Day 20

The oppressive heat of the Arizona sun got Rhonda up and out of bed at 6 AM (it was actually 5:45, but whatever). Well, maybe it was the noise from the campers around us packing up and leaving, too. Brett managed to stay in the tent and sweat it out until about 8 AM. We hung out for a bit, drinking water and chattting. At 9, we showered and headed into town to try and catch the rafting tour down Marble Canyon. When we got there, they told us that they were booked up for the day, but they had room for us on the 7:30 AM tour the next morning. As much as Brett wanted to raft, he was a little unhappy about the early hour. Oh, well, no rest for the wicked (Rhonda must be quite awful then)! We will be joining them tomorrow for the raft/float tour, then we'll be on the road again, heading north through Utah.

So, what to do with the rest of this gorgeous day by the immense and beautiful Lake Powell? The beach, of course! We grabbed some supplies, a fan for the tent, and some water. We also got ourselves an electric cooler that runs off the DC outlets in the truck. We've been spending a horrendous amount of money on ice, and this cooler (for $59) would save us that expense from now on. And it is another gadget, and we love those. We have more power cords in the truck than Rhonda has in her whole house. While Brett was pushing around the cart in WalMart, a young boy with a touch of ADD/hyperactivity chastised Brett by saying 'SLOW DOWN!', as he proceeded to touch and slap everything in sight (including Rhonda). We encountered him again in the electronics aisle as he demanded of his mom, "I said I want a cellphone!" He made this statement with his teeth clenched and with a lot of force, obviously he is the boss in his family.

We headed down to the beach, and sunned ourselves for a few hours. Brett took a dip in the warm water. It's very nice down there. The only problem is the sand. It is extremely fine and blows around in the wind. After a while it feels as if you are being sand blasted. Also, there are these spikey things that are like thorns that stick into you, and we have both experienced that wonderous feeling. But so far no scorpions in Rhonda's boots, so Brett hasn't had a chance to play the hero yet (but he has been opening doors since Washington).

Right now, we're hiding out in the laundry room of the campground, basking in the air conditioning, waiting for our laundry to finish. Tonight looks like dinner at Sonic, then back down to the beach to float around on some tubes (Rhonda really wants a tube and has since the last 2 beaches), then back to the campground for the night.

Day 19

We're going to rewind a bit and go back to last night. After we posted, at around 8 at night, we decided to hit the town and see what happens late at night in Williams, AZ. Rhonda got dressed, and we walked down to the Sultana, a small local bar on the 'strip'. Rhonda and Brett enjoyed a beer, but not much was going on. We just sort of observed the locals playing pool and hanging out. There was a two woman welcoming comittee that were, let's just say that they were not really that welcoming with all of the swearing and shouting (not to mention that one of them was wearing her McDonalds work uniform).

We decided to try another bar, the Canyon Club. We saddled up to the bar and were about to order a beer when a very friendly but inebriated man spotted us and joined us. We did some quick introductions, and he bought us a round. His name was John, and he was from LA. He asked us our names and where we were from (and he did again many, many, many more times throughout the night). John asked us about our relationship, Brett quickly responded that I was his mail order bride from Nova Scotia, which confused John and he left us alone for a while. We got to know Jackie the bartender, Melvin the school coach, and another local who was actually from Manitoba originally. Jackie gave us some advice about the Grand Canyon, which was really cool. The bar also had a group there from Belgium that was having a great time playing shuffleboard and when the sherriffs came in they had their picture taken with them. At this point we were babysitting John so that he didn't get arrested and trying to keep him under wraps. It was a great night, lots of fun and very educational. What a place, including the very interesting bathrooms. We were the interesting strangers in a small town bar.

In, the morning, Brett had a rather interesting experience checking out. There was pretty disgruntled lady in there complaining about getting in at 3 AM and having to wake up her hotel neighbor, blah, blah, blah, and she thought she was entitled to a discount. The hotel clerk thought different, so the lady decided it would be appropriate to throw the call bell at the wall and announce how rude and inconsiderate everyone was. Brett got out as soon as possible, he was kind of scared I think. As we pulled out, the clerk and her family were on the street, awaiting the arrival of the local sherrif. The uhaul truck that the lady was driving was still there so we think she got into some sort of trouble. Of course the uhaul truck might explain some of her attitude.

