USA - on the road Las Vegas - Grand Canyon

Flight Orlando - Dallas (Texas) - Las Vegas (Nevada); drive around for Hotel; Searchlight

Wake-up at 4 in the morning sharp. Quick preparations and off in the taxi booked last night for the Orlando airport. And to think we were just there the day before yesterday... Our flight leaves at 6:55 toward Las Vegas with a stopover in Dallas. At the airport of this legendary Texas metropolis, whose namesake TV series is unforgettable, we wait several hours before departing at 1:30. The time zone here is one hour behind the East Coast. While we wait, we have the chance to observe a substantial difference in the American characters compared to those seen yesterday in Florida. Without even having to go into the city, we have numerous and worthy examples of the 'typical' Texan before our eyes: cowboy hat, long-sleeved plaid shirt strictly tucked into jeans, shiny pointed boots, the wide walk typical of someone who, besides being American, spends most of his time on horseback.

Speaking of shiny shoes, it seems to be a fashion around here to have them polished up nicely while sitting on a chair. This profession actually exists: the shoeshine boy... Among the various Texans someone also stands out for the recurring "spitting" attitude. He comes and goes at regular intervals in front of us sitting in the little armchairs and leaves his little memento in the trash bin. He does it with class, one must admit at least he doesn't dirty the floor... The flight from Dallas to Las Vegas lasts two and a half hours, and here in Nevada there are another two hours of time zone difference to consider. By now we don't understand anything anymore, it's already the fourth one we've changed in three days... Shortly before landing, we have the chance to admire from the window the spectacular panorama that the desert offers us.

At the airport, on the other hand, we notice that the mega theme hotels of the Strip (the most important street) of Las Vegas are perfectly visible, and they seem really close. We collect our luggage and head with the appropriate shuttle toward Alamo to rent the car. The driver is, to say the least, a hothead, just from looking at his face. During the ride he then engages in a conversation straight out of a classic movie, like a marine on a mission. Unfortunately for him, he's only carrying ordinary passengers and not the president... The line to book the car is long, and Erika and Francesca wait quite a while before getting to the negotiations, while Ste and I rest and try to procure some brochures and road maps.

Once they're back, we head toward the outdoor parking lots excited like children, with Erika popping out with the big news of the SUV instead of the sedan: it costs only 10 dollars more, it's worth it! We choose our white Chevrolet TrailBlazer 4x4. A real nice off-road vehicle, comfortable, spacious for the luggage and well equipped. Francesca has the honor of breaking it in and driving us through the streets of Las Vegas! In no time at all we reach the Strip and start savoring the wonders of this city: we go from South to North passing the black pyramid of the Luxor, where we'll stay the last night of this leg in the West of the States.

One after another, a series of characters follow one another, such as the legendary biker in black leather on his Harley Davidson racing along with his gang, and the various theme hotels like the Excalibur with its fairy-tale castle, the Tropicana, the MGM (to date the largest with a good 5,000 rooms!), the New York New York with the unmistakable profile of Manhattan in miniature (so to speak), and the Aladdin with its Persian style, where we decide to stop. We leave the car in the boundless multi-story parking lots and continue on foot. We start by entering the hotel, which turns out to be a real village with theme-created streets and shops. Not only that, even the blue sky with clouds is fake and you're left open-mouthed by how realistic it looks! This is a real American gimmick...

We go down to the ground floor to our first casino, where we play a few bets on the slot machines without winning anything. We just happen to win a few extra credits to pull the lever a couple more times. I'm surprised by the fact that in most of the slots they've now replaced the classic lever, which was so much fun, with a boring button to press: what fun is there in that? Obviously it's more convenient and faster, you can press it repeatedly as many do without tiring your arm, but you also run out of money sooner and without suspense: haven't they taught Americans that things that are too convenient are also flat? Luckily some slots still use both methods, so I opt without hesitation for the lever! There are also many tables with roulette and card games, but we leave those to the more experienced.

We leave the Aladdin and head further north toward the Paris, passing under the perfect full-scale copy of the Eiffel Tower, which is starting to light up. A quick touch-and-go in this casino too and then straight to the Bellagio, where we catch the end of the fountain show. No worries, they repeat it every half hour. We take the opportunity to also visit this hotel, which displays unrestrained luxury in every corner you look around. We return to the fountains and take seats in the front row. The show is different from the previous one, since the soundtrack changes and the fountain jets move precisely to the rhythm of the music. It's truly evocative and well done, although, having seen the one at the Magic Fountain in Barcelona in February, I have to give a few extra points to the latter for charm and colors.

