Category Archives: travel

engineering, family, roadtrip, travel, USA, vehicles

Hoover Dam (again) & Route 66

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A slow start to the day had us out at Hoover Dam in the late morning. Since I was there last, the bypass highway has been completed (all the through traffic no longer has to drive down the winding road to & over the dam – quite a bottleneck). I enjoyed walking out on the large arch bridge that was still being constructed two years ago – I saw it just before they completed the arch. We did the same tour as I did last time – so nothing new to report there. Lake Mead didn’t seem much higher to me, but hopefully all the snowmelt boosts it a bit. Another warm, beautiful day – I still enjoyed seeing one of the engineering marvels of the world.

Crossing the new bridge into Arizona, we drove through the desert for quite a while before finding a late lunch. It was dry, barren, hot & windy country – not a lot to look at, but still with its own beauty. I just wouldn’t want to have to live there. At Kingman we both got on I-40 & then promptly off it to drive part of Route 66 (eighty-odd miles). We got back in the land of the massive train, with our favourite train company, BNSF, hurtling alongside us many times. Strangest sights of the day were the huge trains carrying only semi-trailers; a good way of keeping trucks off the roads I suppose. This was somewhat explained by soon passing many DHL jets on the tarmac at the local airport – although a small town in the middle of nowhere, Kingman is obviously some sort of freight hub.

This particular section of Route 66, I thought, was a bit of a disappointment. Sure, there were many derelict gas stations, stores & hotels – but it all looked a little sad. The environment did not get much more welcoming. Just before we got back on I-40, we did stop at a little town that was trying just a little bit to get into the Americana of America’s Main St. Incongruously, there was an old right-hand drive Beardmore London black cab sitting slowly going to seed amongst all the American west stuff. Back on the freeway, we climbed up to 2100m in to some beautiful forest before arriving at our motel on Route 66 in Flagstaff – I do hope the historic Route 66 is done much better here.

These two pictures are especially for Grandad

bikes, city, GPS, MTB, roadtrip, travel, USA, vehicles

Las Vegas & Blue Diamond

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As we had rolled in to Vegas pretty early, Valerie was keen to get some more cowboy boots (by the end of the trip, the car will be filled with shoe-boxes). I had previously thought the western-wear shops in Calgary were stupidly large, but this particular Boot Barn was on another level. There were at least twenty aisles of cowboy boots, as well as those shelves lining the walls. Valerie found a pair she liked, while I contented myself with a pair of boot-cut Wranglers – I may decide I have enough money just before leaving Canada to get a pair of outrageous boots, but they would have to be made in Alberta.

Boots, as far as the camera can see

Red Rock Canyon has a good reputation for riding just outside of Las Vegas (good hiking too apparently). I hit some trails outside of the very small town of Blue Diamond yesterday morning. Blue Diamond was originally a company town for the gypsum plant just down the road – fortunately for it, it was far enough away that it didn’t get demolished during expansion of the plant (unlike poor Exshaw). I got a map from the local bike store (there are probably less than five stores in total in town, so good to see one is a bike store) & a recommendation for the best two hour loop. Leaving Valerie to amuse herself (which she did quite easily), I was quickly up to the saddle on a fine day for riding (sunny, nice breeze). Paying ten dollars for a map was OK, but no one had thought to mark any of the intersections – so the three-way ones close together got more confusing than they should have been. I ended up doing an extra half-hour loop with a nice techy climb & interesting descent then traverse back to the saddle. I still managed to get most of the loop I was given in & back to the car in ninety minutes. I must have missed the best part, as over the twenty kilometres it, for the most part, wasn’t all that interesting – spent a lot of time just riding straight, easy gravel paths. Nice ride all up, but perhaps I’d be more charitable if I didn’t spend so long looking at a map trying to work out where the many intersections led.

The yuccas were scratchy, but at least I didn’t fall in any cacti.

Gorgeous day for a ride in the desert.

Back in Vegas, it was a short walk back from the hotel after dropping the car off to get the injectors cleaned out. This turned out to be the highlight of this Vegas visit – sad, I know. A quick search online showed that one of the closest auto shops was just over the railway lines. It turned out that they specialized in exotic, mostly Italian, cars. The mechanics were great to chat too (an old guy, Cal, & a Kiwi from Dunedin with the best/strongest Kiwi accent I’ve heard in months) & it was nice to have a look at all the cars they had in the shop. My dust-covered old Outback looked a bit out of place surrounded by Ferraris, Maseratis, Alfas, Bentleys & so on in various states of repair. It was a pleasant respite from all the tackiness on the Strip.

