Extract from our blog about our 4 week trip to visit family in the USA – December 2015/January 2016.
Richmond, Virginia to Las Vegas, on to the Grand Canyon, Big Sur California and San Francisco then back Home to Durban SA. January 1 – 9, 2016
We said our sad farewells to the Nelms (my sister-in-law and family) at the airport (carefully avoiding the eyes of the porters who looked ready to pounce, but at R16 to a dollar we were not in the giving mood!). It was here going through yet another security check (shoes off, laptops out etc) my Mac was deemed to be contraband and was officially handled but a rather hefty, important looking security man. In my usual humour-from-nerves-state I jokingly asked him not to blow up my laptop. Donald quickly held me in check and I zipped my lip. (We had already had enough of flights – in total over the 31 days we had 10 flights and this was number 7 on the itinerary. We had removed shoes, sharp objects, laptops, kindles and hairclips so many times – we were exhausted!)
From Richmond we flew to Atlana and had a stop over there for an hour or so. The kids were great – playing on their kindles mostly. All the airports in the US are extremely user-friendly – loos always clean and water fountains freely available, which makes transit a pleasure.
The flight to Las Vegas took 4hours 40 min and we arrive at 9pm. It was a cold night and Matt was still in slops and shorts from the warm east coast – soliciting some rather odd looks from well-meaning people as we waited in a queue to board a bus to take us to the car hire. We hired a black Chev, a bigger car than I was expecting but Don pointed out that we were doing long hours on the road and we needed to be comfortable. We were happy – it felt like sheer luxury!
As we drove out and into Las Vegas proper, it was an overload of neon lights and high rise themed buildings. “Look there’s a pyramid, here’s the Sphinx (Mom the Sphinx has a nose!), there’s the Eiffel Tower and OMG there’s a bus all lit up as a neon sign board. Don navigating the whole while on the left hand side of the car driving on the right hand side of the road. Seriously? This is the place that is actually on some people’s bucket list? Every part of me (as expected) was in anti-consumerism shock.
We drove down The Strip, Las Vegas boulevard where the famous casinos are located – we have met many of these in movies over the years from the Bellagio, MGM Grand, Luxor, Tropicana, New York New York, Casino Royale, Planet Hollywood, Treasure Island – each with its own unique (formulaic and very very “disneyfied” ) theme.
The Strip is about 6, 8km long, with 15 of the world’s 25 largest hotels by room located here – 62 000 rooms – the buildings are massive. New York New York has an incredible roller coaster that runs in between its various buildings representing the Manhattan skyline – must be quite a rush doing a coaster in between tall buildings, but even though we did want to go on it, thought that after all the many rides at Disney – we were kind of roller-coastered out.
We stayed at the Circus Circus Casino which sported a huge dome housing various circus themed rides – but we did not have time to indulge, as we had wanted to walk around Las Vegas the next morning, taking in the overload of sights and sounds.
First up was the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign – a Las Vegas landmark which was designed by a Betty Willis and was erected in 1959. There was a long queue of people lined up to have their pics take – we did not wait but took ours from the side as we only had a few hours to spare and that was not going to be spent in a queue.
We spent four hours walking the Strip and in retrospect we are amazed the kids managed it with minimal moaning. We started off at the Excalibur Casino, which looks like a medieval castle, which is next to the iconic Luxor Casino with its Sphinx with a nose and replicas of ancient Egypt. We were constantly ooing and aahing at whatever larger than life thing presented itself. From the NY NY roller coaster, to the replica of the entrance to the Valley of the Kings, MGM’s “Grand Lion” to the massive Harley Davidson hurtling out of the façade of a building or the guitar in front of the Hard Rock Café. Bigger, better, more, more and much many is what life is about here.
(The MGM lion is a 45 feet high, 50 feet wide bronze sculpture that weighs 50 tons and is said to be the largest in the Western Hemisphere which was created by Sneelen Johnson – who also made the horse and chariot at Caesars Casino in Gauteng, South Africa.)
We had consumer overload here. There is too much of everything – too many things, too many building, too many people, too many lights and too many machines. We stopped at the Hershey store with its 360 kilogram replica of the Statue of Liberty and one made of red Twizzlers (a popular sweet that has the texture of liquorice) and outside is one made from 250 000 jelly beans. There where endless walkways leading the masses into and out of the casinos. We visited the four storey M & M store with its millions and millions of tiny M & M’s for sale. There are racks and racks of branded clothes, toys, accessories, and STUFF – all in honour of a coloured candy coated chocolate – we were all pretty overwhelmed by the mindless ode to consumerism. And to top it all – the Trump Hotel – a 64 storey building with its 24 carat gold gilded exterior! Arghh but fascinating.