We go south along the New York New York and spot the incredible roller coaster that passes through the skyscrapers: wow, what a view there must be from up there during the ride! We enter the meanders of this hotel, discovering another mini village with the typical internal streets of the metropolis, just like you see in the movies! There's also the theater where Cirque du Soleil performs in Zumanity: how I'd love to see it but there's just no time!! And who knows how far in advance you had to book... We continue toward the Excalibur, where we take advantage of the $15 buffet to have a delicious and abundant dinner. It works just like I read in all the accounts: you pay a fixed amount and eat as much as you want, with dishes and cuisines of various nationalities. Of course, there's the refill where you go to fill your glass with the most varied drinks.

It's time to return to the car in the Aladdin parking lot and start the journey toward the Grand Canyon. Driving along the Strip is just like entering a movie, but it goes far beyond that. The charm of all the lights, the billboards, the casinos and these mega hotels: it's all made ad hoc to confuse the eye and the mind, and to make the visitor enter a sort of self-satisfied ecstasy. And you just can't resist it. Some even say that in casinos they increase the oxygen in the air to induce euphoria, and it wouldn't surprise me at all: these Americans are capable of anything! We leave Las Vegas taking the 95 south toward Needles, which connects to Interstate 40. But, given our tiredness, we prefer to stop about halfway at a remote Psycho-style motel in the town of Searchlight (which is maybe little more than a hamlet since it's not even marked on the map...).

The room is nice and spacious but a bit cold. The temperature in Nevada is certainly not that of Florida! We turn on an old-fashioned traditional little heater and get ready for tomorrow's long journey...

Needles; Grand Canyon South Rim: Mother Point; Hopi Point; Tusayan

We cross the border out of Nevada and, even if only for a short stretch, we're now on California soil, where Needles is located. We stop for breakfast in a rustic local place, with the inevitable truckers of the gigantic Terminator rigs and people passing through. It's a strategic little town since the legendary Route 66 passes through here, now renamed for a stretch as Interstate 40. It all still seems fake and I can't believe I'm in these places that represent the myth of the American West. I reread the account of dear Leandro, who also set off from here to reach the Grand Canyon: it's over 400 of our km of good road that have to be done, the destination is not at all as close as it seems from the map! We take the I 40 east without hesitation, a two-lane-per-direction road that enters Arizona after a few miles.

Excited like a child, I observe the panorama from the window, photographing and filming everything in the salient stretches. Although the I 40 is a big and busy road (there are trucks everywhere!), always straight, and the landscape can be considered at times very uniform, for tourists like us observing it for the first time it's a big dose of adrenaline! Everything is so new and different from the places we've seen so far on our travels in Europe and East Asia. A scene not to forget is the one that frequently happens while driving along the road parallel to the railway tracks a few hundred meters to the side: when the freight train passes, it runs at almost the same speed and appears stationary against the backdrop of the mountains while the desert flows underneath at 75 mph. If there were a steam locomotive, it would really be like going back in time a few centuries.

After passing Kingman and Seligman, almost nonexistent little towns, we stop for gas in Williams, which looks like a forgotten western village. As at all gas stations in the States, you go inside the market, pay for however much you want to put in the tank, and help yourself in self-service. Erika and Francesca explain to us the tricks to avoid embarrassing yourself at American service stations, like how to operate the pump (which isn't always the same or as obvious as it seems), how to possibly use the credit card, how much gas to calculate. From Williams we leave the I 40 and turn onto the 64 north, where signs for the Grand Canyon - South Rim start appearing, indicating the part that remains to the South.

There's in fact also the North part, at a higher altitude and difficult to reach, practically on the other side of the "big hole." Although as the crow flies it's only about twenty km further north than the South Rim, it takes a loop of over 350 km to reach it by car and possibly have an off-road vehicle. Alternatively, you can cross the canyon from side to side with one of the most beautiful treks in the world (the Bright Angel trail) that descends into the valley on the Colorado and then climbs back up. A real dream for all great hikers, requiring considerable preparation for the steep elevation changes, the length (several days of walking), the harshness of the terrain and climate. For the lazier ones, you can also descend on muleback, obviously paying a not insignificant sum (over $200).

