Gooood morning everybody ! Our breakfast at the Riverside Inn was copious as yesterday, so about 10 minutes later we took off for the South, being Monument Valley. On our way down there, a bit after Bluff, we took a small dirtroad, leading us to the Valley of the Gods, which is a mini- Monument Valley area, where hardly any tourists come, but the views are equally beautiful or even more! Still, this was the first time that we wished we had a 4X4 instead of our Mazda 6! But our little fellow did very well, but I must say, the first steep climb was the worst, the car breathed and cursed and moaned but he made it! After that it was a lot of hopping around and shaking, but it surely was worth it! Then yours truly - who happens to be the navigator of the team, Marc insists on driving- made an error, leading us to another dirtroad: the Moki Dugway...ahum! This little (???!!!) road led us to the top of the plateau, no paved road, again a dirtroad and going the totally wrong direction! ààààrrrggghhh! I was só happy when we reached the top, you can imagine my face when we realised we were heading the wrong way and had to go back! Anyway, we reached the highway again safe and sound and then we followed Peter's tip and took the way to Goosenecks...marvellous ! There's a sign that says that you should enjoy the view and the quietness of the place, oh, we would , if one of the people there wouldn't have had his generator on!!! Anyway, after the necks -> Monument Valley, here we come ! Except...the navigator doze off again so we were already quite some miles further when we realised that there was something not really right.... Ahum! We again, we found it and instead of the nice paved road like in all the other parks we have visited, we again were facing a dusty dirtroad, so again some shaking and wobbling (all our body fluids are back into balance and the fat is spread out evenly again!) For sure Monument Valley was worth it, especially because it gives our typical image of the "Far West" and because the Navajo people still live in the park. For the rest, I think we have been spoiled in the previous parks, because we were not as overwhelmed as we have already been. As I say: spoiled...because for sure it was beautiful and fascinating ! And for those of you who know me, you will understand that I could not pass the little Navajo-stands who sell jewelry... (to Marc's dispair !) We are now staying in Page where we did some laundry and had some fun, because it reminded us of the Friends-episode where Rachel and Ross are doing laundry, you know with the chariot ? I couldn't resist taking one for "a ride" ! Oh yes, I hàve to say something about the public restrooms: why are all the toilets so low ? Why are the doors not completely closing? there is always some space where people could peek through!! And why are the sides of the cabine not closed to the floor or almost? Even for a short person like myself it is an awkward experience, I wonder what tall people do... !! Dears, that's it for tonight, tomorrow we would like to visit Antelope Canyon and later on drive through to somewhere around the Grand Canyon! Have a nice Sunday !!
dear sweet readers, we are sooooo happy with the reactions we received, giving us the enthusiasm to continue, even now when we (eum, I ) am craving for my soft bed... Thank you! thank you ! Thank you!!!!! Today we had an early wake up call and after a fine (???) continental (???) breakfast, we headed for Dead Horse Point State Park.I will not shock you with what the name came from, but it was quite sad. At the overlook, still a bit in the haze of the morning sun, we met Lisa, a lovely lady from Sacramento who was on holiday with her friend John from Canada. Nice chat we had ! Dead Horse Point gives a beautiful overlook over the canyon, created by the Colorado river. Next on our list was Island in the Sky, which is not the name of a psychedelic song, but the northern part of Canyonlands, formed by the Green River and the Colorado river. We have seen there, in the beauty of the early morning, an arche with an amazing view behind ! Immediately high in our top 5 of Highlights Of this Holiday ! A bit further, on Grand View point we could even see a bit of The Needles, which is the southern-east part of Canyonlands, but we will not visit it because of lack of time By noon, our breakfast was looong gone, so we came back to Moab and had a delicious salad at the Eclectic Café, bio-food and bio-atmosphere and we loved