We were all a tad grumpy afterwards, but grabbed a very slow “fastfood” and rushed back to the hotel to catch as shuttle to Boulder City where we were to take a flight over the western Grand Canyon. The shuttle took us through the desert, and sparse terrain so juxtaposed against the opulence and wastefulness of Vegas. We boarded a 19 seater plane – Matt and Don were up front and Jess and I behind them, and as the propellers zapped around and the engines whirred, we set sail into a blue blue sky in one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had. We flew over the harsh desert and then out of the grey brown earth came the outline of the impressive turquoise Hoover Dam. The waterline sitting below a thick white line etched around the rock faces on the edge of the dam. We would visit the dam wall the next day en route to the Grand Canyon. The wall and attendant structures are a collective shrine to art deco civil engineering – that even the toilets are something to behold. From way up high the light blue water of the dam glistened while the harsh desert landscape went on forever. Our excitement rose as we started to see the Grand Canyon
I kept thinking of John Magee’s poem High Flight: which begins with “Oh I have slip the surly bonds of earth” and ends with “And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space,- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.” I never cease to wonder how extraordinary flying is and how blessed we were to be looking at the world from above. The expanse of the ancient Arizona desert and exquisite blue of the massive dam and the thundering Colorado River below painted the antithesis of madness and mayhem of the blind consumerism of the Strip.
Back down on earth, Matt purchased a little arrowhead – supposedly Navajo Indian – a curio, which he will no doubt treasure for a long time.
We returned to our hotel and then went to look at the volcano fountain at The Mirage Casino a fine display of pyrotechnics amongst a massive lagoon water feature outside the hotel. This was followed by a spectacular water fountain “ballet” to the song “Time to Say Goodbye” at the Bellagio Hotel. (The fountain apparently featured in the film Ocean’s Eleven.)
We had supper on the Strip and returned to the hotel. The kids and I collapsed in bed and Don somehow mustered the energy to go the Freemont Street Experience a massive “outdoor” under cover area which has live music, bars, casinos etc. He managed to slip in a fair amount of Ingressing to boot.
Next day we were up and out and on the road to the Grand Canyon. We chose to so a slower trip via a portion of the legendary “Mother Road” – Route 66.
Here’s some gen on Route 66 from its official website: “Since 1926, driving down Route 66 has been the experience of a lifetime for travellers, adventurers, desperados (I like that!) and dreamers. It is also known as US66, the Will Rogers Highway and colloquially known as the Main Street of America or the Mother Road, was one of the original highways within the U.S. Highway System. The highway, which became one of the most famous roads in America, originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before ending at Santa Monica, California, covering a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km). It was recognized in popular culture by both the hit song “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” and the Route 66 television show in the 1960s.
“Route 66 served as a major path for those who migrated west, especially during the 1930s, and it supported the economies of the communities through which the road passed. People doing business along the route became prosperous due to the growing popularity of the highway, and those same people later fought to keep the highway alive in the face of the growing threat of being bypassed by the new Interstate Highway System.”
“Route 66 it was officially removed from the United States Highway System on June 27, 1985, after it had been replaced in its entirety by segments of the Interstate Highway System. Portions of the road that passed through Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, and Arizona have been designated a National Scenic Byway of the name “Historic Route 66”, which is returning to some maps. Several states have adopted significant bypassed sections of the former US 66 into the state road network as State Route 66.”
It was such a treat passing through small towns, and disused gas stations, with scrapped cars aesthetically positioned around, with old petrol station signs peppered with some good old fashioned advice like this one here : Big Mistake, Many Make, Rely on Horn, Instead of Brake – four signs next to four rusted shells of cars. We stopped at a number of little places – the best was the first one where we had a picnic lunch. This was a “gas station” which apparently was the artistic inspiration for the animated film “Cars”.
As we drove, we could see in the distance a mountain capped with snow, and we were delighted. Snow! We had come all the way to the USA in winter and had not seen a single snowflake. Well beware of what you wish for! The next thing I noticed some snow on the ground and we were even more excited. As we entered the South Rim of the Grand Canyon Park – a white blanket covered the forest floor and pines and we all screamed with delight.
It was cold! And the sun was setting so we parked and scrambled to the boot to get on our warm clothes and dashed up the icy path to watch the sun go down on the exquisite canyon. Magnificent rock formations were lit by an orange sun exploding them into beautiful layers of ochres, reds, browns and blacks and purples.
We had booked into the most affordable lodge for our budget, and as usual with everything we had experienced so far, it was clean, neat and just perfect. No frills, but it did have Disney channel – a big plus for the children as by this time they were experienced out, and watching some mindless Disney cartoon was a welcome distraction.
The next day we were up early in the hope that we would catch the sun rise but it was snowing fairly heavily. Don had his first experience of driving in snow. Everything was a pristine white – no one else was up, only a few labourers fixing the road at the viewing point! And it was cold!