The real problem then is that to find places to sleep in the valley, which are few, you have to book many months in advance. We continue our journey climbing in altitude to enter the Kaibab National Forest in a completely changed landscape, with the beautiful forest of tall trees in some stretches partially covered with dustings of snow: it's cold! We also pass Tusayan, a key little town very close to the park entrance, which we reach in a few minutes. Since it's already 15:00, we take for granted that we'll also come back tomorrow and therefore we're 'forced' to buy the annual pass costing $40 per car, exactly double a daily one at $20. And to think that with $50 you can get the pass for unlimited entry to all the national parks in the States! We drive a few miles and there the classic postcard panorama pops up in front of us: so incredible it seems fake, almost a photomontage...

We park a little to the side of Mather Point, the first and therefore most popular panoramic observation point, and get out to admire this majesty of nature in astonishment. Everything is out of proportion in measurements and size and cameras and video cameras start popping out left and right! I force myself to reflect and recall the notes from the photography course which say that this is the classic truly difficult situation for actually taking beautiful photos. I say this because at first instinct you start pressing the shutter button at random, seized by excitement, since everything seems beautiful. Then at home you realize you have 50 identical photos that don't convey at all what you saw.

So I try to focus on subjects that give a sense of scale, like humans and plants, with good light and particular shadows, or else take nice close-ups with which one day I'll really be able to say: I was there and I stood right there!!! We reach the balcony of Mather Point walking along the edge of the ravine. It's quite crowded but I was actually expecting many more people. What I wasn't expecting was all this cold, but after all, we're at over 2,200 meters of altitude! Another thing that completely throws me off is finding the forest reaching all the way to the edge of the Canyon and even descending down as far as it's possible to climb: who knows why, I thought the South part of the Grand Canyon was a desert area....

While I gaze open-mouthed at the immense panorama, accentuated by the 1,800 meters of elevation difference between me and a few meters further on, I focus on the fact that in reality what I'm now observing is a crumb of the whole. I think again of the Bright Angel that crosses the Grand Canyon from South to North, that is, in the stretch where the width varies from 6 to 30 km, while the true extension of this millennial monument is from West to East for something like 450 km: twice Sardinia, incredible! Time passes very quickly and we have to hurry. We continue by car to Grand Canyon Village and stop at a dining spot inside, which looks like a mountain lodge, for a quick lunch. Then we walk down a stretch on foot to the starting point of the bus that leads toward Hermits Rest to the west, to visit a series of panoramic points closed to car traffic.

We just make it onto the very last bus, very spartan and with nonexistent shock absorbers, which climbs up a narrow paved road running along the edge of the Grand Canyon. For a good view of the sunset, the driver recommends stopping at Hopi Point, where indeed all the tourists get off, including us. The setting sun colors the walls a magic red on one side, while on the other it creates an evocative backlight with an atmosphere of haze. It's a wonderful event, quite difficult to explain or describe. We take our photos to our heart's content and catch the return shuttle, before reaching a state of physical freezing! Once we reach the car we leave Grand Canyon Village after nightfall, marveling at an enormous elk calmly crossing the road. After a few minutes of driving we're in Tusayan to look for lodging.

Without thinking too much our choice falls on the Holiday Inn, a decent motel chain present throughout the U.S.A., which for $120 offers a nice spacious and comfortable quad room. It's not a low price but not exaggerated either, considering such proximity to one of the natural wonders of the world.

Grand Canyon: Hermits Rest; trail from Hopi Point to Mohave Point; Navajo point; Desert View; Page

A nice continental breakfast at the motel, where we consult the dozens of brochures that might interest us, and off again at top speed to the Grand Canyon entrance gate. The ranger at the entrance doesn't even ask us for the pass as soon as he looks at our faces: he remembers us from yesterday... we must have made a good impression as likable Italians! We park the car and enter the Market Plaza for the first food and shopping needs: we have to collect postcards and magnets! Then we go down as yesterday to take the bus, traveling several miles along the edge of the canyon to the far point of Hermits Rest. From here you enjoy another stupendous panorama at the westernmost point of the Grand Canyon - South Rim visitable by tourists. A nice walk to fully breathe the clear and crisp mountain air and to make more purchases in a real lodge serving as a rest stop.

