2 days of wonders

When I left Vegas I was driving towards Death Valley. Its funny, once you get out of the city you are in complete destert again, it's so odd that they put a city right in the middle of it!
Anyway, after all the blinking lights and the busyness of Vegas it felt good to be in the nature again. Of course there are lots of people doing the same thing as I did and so the roads are not empty but you see a bunch of cars every once in a while. That 's good because if your car is dying from overheating you'll have a nice old couple in an RV helping you out soon, but on the other hand that's not quite "wild west" you know :)
But it was a beautiful drive and you don't lack solitary moments on dester roads at all, don't get me wrong, hehe! ok, here we go:

when you enter Death Valley you see bizarre white rock fromations

and I took this picture from "Zabriski point", an outlook point at the beginning of death valley

this is down in the Valley. When I was stepping out of the car it was HOT. It was ridiculous. And in the middle there was a camping site. I tought this was a bad joke ;) It was defenetly the hottest place I have ever been in my life

the wind blows trough the valley and you get sand dunes! like in the sahara...
(click to enlarge)

a yellow car

I spended half a day driving through death valley and to get out of it. I wanted to hit the Sequoia national park in califoria in the evening, so I crossed over the mountains and as the sun was setting I felt like being in a mountain wonderland... So beautiful!

before going down the mountains I had about 2 hours more of the wonderland drive...

going down towards Sequoia national park. I wanted to find a camp site to park my car, but everything I could find was booked out. So I kept driving till it was dark and I could find a nice spot finally. So I parked my car and go some sleep! (this picture is not that spot, this is from ealier that day)

In the morining I saw that this river was closeby!

so what I heard about Sequoia was that there are big redwood trees...

and here they are!

big trees! really fantastic. A ranger lady told me that they are 1500 years old and that I didn't even hit the groove with he biggest ones in the park! Well, they were big enough for me !

me, rockin' out with a redwood

then, my little TOM TOM sended me 20 miles on this dust road to descent a mountain. It was supposed to be the "fastest way to L.A." Hehe, it was funny though. Thanks to the 4 wind again!

then he scenery changed again completely, before coming to bakersfield you drive through those hills

wow! what a drive. Before Bakersfield you see oil fields in those hills also. Then the drive to L.A. was rather eventless. But I finally could get in touch with Vikki from the LA sangha who hosted me the the I was in the city

entering L.A.

Vikki took me out that same night to the Getty museum. There was live concerts there and a hughe crowd. And the museum is build beautifully, white italian marmor all around

and you can overlook the city from here. And that after waking up by the river, the big trees and the hills... all in the same day !!! pretty awesome day

Venice beach lifeguards! you can do quiete some babe- eh - baywatching here ;)

more from L.A. soon. This is party city! (I've been out every evening) stay tuned!

Viva Las Vegas!!

Ok folks, here we go. Vegas! I stayed with Richard who is a musician and guitarist/musical director of the Blue Man Show. So I got to see the show. Awesome!

I arrived from my trip through he canyons and really needed a shower and some rest at Richard's place before I went out to explore Vegas...

ok, this picture I took on my LAST day, but I thought it's cool to have it at the beginning of this post :)

first night I went down to Freeman street, that's where it all startet. Here you see all the famous old casinos like the 4 Queens. They converted the street to a walking only area and put a fancy arched roof over the street so that old school gamblers don't get wet and that they can have video clips projected on it!

inside an old casino on freeman. I went to the casinos restaurant and got myself a burger with fries ;)

the Riviera

then I found my way to the strip. That's where all the light and the big new casinos are...

it's all about money!

that's the LUXOR casino at the end of the strip. You can see that beam of light from the pyramid from everywhere in the city...

... and that's the Luxor's lobby

and this was really breathtaking when I saw it the first time. This picture is taken INSIDE, folks. The builded a small venice inside the casino/hotel "THE VENETIAN". And it looks damn real too, hehe

the Vegas airport is directly next to the strip. I heard that one casino even has it's own landing strip so that the high rollers in their private jets can step out of the plane and be at the playing table within minutes.

yes, that's PARIS!

o la la !

slot machines

I lost $6 on one of those. Then I decided to end my gambling career right there!

and there are still building new and bigger buildings! They blast up old casinos to make space for new ones. It's funny, it so obvious that people come here to loose their money, not to win... That's why they can build more and bigger casinos where people can loose more money!!! grrrr... (ok ok I might be still a bit pissed about the 6 bucks and the slot machine, haha)

are you ready to play?

yeah, and if they don't have their own landing strip, they can pick you up in one of those

leaving Las Vegas!