We were back on the road, headed to the Grand Canyon's south rim, which was about an hour north. We drove, had lunch at the village near the rim, and then boarded a shuttle bus to see the lookout points into the canyon. We stopped at 3 of the 7 lookouts, and were stunned by the sight of the canyon itself. Brett managed to get really close to the edge of the canyon for a great look. It's an amazing sight, to see all that rock carved away by the Colorado River.

We headed back to the village, and hopped into the truck. Destination: Page, AZ. This is where the rafting companies on the river launch from, and it happens to be the home of Lake Powell Resort. We arrived there at about 6 PM, after driving through the Indian reservation between the south rim village and Page. You wouldn't think people could live out of truck campers (without the truck attached), but they do out here. It's like seeing a third world nation out here.

We arrived at Lake Powell Resort, and got back into camping mode. We set up the tent, grabbed a pizza from the local pizza joint down the road, and enjoyed the spectacular view of the lake against the red cliffs of the canyon walls. Now we sit under a beautiful moon, with out computer and out LED lights, talk about roughing it.

About 300 km's put on the truck today, and everybody's still in the truck.

Day 18

Today was all about leaving Las Vegas. We got up, showered, packed, and headed to the check-out line. Oops, wrong line; check-out's over there! We got ourselves sorted out, headed to the truck, and drove to the nearest WalMart to get some much needed supplies, such as soap, razors, and foot scrapers for our gross blackened crusty heels. There's an image for you.

We then hit the road, with a final destination of the Grand Canyon. We drove for about 4 hours, and nothing really exciting happened, other than a 75 mph speed limit on the interstate. And a huge dust devil, that was blowing around the tumbleweed that Rhonda has been looking for all this trip.

When we arrived in Williams, a small town on the interstate that happens to be on the exit to the canyon, we noticed some dark, ominous clouds and thunderheads heading our way. The canyon itself was still 60 miles away on a secondary highway. Brett's plan was to camp in one of the three campsite areas around the canyon itself. But with thunderstorms on the way, we elected to stay in Williams for the night instead, hotelling it once more.

We found an Econo-Lodge, checked in, and walked down the street to a barbecue restaurant with covered swinging picnic tables on their patio. Rhonda enjoyed a 12 oz New York steak, while Brett opted for a 1/2 barbecued chicken dinner. Both were delicious.

On the way back, we inquired about joining a float/raft tour down the canyon itself. Well, for the low price of $170 US, you too could get up at 3 AM to drive down to the heli-pad at the canyon itself, and take a 3 hour bus ride to the raft itself, float for a few hours, and take even longer getting back via the bus, since you'd be stopping for souvenirs at the gift shops. Well, there goes that idea. We were hoping for a morning or afternoon float down the canyon, nothing more than a few hours. I guess we will have to see what is available when we get to the Canyon.

So we are hanging out in the hotel room. This town has a definate western feel to it, with saloons, country music and lots of BBQ.

Day 17

We had some late-night laundry issues which kept us up until 3 AM, and we needed to check out of the hotel by 11 AM the next morning. Tired as we were, we were up by 9:30 AM, showered and packed and checked out by about 10:30. We set the GPS for the Hoover Dam, which was a surprisingly short half hour drive. We thought that it would be a quick tour.

After finding one of the last parking stalls in the dam $7 visitor centre parkade (at the top, exposed to the full force of the Las Vegas sun), we headed down to the dam visitor centre. Once inside, we encountered a massive line-up of dam people just inside the centre itself. We asked the clerk what the huge dam line was for, and she replied, "the powerplant tour." Great, the one dam thing Brett wanted to see. However, she informed us that the tour groups are 120 people each, and they leave every 15 minutes. Well, that's a little better. We paid our dam $11 tour fee each, and got into the dam lineup.

We were still waiting in the line for a good 45 minutes before we got into one of the dam tours. And it started with a visit to the theatre room, to watch a dam video straight out of a junior high science class. It was so boring it was laughable! The best part was the close captioning, especially when the music and explosions happened ("MUSIC" and "EXPLOSIONS") After, we took a giant dam elevator down to the inlet pipes, where the water powering the dam turbines flowed through. Our dam tour guide talked a lot about how the main purpose of the dam was actually to prevent flooding further downstream in the California agriculture belts, and that power generation is just a nice bonus. You could feel the pipes rumbling as they carried '88,000 gallons of water a second' to the turbines. Incidentally, that was the next and last stop on the dam tour. We saw the tops of the 8 or 9 turbines on the Nevada side of the dam (the generator rotor & stator parts) while the turbines themselves were another 4 or 5 stories below where we were. Dam.