We take the bus again, which on the return stops at only two points, including our stop at Mohave Point. From here, following the advice from Leandro's trip, we walk on foot toward the first point further east where we witnessed yesterday's sunset: Hopi Point. It's worth taking this walk for many reasons. First of all, just walking on foot along the edge of the Grand Canyon opens up incredible landscapes seen from a different perspective than the usual panoramic points and in a much more isolated way. It actually seems strange, but you just take a few steps and people vanish into thin air, finally giving a sense of greater intimacy in observing this spectacle of nature. The trail is just 1.3 km long and has no elevation changes, so you cover it calmly in 30 minutes, stopping often and gladly to take the obligatory photos.

Moreover, it's one of the few points where you can make out the green Colorado River very well, the primary artisan of the millennial erosion of this sandstone rock. In any case, the entire edge of the Grand Canyon can be walked with marked trails and I'm sure they all deserve to be seen. You'd just need a good few days to cover all these distances. Once at Hopi Point, we take the bus again to the village where we stop for lunch. While we're ordering our cheeseburgers, Erika has a slight fainting spell with nausea and dizziness. In a few minutes a real movie-style American production is staged before our eyes.

The lady arrives with the glass of water and sugar; the paramedic arrives with arms like Schwarzenegger carrying two gigantic duffel bags of medical equipment and starts bombarding poor Erika with questions, complete with notepad to take notes; the real doctors arrive who look more than anything like rangers with holster and gun, ready to take her by helicopter to the nearest emergency room... a tremendous exaggeration! So much so that after drinking the glass of water Erika was already feeling much better, but how do you tell these bored people who wait all day for nothing but an occasion to get excited and play heroes?? Jokes aside, hats off for efficiency and timing... We can finally give in to lunch at past 15:00, after which we move

Antelope Canyon; Lake Powell; Kanab; Zion N.P.; Las Vegas

In front of the Antelope Canyon tour office in Page there are several vehicles parked. Our Indian guide has us sit in an enormous giant truck, tall with gigantic wheels and open at the back with the seats in the centre. The landscape is extraordinary. We enter a dirt road and the town disappears behind us to give the best of this landscape. We stop for the canyon pass and continue the journey for a few more minutes, while the panorama becomes more and more unusual. Here the rock has the consistency of sand, which means mud at the first rains, small and large canyons created from one day to the next out of nothing, frenetic erosion that shapes everything. And so it was in fact also for Antelope Canyon, whose entrance appears narrow and not at all majestic.

Inside, this narrow canyon reveals the best of itself and of what mother nature can ingeniously create from the friability of the ground. The shapes are truly unreal, rounded, with incredible colours of the walls as soon as a few rays of light pass through the narrow slit, up there much higher than our heads. Some stretches are very dark, others better lit, always and only exclusively by external light. There's no human artefact fortunately, the canyon is left entirely natural without any modification to make things easier for tourists. Beautiful and moving, it really leaves you open-mouthed. You exit on the other side into an environment still extremely desert-like, with some bushes on the red rock that create a strong and magnificent contrast with the blue and crystal-clear sky of Arizona. The guide gives us half an hour to walk freely and then we go back again through the canyon.

We can then climb back into our giant truck and return to Page at 11:00 sharp. We spend half an hour on a stroll among the characteristic local little shops, then we take the car to head to the exit of the town toward Lake Powell. We almost immediately cross the bridge overlooking the imposing dam with which it was possible to create this, the largest artificial lake in the world. The fact of having filled a canyon that has nothing to envy in size to the "biggest" and most famous one we all know, makes this work half natural and half human, but certainly extremely remarkable and astounding. The colour of the yellow desert rock contrasts sharply with the blue of the water and the dimensions are dizzying: thousands of kilometres of jagged shores that can be reached by boat in the middle of the desert.

After a few photos near the dam, we take a turnoff from the 89 that runs alongside the lake and follow this route for several miles, dotted with unforgettable and superb landscapes, stopping at some scenic viewpoints. We thus also file away Lake Powell as one of the most beautiful natural wonders ever seen so far, and continue on the 89 scenic byway immediately crossing the border between Arizona and Utah. We reach the town of Kanab at 2:00 pm, just in time for a quick snack at a Pizza Hut. We turn off for the 9 west that leads to Zion, driving along a road with a variety and beauty of panoramas to give you goosebumps. While I drive I really realize that this is the kind of trip and grandiose landscapes I expected to see in the States.