it! Then back to Arches National Park, this is by far the most extraordinary park we have seen so far! Wow ! Amazing what nature can do with rocks, water and sand ! We have seen beautiful arches, marvellously sculpted rocks, so magnificent ! The Landscape Arch has become famous because in September 1991, a big part of it fell down, so now the upper part of the arch is really thin...still...wow! After this hike, the mountain goat had to come into action again and not in the least way: as the sun was getting lower, it was time to visit Delicate Arch, which is at its best at sunset.But oh dear sweet lord, what a climb !!! Why do they hide all the beautiful things deep into the park so that you have to walk for over an hour (what do I say? Walk? Steep hiking, climbing, breathing like a nearly dead horse !!!) But the result was magnificent! The arch stands by itself at the edge of a plateau high in the hils, carressed by the sun and the wind and it is breathtaking (eum...in both senses ) We went silent after all this beauty and walked back to the car. After a hot shower we felt human again and ready to attack Zax Pizza Restaurant, which was a bit of a disappointment as it resembled more Pizza Hut than a nice pizza place! semi blègh! Tomorrow we will not go to Mesa Verde, Peter, because we have decided that it is too far away. We will go down to Monument Valley and decide there whether we will go to Page & Antelope Canyon or heading straight for Williams/Flagstaff... to be continued... have a nice Saturday all, we send you some sun and some warmth (today 35°C ) Take care and keep on reading !!! xxx
Hello dear readers, well I hope you do read because -except for Peter- nobody is giving any reaction... Anyway, after a cool night (temperature dropped to 12°C) and a heavy breakfast, we were on our way to Capitol Reef. We first had a look at Gooseneck viewpoint and got almost dizzy by the steepness of the rocks, we passed Chimney Rock, the Castle and then went for a small hike in the very narrow Capitol Gorge. Just the mere thought that one of those rocks could collapse ran shivers down our spine ! We passed the Pioneer Register, where courageous pioneers who passed the canyon with their horses and chariots wrote down their names and the date they passed the canyon...very interesting ! We saw dates going back as far as 1881 and even earlier, they were written high up on the side of the rock, proving also how the water had again deepened the canyon in a bit more than 100 years. We drove past the Egyptian temple (stunning!), we visited an old Mormon house and then drove up the Highway again to have a look on the trail of the Hickman Bridge. That required again some steep walk (at a temperature of 38°C!) but it was worth it! First we thought we found it, but it appeared to be a kind of mini slot-canyon, the real work was a few hundreds of meters further (uphill of course!!!). After seeing all this beauty of nature (see picture), we drove further, this time we were heading for Moab, which was quite a drive along long, long, loooooong roads !But again the views were fantastic and fascinating, just to see how in a few kilometers the entire landscape can change from red rocks into chalkstone into grey into brown into red again... When we arrived in Moab, we went on a queeste to find a hotelroom. Ahum! Not thàt easy ! I even barked at a poor receptionist for leaving the "vacancy" sign on when it should have been "NO vacancy", but hey! Don't fool around with moi when I'm tired ànd hungry! Anyway...we found a nice room with kingsize bed (I just love it, so much space!!) in the Riverside Inn, and the - totally bored- receptionist even reduced the rate with 5$ after I gave him a smile and some eyelash flapping (LOL) We decided to make it a bit easier for ourselves and booked also for tomorrow night, which will give us some more space tomorrow. We did some windowshopping in Moab city, I love the indian jewelry but Marc thinks it all looks quite fake (so K & D, if you want something indian style, try to convince your dad !!) And we had a nice dinner at the local brewery, where Marc tasted a "Belgian Wit", which it is not exactly like our Hoegaerden or Brugs tarwebier, but it has a good taste, even though they serve it with a slice of orange (!!!) Our Inn is located quite near the entrance of both Canyonlands and Arches National Park, so that is on the agenda for tomorrow. Guess we better hit the sack now... bye all ! Have a nice day !