With the tour finished, we had a walk around for a few moments, soaking up all the dam heat (113 degrees). They're building a dam huge roadway bypass bridge across the canyon, only 1/4 mile past the dam itself. It should be done in October 2010. They have the suspension cables, the arches and the pillars pretty much done. All they need to do is build the roadway that will go over the top of it. Watch for a Discovery special on it coming your way in about a year and a half.

By the time we were done hanging out at the dam, it was getting near time to check in for our last night in Las Vegas. We got a room at the Luxor for cheap. So, we drove down to the Luxor Hotel, Brett dropped Rhonda off, and Brett went to try and find a parking space in the check-in area (15 minute parking only). After Brett finally weaseled into one of those spots, he rejoined Rhonda in the check-in lane. We checked into our room after parking the truck (in the top deck of a parkade AGAIN!). We're staying in the pyramid part of the hotel, so we get angled windows with a view of the Excalibur Hotel, and a little of the New York New York Hotel, too. The elevation is not even called an elevator, it is an "Inclinator". It goes up at an angle and sounds like it is having a really tough time doing it.

After settling in, we hit the Strip, by first taking the tramway to New York New York. We saw the cool NYC decorating in the hotel and the roller coaster. Yes, Rhonda chickened out of going on the roller coaster, she blamed it on having just eaten. We had just had our first and only Vegas buffet, and it was an experience. After, we crossed the street to the MGM Grand, then down to street level to see the vendors on the street. We grabbed some souvenirs for some friends at the M&M Store, then we hit the Miracle Mile mall, but by then we were pretty pooped. We exited the mall right in front of the Paris Hotel, and across the street was the Bellagio. Rhonda had been gushing over seeing the fountains at the Bellagio, so we crossed the street and were treated to 'Luck Be A Lady' by Sinatra playing with the fountain show. Brett was awestruck by the spectacle (and the engineering behind it). Maybe now he understood why Rhonda had been "gushing" over it.

We cabbed it back to the Luxor and grabbed showers before tonight's event: Cirque De Soleil's Mystere. Another cab ride to Treasure Island, and we arrived just before showtime. Before the show started, they had a 'clown' ushering people to their seats and making a great spectacle of it all for the audience. Once the show started, it was sheer awe. An amazing spectacle of colour, dance, acrobatics, and technical theatre. It's safe to say that were were both stunned by the performance. It was really beautiful.

After, we took a cab to the Bellagio to see the fountains at night. We saw 'Luck Be A Lady' again, and the finale, 'The Star Spangled Banner'. Very nice. Once again, we cabbed it back to the Luxor, as by this time, Rhonda was in quite a bit of pain from her heels.

After Rhonda had changed her heels out for some more comfortable footwear, we decided to head down to the casino level and do some actual gambling. With $10 each, we had some fun on the slots, but lost it all. We finished off the evening with a McDonald's late night meal from the hotel food court and retired.

Only about 80 km's put on the truck today, and we're all still in Vegas. (But not for much longer)

Day 16

We got up at the crack of noon, putzed around the hotel room for a bit, showered, and got dressed up for a hot day in the sun. Then Brett looked out the window, and saw how cloudy it was. He checked the weather forecast, which called for clouds and wind, but the temperature was still going to be 41 degrees Celsius.

We decided that today would be the day we hit the outlet mall here in Vegas. We hopped in a cab and arrived at our destination. You know how malls are big buildings with the main thoroughfares in the building itself? Here in Vegas, they have outdoor malls, more like giant plazas, but you still go inside to the store. The walkways between shops are all outdoor, and they have giant misting fountains that spray water mist over the shoppers to keep the heat down. It was a big surprise to Brett. But he maintained his cool (despite the heat).

We were there to get some nice dress-up clothes for our evenings out. Brett got a couple pairs of jeans, 4 tops, some new dress shoes with the pointy toes, and a new reversible belt. Rhonda bought 3 new dresses and 2 new pairs of high-heels and a pair of jeans. One of her dresses came with the CUTEST little sweater! He's reallly kidding. I will willingly donate that sweater to anyone who wants it. But the dress under it was really quite good.