The cloud cover was low, but it lifted for a short time and we caught a good glimpse of the canyon. And as we are wont to do – this was not going to detract from our enjoyment of the canyon and we drove further east and then managed to walk a short way of the 24km stretch of the South Rim that is accessible for viewing. But the children were tired so we bunkered them down with TV and food at lunchtime and Don and I headed off. We were so thrilled when the clouds lifted and we managed to walk about 5 kilometres along the path.
Back at the room the kids were happy. They made obligatory snowmen, snow angels and we were amazed that snowballs and snowmen were not that easy to make. Seriously! Anyone who has ever tried to roll a snowball will attest to how very difficult it is to do? And they make it look so easy in the movies!
Supper in the canteen and an early night it was for us, as we were in for the long haul across Arizona and California to get to Route 1 which is the famous road that skirts the coast line from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
It was a cloudy day and the interstate roads were great – the landscape changing from pine forests to desolate scrub as we crossed the Mojave Desert peppered with the famous Joshua tree cactuses. The tree was given the name by Mormon settlers, who crossed this desert in the mid 1800’s – it kind of reaches out to the sky and apparently this looked like the Biblical Joshua reaching his hands up in prayer. And of course it was the famous title of the 80’s album by U2.
We had a very cute diversion as we detoured off the road to find a “ghost town” we saw on a postcard in a gas station shop on route. Calico ghost town is a silvermine in California that has been around since 1881 during the largest silver strike in California. From Wiki “With its 500 mines, Calico produced over $20 million in silver ore over a 12-year span. When silver lost its value in the mid-1890’s, Calico lost its population. The miner’s packed up, loaded their mules and moved away abandoning the town that once gave them a good living. Walter Knott purchased Calico in the 1950’s architecturally restoring all but the five original buildings to look as they did in the 1880’s. Calico received State Historical Landmark 782 and in 2005 was proclaimed by then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to be California’s Silver Rush Ghost Town.”
We pinpointed a small town on the coast – Cambria – and booked a hotel room ahead. Arriving there at 7, we were pleasantly surprised – it felt like a little dorp on the Cape coastline. It was by far the cheapest and nicest hotel room we had stayed in, in the States. We felt so safe – left the kids and headed off to get pizza in the little town – walking in the dark. Yes, it felt like Knysna, or Hermanus in the Western Cape, SA.
The next day was a little drizzly and we head up the coast, much like the Cape Point road – but more mountainous, more forests and ravines. We had to pass by Hearst Castle the famous wealthy rancher’s palatial home – which is a major tourist attraction. But at $100 for us all for 1 hour that we had available – it was not worth it. Instead we went to the marine reserve close by and saw a few elephant seals – and that was a treat. The real surprise was further up the coast we came across the Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery and nursery with literally hundreds of massive elephant seals.
Apparently at dangerous levels, bordering on almost extinction the species has been revived and this is one of the main breeding and nesting grounds in the world. We watched for ages as they lay about, fought, suckled their young and made guttural primal sounds, while seagulls fought each other for the pickings from the placentas like manic little garbage collectors.
Route 1 goes through the area called Big Sur. It is a sparsely populated area, where the Santa Lucia mountains rise up from the Pacific Ocean, and the road winds and bends along spectacular scenery. There a small waterfalls, vast bridges, and hundreds of paths for hiking. The Route itself is also known to be a popular road to film on, and we were lucky enough to see a stereotypical red sports car indeed being filmed as we stopped to view a 1930’s bridge across a ravine. (Films that have been made in this area were Play Misty for me, National Velvet, East of Eden, Basic Instinct, From Here to Eternity.)
Then there was San Fransisco. Ah San Fransisco. What a pity we had only 2 nights and a day there. This is one place I would love to explore more. We stayed with Scott and Phyllis Smith, and their two children Alex (16) and Justin (13). Scott is the brother of our good friend Melanie Drace. So we had lots to chat about, sharing common stories of their family. The next day we explored SF – visiting Pier 39, a disused pier, which has been commercialized into shops and restaurants. But what was particularly fascinating were the sea lions that were lying on wooden platforms in the middle of a little harbour. Apparently a number of years back, they colonized the walkways in the small craft harbor and were becoming a real stinky menace, so the city created these platforms instead and moved the boats away. Now hundreds of sea lions bask in the sun on these platforms, providing a fabulous tourist attraction. So we took in Alcatraz from a distance, we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, saw George Lucas’s studios from atop the bus, walked down Lombard street – the famous windy road, we took the “cable car” up Hill Street, and walked it too. We explored the old dock with its sailing ship from the late 1800’s at Pier 41, took a whirlwind bus trip of the city, ate R80 ice-creams, then ventured back to the Smith’s for another delicious supper, warm chats and laughs. Bags were packed and we left early – at 5am to catch our flight home.
We had packed in so much, and in retrospect a little too much for the kids, but it was worth it. The main purpose was to catch up with family, and we managed to add a whole lot of experiences to our family’s collective memory.
So, where to next? Don’t know, for now we are enjoying just being at home, and relaxing.
-ends