Some guy brought his Camaro in, after getting the Dino back from a full engine rebuild that day.

More of the afternoon was spent checking out one of the Outlet malls, which always turns out more costly than it should. Thankfully, the temperatures during this visit were a good ten degrees Celsius lower than my last visit – 30ºC/86ºF is so much more pleasant than 45ºC/115ºF. I quickly tired of the shopping & hearing too many Australian accents (strong-dollar has made them almost as numerous in Vegas as Mormons are further north!), so we headed back to the hotel for a while before heading out to check out the Strip during the evening.

Each time I’m Vegas I feel I’m doing the place a great disservice by not going out & spending a lot of money on food, drink, shows or just throwing it away down a slot machine. If I was with a group so inclined (I must have friends like that somewhere), I might just do so – but this time I was quite happy to wander slowly along as Valerie discovered it all for herself. After all, there are so many weird & wonderful things to see – & that’s before you start people watching.

bikes, GPS, MTB, roadtrip, travel, USA

Gooseberry Mesa – ’tis but a scratch

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Coming highly recommended from a few sources, Gooseberry Mesa was the ride for the our last morning in Hurricane. I left Valerie early & headed east out of town on Highway 89. It’s not the easiest place to find, but is signposted now. Off the highway there is quite a few miles of driving on dirt roads of widely varying quality before you reach the trailhead.

I started off with the South Rim trail. At only 5.5 miles, it’s not a particularly long way to the lookout point at the end of the mesa. It is however quite technical & slow. I’ve seen Gooseberry Mesa compared to the famous Slickrock trail in Moab that I rode less than two weeks ago. I think that is stretching it a bit far. There is very little elevation change on Gooseberry; while this makes it easier aerobically, it does mean you get very few prolonged descents. There is also a lot more riding through trees at Gooseberry & so there is not as much slickrock riding. You do need some short bursts of extra strength & balance to clear a few very sharp rises. I was getting most of these, but things went a bit pear shaped on one long & steep rise – I didn’t quite have enough strength, stopped, jumped out of my pedals backwards, lost my footing & ended up sitting on the rock. My bike came to meet me & the handlebar sconed my upper cheek bone. This drew a bit of blood, but not enough to stop me.

Near the end of the South Rim trail, you do ride really quite close to the rim at times – it’s a long way down. The views are of course good. I headed out to the point for a good lookout over the Virgin River valley. Heading back along the North Rim trail was noticeably quicker & this was easier to ride – which was just as well, as with the forty-five minute drive back to Hurricane it was getting rather close to check-out time. Back at the car & hurriedly packing up, I managed to get back to Hurricane in half an hour – in time to clean up my wounds, Valerie to pack the car & we hit the road for Vegas.

We stopped in the rather nice small town of St George, as I had intended to do another short little ride – but when it came down to it, I couldn’t be bothered going out for a ride in the early afternoon heat. We moseyed around town & somehow managed to get on two free tours of historic houses. It turned out that one was the winter house of an important Mormon prophet in the nineteenth century & the other was an older house of another Mormon. As Valerie said, they’re everywhere around here. The houses were nice, especially the exterior & grounds of the winter house – but I liked all the history, particularly those bits about the settling of the west.

Our short stretch back on I-15 had us dropping off the Colorado Plateau alongside the Virgin River & crossing the Mojave Desert & we’re just hitting the outskirts of that crazy place – Las Vegas.

national park, roadtrip, travel, USA

Bryce Canyon

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Yet another national park today (I’ve long since lost count). Driving through the south edge of Zion, we got to Bryce in another couple of hours. Quite a small park overall, the main attraction are the wonderful rock (limestone & sandstone) formations in a wide variety of colours. Most of these are hoodoos, but there was one arch that we saw & some grottos. We did the whole scenic drive thing again as I was planning a ride back in Hurricane (we got too late for that). The first things we saw were pretty stunning, but Bryce Amphitheatre was just astounding – mostly in its size & number of hoodoos, giving rise to immense beauty. I think it was the most spectacular thing I’ve seen all trip.

Natural Bridge – not really a bridge, but an arch

Some of the rock on the top hadn’t eroded nearly as much

I’m writing this one while Valerie drives, so now is a good time to comment on the driving in the States. Maybe this will change once we hit the populated areas in & around California, but the standard of driving here is so much higher than NZ, Australia & the UK. There just aren’t so many people doing crazy things & speed doesn’t seem to be so much of a problem – I’m struggling to think of passing a single wreck & we’re almost up to ten-thousand kilometres of driving. All this with no speed cameras & very, very few patrol cars. Now that I’ve written that, I’ll probably be proved wrong.