We cabbed it back to the hotel, decided on the outfits we would wear for the evening, and showered. This is where it gets interesting... Brett got a war wound getting into the shower when he smacked his knee on the faucet. While Rhonda showered, he had to run down to the truck to grab a giant band-aid. In the meantime, Rhonda sliced her finger open on one of her leg razors, when she was digging in her toiletry bag.

After the wounds were patched up, we headed down to the bar, grabbed a couple singapore sling slushies in the giant Stratosphere super-cups, and cabbed it to the Rio Hotel & Casino. Tonight was our night for Penn & Teller (the one Brett wanted to see). Looking fabulous, we were ready for Vegas and all it had to offer us.

We got our seats, finished our drinks, and got a couple more in the theatre lobby. While Brett opted for a Guiness beer, Rhonda got another 'singapore sling'. It's in quotations because it ended up being close to 4 shots of gin in a 5-shot glass. It was more like a martini with ice than anything else. Needless to say, while we both enjoyed the show, we couldn't quite feel our lips by the end.

We retired to the bar and grill in the Rio to get our only meal of the day (club sandwiches with mixed french fries). It was now time for the most exciting part of our Las Vegas evening... laundry! See, the hotel here has free laundry machines (something we'll never see on our trip again, and it's high time we both disd our laundry anyways). In the meantime, we'll be watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine on pay-per-view! We sound so exciting, but hey we got dressed up and went out earlier.

All in all, a very productive and Vegas-filled day. 0 km's put on the truck (for once!) and we're all still sitting pretty here at the Stratosphere!

Day 15

We got up this morning in Mojave, CA to some sweltering heat. After packing up the truck, we realized that we had not cleaned out our cooler in some time (since before arriving in San Fransisco). Actually, it was not as bad as we had thought, seeing that everything was in its own sealable container or Zip-Loc bag. After emptying and cleaning it out, we set off towards Vegas. We stopped briefly in Barstow, CA for lunch at a Bob's Big Boy restaurant, and filled up the truck ($3.09 a gallon; yipes!).

We hit the road again, and encountered a big traffic backlog at the Nevada state line. We were stuck in traffic for about a half hour or so, crawling along at not more than 10 mph. We have learned that traffic jams kind of kill our excitement. It opened up again, and we soon found ourselves in Vegas.

We saw all the big hotels and casinos as we drove in from the south along the Interstae to the north end of the Strip, where our hotel was. We got really nice rooms at the Stratosphere for $50 a night (their week day rate). After parking the car, we stood in the registration line for about 20 minutes. Brett gawked at all the sight in the hotel lobby and casino. When we got to the front of the line, we were directed to the check-in line (oops!), which was a little ways down the lobby. We were a little nervous about our reservations, seeing as we booked them at about 11 PM the night before and the website said that our reservations should be on the system within 7 days (?!). Thankfully, our reservations were in the system. We had a good talk with the check-in clerk about the hotel, its amenities, and everything else(including a "tops optional adult pool" on the top floor). We parked the truck, grabbed our luggage, and made our way to the room. It has a strip view, and it's only 2 floors from the top. Nice! Brett's only issue with the room is that there's no fridge. Oh, well. Seeing as you can take your drinks everywhere you go that shouldn't really be an issue.



Once we got our wi-fi connection sorted out, we went back downstairs to visit the concierge and find some show tickets. Brett was set on seeing the Penn & Teller show, while Rhonda was set on seeeing one of the Cirque De Soleil shows. We're staying in Vegas for 3 nights, so we were hoping for 3 show tickets; one for each night. We got P & T tickets for Monday night, and we settled on the original Cirque show "Mystere" for Tuesday night. We still needed something for tonight, though. The Blue Man Group has a show here in Vegas,and we had thought about it, but tickets were pretty pricey. What the hell, it's Vegas! So we got 2 tickets for this evening's later show at the Venetian.

Rhonda was going to dress up a little, but Brett didn't have any really dressy clothes, so it was time to go find some decent evening wear. We went shopping in the Stratosphere's hotel shops, where Brett soon found a nice button-up shirt to wear, while Rhonda found some perfume.

We went back to the hotel room to figure out where we wanted to stay on Tuesday night. We had only booked 2 nights at the Stratosphere, and we weren't sure whether we were staying for a third night in our original plans. With 3 evening shows to go to, we needed one more night in Vegas. The Luxor (the big black pyramid on the Strip) had some reasonably priced rooms during the week, so after a lot of consideration and deliberation, we booked a room there for Tuesday night. We are actually staying in the pyramid!

