – Econo Lodge
We checked into Econo Lodge in Cortez. Cost $71.45.
Very nice place and polite staff and lovely rooms.

Dennies – Avocado Beef Burger and Fries for dinner. You can see the place to the left of the photo.

We did a Helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon with a company called Papillon which cost $182.

We stopped at Wendy’s for a spicy chicken burger and large coke and fries.

We went to the Grand Canyon National Park and took a good look around that with plenty of walking.
We got a shuttle from the visitor centre to Abyss then walked to Monument Creek Vista then shuttled to Pima Point and then we shuttled all the way back to the visitors centre. We then walked the Rim Trail and then shuttled back to the visitors centre. We then drove to the Desert View Watch Tower had a look at the tower and the great views. We also saw a large deer.
We then left to travel towards Page.

We stopped at a scenic view point called Little Colorado River Gorge which had a nice view of Colorado river.
This had the best view I have ever seen in my life.

We stopped at a petrol station for dinner. Cookies, crisps and a large coffee to keep me going. I didnt need too much food as still full from Wendy’s.

We pushed on and made it to Page and all the hotels we tried were full. So we had no where to stay. It was a shame because we decided to push on and drive further through the night and then found there was no accommodation. Having no phone data signal didnt help this issue. We then found a Safeways store and connected to their wifi and all the hotels were full on the Hotels.com app and bookings.com. We spoke to Leroy who worked there. He was a Navajo and he said it would be a nightmare to find anywhere near by so we would have to maybe travel 1 hour to 1 hour 30 mins to find a place in another city. We were both extremely tired so we decided to goto Glen Canyon Dam. We slept there so we could take some photos in the morning. We slept in the car this night due to being so tired and no accommodation being available.

We stayed in Williams in the Grand Canyon Gateway Inn. This was by far the worst place we have stayed at and very unorganised and they had no bowls for cereal. They originally gave us a room and when we entered they gave us someone elses room and it had all their stuff in there. So they had to move us to another room.

We woke up earlish and visited Winslow – ‘Standing on the corner’ where North Kinsley Avenue and Old Highway 66 meet. “Take it Easy” was a song by the “Eagles” and is very famous. We spoke to a few people that had motorcycles and were riding Route 66 for a charity.

We then went to see the Barringer Meteor Crater not too far from there. Then we went up route 40/66 in the north west direction.
It cost $18 for a ticket each. We went for a mile or so hike with a lady who lived there on top of the crator and she was our tour guide.

It was very interesting and extremely windy the guide said that they can get winds of 100mph occur up there. We came down with a headache as it was so windy the whole time. An amazing view of such a large crator.

We then went to a Taco shop for lunch that was on route to the Sunset Crater Volcano. We had shrimp tacos and a chicken one with macho fries and a drink.

I bought the annual National Park pass to allow us to get into all national parks for free it was $80 and well worth it.

Inactive Volcano – We visited the inactive volcano and there was volcanic rock everywhere and it had really good views.

We ate at a Goldies Route 66 Diner opposite the Rodeway Inn that we stayed at. I had Trout and soup and fries and tasted very good.

We used the tumble dryer to dry our underwear that Ryan washed in the bath for us. I think it was 25c for 4 minutes or so x3 and it was all done.

I went and had a look around the shops in Williams because some were open until around 10pm at night.

Alot of shops seem to sell these great looking metal ornaments and they are pricey.

Travelled towards Flagstaff through Prescott and Jerome.

We drove up through Prescott as Ryan recommend this was a nice scenic route with some nice roads.

Lady at the petrol station where we saw the Slingshot Polaris vehicle recommended we go through Jerome.

We stopped at Jerome at Bobby D’s BBQ and had half a rack or ribs with seasoned fries and a lemonade.

A lot of the roads go up so high around 3000 to 6000 feet so you find your ears popping quite a bit even on the drive to Blythe.

We then went to Montezuma Castle took about an hour or so to talk around it. Brids were nesting under the cliffs and there was a Bees nest in the cliff face.

We had a quick look around Sedona and it looked awesome but was very expensive and very busy!

We went to the Lowell Observatory as we were not able to visit the other national parks as they all close at 17:00.

We had a look at Jupiter on a telescope and could see the two orange stripes.
We saw Mars although it was very small and bright.
We looked at the moon and that was really clear. The moon was really clear and big without the telescope.
We also saw two galaxies next to each other. And they are apparently going to cross paths with each other in billions of years time.
Spoke briefly about Andromeda.

We also saw the huge telescope that was made to look at Mars.

They showed us a photo of what the humble telescope captured that took over 500 hours. I cant think what it was now.

We then stayed in a hotel called Rodeway Inn in Winslow just off of route 66/40.