good morning everybody !!! After a fantàstic sleep (boy, the beds are good in this country!!) we had a healthy breakfast at the Mean Bean in Springdale and did a quick small hike of about 1 hr in Zion on our way out of the park. Then we headed for Bryce Canyon, where we arrived shortly after noon.First we drove the scenic drive through the park to the most southern point and then we returned slowly, stopping at each scenic view. This park is stunning ! It reminded me a bit of Cappadocia in Turkey but then red coloured ! Of course, the visit wouldn't have been real without a hike IN the canyon! So we went down, down, deeper and down from Sunset Point via the Navajo Trail to Queens garden and (vèry steep!!) up again ! We now are a bit of a zoo: I am a mountain goat, Marc is a mule (carrying the heavy backpack with lots and lots of bottels of water and cereal bars) and we both are camels (drinking a lot of water )!! After every curve in the trails there was another breathtaking view, the rocks look as if they were painted and carved and you can find various features: ET, a sheep, an old man,... our imagination went wild ! There were also a few "strange" creatures: a very tiny, chubby, lizzardlike-but-not-really animal, a very small lizzard, a blue bird, and some very cute chipmunks. After this hike of about 3,5 hours (our muscles are becoming athletic! watch us when we are back !! ) we left the park and drove the long way to Torrey (a bit further than foreseen, but is was really worth it !) Highway 12 is sooooo beautiful ! We almost got a heartattack when a junior deer jumped out of nowhere in front of our car! Fortunately our Mazda has good brakes and Marc is very alert behind the wheel ! Then there were some (many!!!) cows at the side of the road, we encountered at dusk (so visibility was not optimal) some more deer-families and also managed to avoid a few suicidal rabbits ! That was quite some excitement for the end of the day and now we are in Capitol Reef Inn at Torrey for the night. Tomorrow we will visit Capitol Reef and then... well...keep on reading folks !! big hugs from us here and a ray of sunshine, XXX
good morning all ! After a very pleasant evening with Ines, Christophe, Annelies and Didier and no profit at gambling, we ended up too late in our bed again! So this morning, it was a bit of a struggle again, but at 9:30 we were driving out of Las Vegas, away from the glitter, glamour and money. The landscape soon changed from desert-like into beautiful rockformations in very different shades of brownish red, lovely ! And around 13:00 hrs we arrived at Springdale, a cute little town with quite some restaurants and motels/inns and a few little shops... where I would like to go and have a peek! But that will be for tomorrow. This afternoon we were a bit too early to check in our room at the Canyon Ranch Motel, so we decided to take the shuttle to Zion National Park. The shuttle stops in front of our motel and is free, so that was great! We first took the small hike to Weeping Rock, which was lovely: the water that has been absorbed for many, many years by the sandstone is there released again, causing a very gentle dripping and a lot of green...such a calm, beautiful spot!! We saw two very special butterflies too, but they were too hasty to have their picture taken. Then we decided to go on the Hidden Canyon trail, which was a steep climb against the red mountain.My calfs had just stopped hurting, they were just now back to normal...what do we do? We climb and make them all painful again!! Duuuuhhhh! At the highest part of the path, we had to hold on to chains which were fixed into the rocks, to prevent us from falling down into the canyon. And we safely reached the hidden canyon, but then....as if the steep climbing wasn't enough, we decided to go into the canyon hoping for an awesome view at the end...ahum! My chinese horoscope sign is a goat, and I might sometimes behave like one, I definitely am NOT a mountain goat !!! àààààrrrggghhh! We really had to climb over rocks, mount very steep and slippery specimen and I can tell you: I HAVE NOT BEEN DESIGNED FOR ROCKCLIMBING !!! and the climbing up is still quite alright, but we had to take the same way back ! For those of you who understand Dutch: mijn olleke ging open en dicht in sneltempo, godmiljaar zeg !!!! In the end we realised that we were climbing our way up to nothing really, but we did see a nice arche midway the canyon and some catfaeces, so maybe a lynx has passed the same path previously? Anyway, we arrived at the bottom of the trail safe and sound and had a wonderful time admiring the sunset against the red rocks. We ran into Didier and Annelies again, so we had dinner with them and now....we'll drop dead in our beds again, hopefully I will be able to walk properly tomorrow !! Goodnight everybody! Tomorrow we will be heading for Bryce Canyon !