We dressed up and took a cab to the Venetian. Our cab driver was interesting and pointed out the sights, but he was of the "The Old Vegas was SOOOOOO Much Better" category. I guess after being here 35 years, you get a bit disgruntled. Our Blue Man Group tickets came with a free voucher for Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, so after wandering around the Venetian's lobby and grounds for a bit, we went into the Wax Museum. It was much nicer and much higher quality than the wax museum in Newport, OR (imagine that!). When we first went in, one of the first statues is Oprah. One lady in frongt of us quickly dismissed the likeness, saying that she is not that skinny at all (imagine it being said very loudly with a southern accent and a dismissive tone. It was pretty funny). It even had a 'Scream' tour, sort of a haunted house-thing. We went in after getting some careful instructions from a zombie girl. It was Brett, Rhonda, and 3 other tourists in our little group. Brett and Rhonda fared pretty well, but the other 3 were pretty scared by the whole thing. Lots of actors in costumes, loud noises, flashing lights, and stuff. It was lots of fun!

After getting out of the wax museum, we wandered into the Venetian's Grand Canal shopping centre. It feels like you're outside, with the sky painted on the ceiling, and little water canals all through the centre with gondola rides. There were some outside displays going on, with a volcano exploding, it was pretty cool.

We eventually found our way to the Blue Man Group theatre, waited in line for a bit (there was a guy with programs and the two behind us asked if they were free, and the guy responded with "This is Vegas", I guess that was all that needed to be said.), and got our seats, which were quite good. The show itself was really cool, with lots of pantomime, audience participation and (Brett's favorite part) lots of 'found' percussion. They even stopped the show to point out the late arrivals, which was pretty amusing. It was funny and interesting. We loved it! Our first Vegas show was a success.



We took a cab back to the hotel, grabbed a midnight supper (Brett tried corn beef for the first time, and I think the last time.), and retired for the night. A great (if overwhelming) day. About 400 km's put on the truck today, and everybody's out of the truck for the next few days.

Day 14: Things we've learned about the USA

Nothing too exciting today. We drove from last night's stop somewhere along the I-5 to Mojave, California. Look for it somewhere in the desert east of LA. It's a small town just off the interstate, and we are once again staying in a Motel 6 for the night. Camping is pretty slim around here unless you want to camp in a parking lot/RV park. It's pretty desert-like out here. Hot during the day, and it cools down some at night. We drove through Bakersfield today, and we saw a house foreclosure auction. They're starting the bidding at $69 000 dollars. Cheap! We also saw a guy driving his lawnmower on the street.

We rolled into town here at around 3:30 PM, looked for the best hotel deal with a pool, and found that Motel 6 does the trick. Too bad they don't clean their pool here, though. We had gone down for a dip before supper and a movie, and saw that the water and the bottom of the pool were pretty icky. Instead, we suntanned on the pool deck for a bit, showered, then headed into Tehachapi, CA to see the Harry Potter movie. We're back now. Not much of an entry today, so we'd thought we would give you guys a list of everything we've learned about road tripping in the US...

1. Motel 6's always have the same tacky bedspread

2. Turn signals are optional

3. Cash makes gas cheaper

4. US McDonalds have cheap and terrible ketchup

5. Even skunks can be friendly

6. 'Campground Full' isn't always the case

7. California does not necessarily mean hot weather

8. Don't rely exclusively on your GPS

9. 'Best Restaurant on the Trans-Canada' is a relative title

10. You only get one warning from Rhonda, then you're on your own

11. US cell phones suck

12. Shark pens make you happy

13. You can get coupons for everything, even cigarettes

14. Beer is cheaper than water, and available everywhere

15. No matter how old you are, your mom will always tell you to be careful

16. Camping near the coast means you are always damp

17. Brett's favorite pose is 'the point'

18. Prison is a depressing place, even if it's just a tour

19. Iced tea is not the same as it is back home

20. 'Showers' don't necessarily mean hot showers

21. Bring extra batteries for everything

22. They have all of Canada's Bud Light Lime down here

23. Flip flop heel marks will not come off; deal with it

24. White Castle is hard to find

25. Make sure you take the trip with someone cool

That's all for tonight. 350 km's put on the truck today. And everybody's still in the truck.