We’re on the road again and headed to Lego Land. It may not be a staple land mark, but for any child of our generation it was the dream. 15 years later and we’re finally on our way, but not without some detours. As the biggest fallout fans you can find, we’re making it a point to hit up all the in game locations we can. First up is home sweet home, Goodsprings. On our way we’ll hit Primm, home of the Mojave express, the Ivanpah dry lake, the mountain pass, and of course the Mojave itself. The terrain has changed again from mountains to flat desert pans, but war, war never changes.
On the ninth day of our trip we stayed in Las Vegas, NV. On the way we of course stopped at the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead and also made a stop at Red Rock Canyon, which was absolutely phenomenal.
We wrapped up the day with walking 13 miles around the Strip. Thankfully it was only around 90 degrees!
As we cruised into Vegas, we decided to check out Red Rock Canyon, a well renowned park on the east side of the city. The first thing we noticed is how quickly the city disappeared, one minute we were driving through lush palms and suburbs, the next all we could see in every direction was desert. The canyon itself was semi hidden behind some spectacular mountains, just a glimpse of brilliant red over the tops of hills as you get closer and closer. When you finally do make it to the visitor center, a clean and modern haven of tourist info and air conditioning, you will see a completely alien stretch of rock jutting out of the ground through a massive window-wall that wouldn’t be out of place on a star destroyer.
We spent days 7 and 8 in the Flagstaff, AZ area and checked out both the Petrified Woods and Grand Canyon National Parks. I’ll let the photos do the talking for this post.
Next up we are in Las Vegas for day 9 of the trip.
After Roswell we headed to Alburquerque, NM and it was one of the most stunningly beautiful cities we had be to so far. First we went straight to Sandia Peak and took the tram to the top of the mountain. You can fully read about it in Matt’s post.
We’ve made it through Route 66 and are on our way to Lake Mead. The terrain has changed to something like desert, but the underbrush is still thick and there are no cacti. Slightly disappointing. The heat is back, it’s 90 degrees and rising, and although it’s dry it doesn’t take long to really sink in. There’s not much here, but with Vegas as the light at the end of the tunnel we don’t much care. More updates to come.
The Grand Canyon is a hard park to describe. We got in around 9AM Pacific, after driving though terrain that essentially looked like the alps. Pine forests, green mountains (even saw some ice on a couple) and winding roads. In my mind I had always envisioned the canyon in the middle of a desert, or perhaps surrounded by the same mesas we saw on the border of Arizona; but no, it was concealed entirely by forests, you’d have no idea it was there except for the unbelievable and very sudden rise in tourists.
We’ve had our obligatory McDonalds breakfast (on point), and are on our way to the Grand Canyon. I personally couldn’t be more excited, as the natural aspects of this trip are really the biggest pull from my perspective. It’s been a dream of mine to see our countries national parks for years now, and the Grand Canyon is right there at the top. The painted desert was so magnificent I was reduced to screaming obscene exclamations and pointing wildly, I’m slightly worried the canyon will just break my vocabulary flat out. The area around us is not at all what you’d picture in Arizona. We’re driving through massive pine forests with a gorgeous mountain backdrop looming over us, it almost feels like we’re in the alps. Our cell coverage is shoddy, so we’ll update when we can. More updates to come.
Just in case anyone is wondering, (or if you’ve even noticed) there are a few posts missing from the blog, such as Albuquerque and Flagstaff. This is because our wifi in the past few hotels has been absolute garbage. I’m able to post road updates and posts from my phone, but we haven’t been so lucky with the laptop, and uploading has become a real hassle. We’ll try and fill in the gaps as best as possible, we apologize for any discontinuity. Thanks for reading! We hope you’re at least mildly intrigued by our journey.
Our journey to Flagstaff was shaping up to be a rough one, no desert, no Route 66, we were feeling pretty low. But we were still on track to arrive far earlier than planned, and needed something to fill the time. We decided to check out the Petrified Forest national park is north east Arizona, as it was right on our route. It turned out to be the best decision we’ve made so far. The petrified forest is located in the painted desert, one of the most spectacular landscapes I’ve ever seen. The trees, from the Triassic era, have been fossilized; and some have even turned to various minerals, creating an unimaginable spectacle of light and luster. We entered the park expecting to kill an hour or so, and ended up having to stop at every single outlook, because the views just didn’t stop getting better.
The World As We Know It 