hello everybody! We have to take something back: we don't think Las Vegas is as awful as we thought it to be yesterday ! The crowds yesterday were most probably due to the long weekend of Labour Day, which brought plenty of people to Vegas and made it as crowded as the Meir in Antwerp on a supersale day !!! Anyway, as we were in bed very late yesterday, we took it easy today, and had a nice breakfast in the Pharao's Thombe (or something) and then went to look around in Mandalay Bay. It is amazing how huuuuuge these hotels are and how spotless they are too! We visited Shark's Reef, an underwater world with quite an amount of sharks, exotic fish, waterturtles,yellyfish and even a real octopus ! Afterwards we went to MGM, Paris (with a beautiful casino and shopping street, it looks as if you are really in Paris, below the Eiffeltower,with a painted sky on the ceiling...amazing and yet very cosy too) Ceasar's Palace, went to an Oldtimer Exposition at the Imperial Palace, watched again the fountain show in front of the Bellaggio's... and arrived deadtired again in our room. Tonight we first wanted to go and see downtown Las Vegas, but as the people we met in Lone Pine invited us to go for some gambling, we will do that. Let's hope we will have a bit of luck on our side Tomorrow we have again a busy day: we will leave Las Vegas for Zion National Park, so away from the lights, the people, the noise, the fakeness,...and back to nature ! It will for sure do us some good ! Bye for now !
hello all ! While your breakfast is already over, it is about ten past one in Vegas now. This is an absolute record: since we are in America, we went to bed not later than 10 pm, except for today... We don't know what it is with us and deserts, but everytime we arrive in one, they get pooring rain ! Yesterday we had a strong wind (which was lovely, a very hot wind, we are not used to that) and a beautiful rainbow above the sand dunes. Right before we went to our room, there was a bit of rain, but apparently there was a lot a few miles further in the Valley, because this morning, some people reported quite some water at a few deep points. Very surreal, water in the desert... We left Stove pipe Wells at 7:45 hrs and temperature was already 40°C ! Zabriskie point was still on our wishlist and after we had seen this beautiful creation of nature, we headed for Sin City... And OH MY GOD !!! What is this? It looks like Disneyland for adults ! Amazing, stunning, overwhelming and really not our thing ! First we spend about 45 minutes on checking in in The Luxor hotel where an asian desk officer tried to upgrade our room...not needed!(thank you Peter) We got a room on the 25th floor, overlooking the desert (not really, but more an overview of the housing south of The Strip), quite relaxing as there are not blinking neons !After we dropped our bags, we went for prospection...it is amazing ! I cannot compare this better than Disneyworld with a huge concentration of overweight people. Tonight at 7 pm we went to see Stomp Out Loud which was super and even funny. Amazing what these people can do with some ordinary things. After the show Marc wanted to go to the "old" part, downtown Las Vegas, but our killing feet have kept us from doing so. We both have the same feeling: too many people, too fake, too crowdy. And at night all the lolita's come out, which is a treat to the eye and to the "laugh"-muscles ! anyway dears, time for us to hit the sack, tomorrow is another day in Never Neverland and Peter Pan and Tinkerbell are tired...goodnight!
Italië 2024
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dear sweet readers, we are sooooo happy with the reactions we received, giving us the enthusiasm to continue, even now when we (eum, I ) am craving for my soft bed... Thank you! thank you ! Thank you!!!!! "Crying or Very sad"){kind=icon}
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good morning all ! After a very pleasant evening with Ines, Christophe, Annelies and Didier and no profit at gambling, we ended up too late in our bed again! So this morning, it was a bit of a struggle again, but at 9:30 we were driving out of Las Vegas, away from the glitter, glamour and money.
hello all ! While your breakfast is already over, it is about ten past one in Vegas now. This is an absolute record: since we are in America, we went to bed not later than 10 pm, except for today...