As a souvenir I collected 25 $1 chips from different casinos. I stole this idea from a friend of mine but it's by far the coolest thing to do in the city... you get to check out all the places and you get better and better walking up to the cashier (where the guy in front of you just cashed in 5000 dollars) and you say with a straight poker face: "One 1$ chip please. And wish me luck honey" HAHA

In the Desert...

From Albuquerque I drove further west, towards arizona. I knew I had 2 days to reach Las Vegas, but in the end it would take me even 3 days. But this drive took me to some of the most wonderful places I have seen so far on my trip... My first stop was "sky city", and native indian town located on top of a massive rock formation. You had to leave the highway I40 and you enter indian territory...

a few miles before sky city, you look down into a valley, and you see the wonderful rocks the city is build on:

you cannot see it clearly in the small picture, but click on it and it will enlarge, and look closer on top of the rocks... hmmm, ok its still hard to see ;)
but the view out on the valley with its bizarre rocks was truly breathtaking. The pics can only give you a glimpse of it

but here you have sky city on top of the rocks. It was to late in the day to get in, so I just drove by and turned deeper into the indian reservation. There were huge sings in the beginning that taking pictures is only allowed with a special permit, so I felt a little uneasy. I think it's no fun to have some angry manitus on your heels, he ;)

this and the next days there were dark rain clouds hanging in the sky, and sometimes it would have strong wind and rain. The heavy weather came from the east, so I would stay always just a bit ahead of it. The setting sun and the clouds produced a wonderful play of lights and shadows in the desert

like this...

when I was out on highway I40 again I picked up some speed and headed towards arizona

I drove on until I entered Arizona and spended the night on a rest area along the highway. It was already dark when I pulled over, and in the next morning I saw the moon hanging above some red rocks

Arizona had some of the most amazing views. Soon I left I40 again to turn north into the Apache Indian Reservation. The people out here live in small trailors in the desert, sometimes together in groups, sometimes alone. But absolutely unromantic, always with a bunch of trash and rusty cars around, ans some of those trailors seemed to be left empty for years. Nevertheless, the landscape I would see the next 2 days was very diverse and always changing ...

In the early afternoon I reached Canyon de Chelly National Monument

and after resting a while I drove on towards Monument Valley, and saw some beautiful sights along the way

If I would be an indian, I would totally see my manitu lying there takin' a nap in the desert. What do you see in the picture?

crazy rocks. Looks like straight out of a Giger painting

and then...

Monument Valley!

the rain is coming!

on my way towards the Grand Canyon I saw a sign "Dinosaur tracks" along the road. And yes, next to some stands selling Indian jewelery (by the way you see them here on EVERYWHERE. and their stuff is not even nice...) I saw DINOSAUR TRACKS fossilized in the rocks. Try to walk in those footsteps ;)

this is the Colorado River Canyon shortly before Grand Canyon. As the sun was setting and I had some amazing views:

The night I spended in the car on a campsite next to the Grand Canyon. In the morning I went to the rim and I did some hiking with 2 guys I met the evening before on the campsite. All we could say was: "wow, that truly is a big hole in the ground!"

we hiked down about 1 1/2 hours before we took some rest and went up again

the Grand Canyon is an amazing experience. But I had to move on and so I drove down through the forrest and into the destert again. Then I left the highway to continue on the historical route 66, which is a bit of a detour but it turned out to be totally worth it. Empty highway, blue sky and a beautiful landscape. Music of choice: AC/DC ;)

historical route 66

more route 66

after driving the whole day I saw some more Canyon in the distance towards my right. In the next small indian town I left the highway, and followed my intuition to a dust road leading towards this:

I kept on driving, and yes, my Ford can race dust roads quite a bit, hehe! The whole time I was not sure weather to go on or to turn and go back to find a Motel. But I continued, and had to cross some small streams too. I would have had no chance without a 4 wind. In the end I had to pass very small passages and for a moment I was not sure if that is still a road. But then, I reached it's end:

my Ford "Trutle" with glowing mountains in the background

and I reached the Colorado River! Amazing! So I drove all the way down into west Grand Canyon basically. I spended the night there... There was a small fireplace and some boats too. It was very exiting and beautiful, especially when the moon came out and shined its light into the Canyon. I didnt sleep very well though, it was super hot down there and lots of strange noises around, uhhh...
But I made it and it was cool. Next morning a ranger lady came and charged me 26.70 dollar for camping in indian territory. Shortly after that 3 trucks with more boats arrived and 2 busses with rafters, haha. But in the night I was convinced I had found a pretty lonely and secret spot...

next day I drove on towards Las Vegas

the Hoover DAMN!

and then finally Vegas! But that story will be told another time. I have to go out now to see the Blue Man Group! ;) bye bye!