There would be a thousand places to stop for photographs and to enjoy this spectacle, but time is pressing and has become the ugliest and most annoying enemy you can have on holiday. We skirt for a long time a mountain chain still with the classic red rock until we arrive at the entrance of Zion National Park at 5:00 pm sharp. This park goes far beyond expectations in what I had seen in photos or descriptions about it. The narrow road that runs through it is simply a jewel. It winds tortuously among landscapes once again astounding, totally different from those seen in the Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Lake Powell and Arizona in general. The most incredible detail is the concentration of beauty and diversity of environments that follow one another curve after curve without interruption.

Roughly halfway along we enter a singular tunnel three quarters of a mile long, totally dark with some side windows overlooking the mountain's sheer drop. At the exit you quickly descend into a valley with dizzying hairpin bends, at one of which we stop to admire the panorama from the lay-by. We continue further down in a landscape again turned upside down, which seems to change with the same ease with which you click a computer key to change from one photo to another, and we arrive near a little bridge at almost fully fallen night. Shortly before sunset, the sun reaches a particular height colouring the vertical walls of the mountains in the background a magnificent red: simply indescribable is the scenario that presents itself before our eyes and the emotion of the following ten minutes in which all this happens.

We arrive at the exit of the park, in front of a tower with the words "Zion N.P." in an area where there's camping, with the last breathtaking postcard still given by the bright colours of the mountains. We skirt a buffalo enclosure, each one twice one of our cows, and continue finally in the dark, free from temptations of other wonders to see, toward Las Vegas. The sight of the little town of St. Gorge, among the lights of the night from up high on the road while we rapidly descend in altitude, appears like a metropolis after seeing the far west villages of the desert. From here the Interstate 15 leaves Utah and re-enters Nevada, leading straight to Las Vegas in about an hour. Among the gigantic junctions of the road network (just like you see in films) we enter the Strip, this time from the north side, which we didn't see on our arrival a few days ago.

Even though we're dead tired, we immediately stop for logistical reasons at the Stratosphere Tower, a hotel that with this monument offers a wonderful view of the city from above and of the desert valley where it stands. We hadn't considered, however, the queue to go up the tower, which wastes quite a bit of time. The elevator that goes up high is so fast that it would make the most desperate roller coasters envious, for the emptiness you feel in your stomach... you almost feel sick! The panorama you enjoy is the best in the city, with the blinding lights extending as far as the eye can see. More than all, clearly deserving is the view of the Strip with its tacky and singular theme hotels, which seen from up here seem almost small....

We return to the Strip which we have to cross entirely, where the Luxor, on the opposite side to the South, awaits us with a quadruple room booked for $ 140. It's past 11:00 pm and we have to hurry to have dinner. The time betrays us and the buffets, at this hour, are all closed. We therefore made do at a steak-house inside the Luxor itself. We move by car to the Venetian's parking lots, more or less halfway along the Strip, but here too the attractions are already finished: we can only see a small part of St Mark's Square with the empty gondolas. We have to pass the time in the ruinous casinos of the rite in the hope of a win! Which happens rarely and for ridiculous sums. It's not a lucky night for gambling today...

Las Vegas - Dallas (Texas)- Orlando (Florida); Kissimme

A quick breakfast at the Luxor, identical by day and by night since not a sliver of light comes through the black windows (but maybe that's done on purpose to lose all sense of time), and off to the faraway multi-storey car park with the suitcases. A couple of miles and we're already at the airport, where we return the car to Alamo at 11:00. The flight leaves at 15:50, covering the same route as the outbound journey, with a stopover in Dallas. Because of the three-hour time difference, we arrive in Orlando after 11 p.m. We rent a car for me and Stefania for all the remaining days of the trip, during which we'll do the Florida loop. We choose Alamo again, but we're a bit surprised by the price.

Even though, thanks to Erika and Francesca, who by now are old hands at these procedures, we manage to get a discount on the initial total, it still seems to me much more expensive than the price I had imagined when I tried to book online with Expedia before leaving. In any case, we take a Chevrolet Cavalier, considered standard category, two-door, with a boot just right for our suitcases and various backpacks, reasonably well equipped and comfortable. The important thing is that it has a radio with a CD player for music! We stay in Kissimmee at the Comfort Inn in a room for $66 a night, drop Erika and Francesca back at their Disney resort accommodations, and can finally go to sleep thinking about our new journey: Florida on the road!

...to be continued....