After a few hectic days, Day 11 was to be much more relaxing. After a later than usual start we took some time to walk around Reno. Seeing the town in the daytime really drove home the fact that this really was just a small town. In the daylight we could see that the streets behind the casinos were filled with simple suburban houses and rundown warehouses.

The one and only attraction that was on our schedule was the National Bowling Stadium. It’s touted to be the Taj Mahal of Tenpins. From the foyer it took a three storey escalator ride to reach the viewing area. From there we could see all 78 bowling lanes that and the 450ft scoreboard running the length of the building. I’m not a bowler, so I wasn’t expecting to be as impressed as I was. I can’t guess how awestruck a real bowling aficionado would be.

Soon after we left for Lake Tahoe, about one hour’s drive away. It’s the US’s second deepest lake with an average depth of 1000 feet, and it’s meant to be the hotbed for all sorts of outdoor recreation and water sports. When we arrived at the north shore we decided to take a quick walk down to the shore. It was picturesque enough. However, as we weren’t planning much other than just to see the lake we took a few quick photos and headed off to our next destination, Sacramento.

It’s not a very widely known fact that Sacramento is the capital of California, as it has nowhere the international recognition of other cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco or San Diego. It however was worth the visit.

We arrived early in the afternoon, left the car at the hotel and took a walk around the town. It was a very clean and well organised town. The main attractions consisted mainly of sites with historical or political significance. The highlight was the State Capitol building. It’s one of those impressive white columned buildings that you come to expect of important government buildings. We had the opportunity to have a quick peek inside the building and were blown away by the interior. It’s quite a funny building however as the front half is built to maintain the original feeling, while the rear half (which we were allowed to walk past) looked like offices from the 60’s.

The State Capitol Building.

The foyer of the Capitol Building.

Looking up at the domed roof.

The Sacramento Memorial Auditorium.

The Vietnam Memorial.

One of the best things about the US are these little squirrels which inhabit all the parks. Much cuter than our fugly possums.

The Sacramento Tower Drawbridge.

As the sun started to go down we swung by and area known as Old Sacramento. It’s meant to be a throwback to earlier times during the gold rush. In reality it was a bit over commercialised and felt a little cheap.

Old Sacramento. As you can see it’s a bit drab.

On the walk back to the hotel we stopped for a bit of shopping at Westfield Downtown Plaza. It was strange to see such a familiar Aussie shopping centre brand all the way over here. To finish the night we ate at the Denny’s attached to our hotel. I remember Denny’s back when I was a kid. It’s obviously disappeared from Australia since then (apparently it was bought out by The Keg – which has also disappeared). I think we are all the poorer for that as the Philly Melt and Super Bird were to die for. I want Denny’s back in Australia!

Shoppo!

A Philly Melt (steak, cheese and mushroom) and Super Bird (turkey and cheese).

Interesting US observation for today:

• The Americans are very practical with their local cuisine – just mix in everything you like. So that means you get things like chilli fries, which are a tray of hot chips covered in cheese and chilli (mince meat, beans, tomatoes, onions, spices). A variant of this is the chilli cheese fries burrito. Basically you take all the ingredients in chilli fries and put it inside a burrito. Mmmm… one handed eating goodness.

After a quick breakfast we made the remaining 30 minute drive down highway 120 to Yosemite National Park. It was a very easy drive in comparison to the previous day.

There’s some damn big bugs over here. As you can see they make a nice little mess.

Yosemite’s one of the most popular tourist attractions in the US. On entering the park we immediately were surrounded by holidaymakers hiking, riding and driving around the park. Much like at the Grand Canyon it didn’t take long for us to stumble across the park’s major attraction. One moment we were driving along, next thing we know there’s Yosemite Falls to our left. We pulled over, took a few photos and kept driving.

Yosemite Falls. This was taken about 20 metres from the main road.

Rather than take the drive-through version of Yosemite Park, we actually did stop and walk around a bit. A few hours of hiking took us to the water rapids around the Happy Isles, up to (the slightly disappointing) Mirror Lakes and the enormous Half Dome granite mountain. A quick drive also took us to the stunning vista at Tunnel View.

The rapids surrounding the Happy Isles.

 Near mirror lake.

The view from Tunnel View.

Thanks to the superb road network around the park we managed to get around most of the main attractions within five or six hours. Tired, hungry and thirsty, but suitably impressed, we left California again for Reno, Nevada.

Despite our best efforts to avoid the snow capped mountains we ended up driving through them again. That meant we arrived in Reno a little after sundown.

A semi-frozen lake seen on the drive to Reno.

Reno promotes itself as The Biggest Little City In The World. In reality it’s just a small town trying to emulate the success of Las Vegas. And in some ways it has succeeded with a handful of big casinos such as Circus Circus, Silver Leaf, Harrah’s Cal-Neva and the hotel we stayed at, El Dorado. They’ve brought the flash and glamour of Vegas, but Reno’s real charm remains in the fact that it still isn’t Vegas. During the day it still feels like a small sleepy town.

We checked in at the El Dorado as soon as we arrived and quickly headed out to explore the Reno strip. The casinos were similar to those in Vegas just a little smaller and less gimmicky. However, the biggest difference is that all the action was confined to within the facilities, with the streets of Reno almost completely empty. The only pedestrians were gamblers making their way from one casino to the next.

To finish off the night I headed out for some poker action. The El Dorado had four tables running at midnight, two running limit and two no-limit. Still feeling more confident at my no-limit game I found my seat after a short wait. Surprisingly it took me about five minutes to work out that three of the players on my table were wearing tuxedo shirts – you know, those frilly ones. It turns out that because El Dorado is a family owned casino they allow their dealers to play on the tables after their shift. I should have noticed by the way they counted off the stacks. Having dealers on the table made the talk very entertaining, but it made hard to pick off the fish without one of the dealers swooping in too.

After a few hours the fish slowly busted out and another dealer joined the fray. So at about 3am I packed up with a nice profit on the night, making both my Vegas and Reno experiences profitable ones. Happy times.

Interesting US observation for today:

• There’s a distinct lack of 7-Elevens in the US. I would have thought that being a US-based franchise there would have been more around. In the Melbourne CBD there’d have to be at least three or four per street. Over here we’re having serious trouble getting our hands on a Slurpee in most major cities.

The drive to Yosemite National Park marked the longest driving day.

We left the MGM a little later than expected, but still with plenty of time up our sleeves. In our last look around Vegas we stopped by the Hard Rock Café and Casino. Being located in the city of entertainment it had more than its fair share of music memorabilia including:

• One of the guitars that Jimi Hendrix burnt on stage (I never knew it was more than one).
• Britney Spears’ schoolgirl outfit from the Baby One More Time music video.
• Christina Aguilera’s not-much-of-an outfit from the Dirrrty music video.
• Tom Jones’s green velvet suit.
• A whole slew of leather jackets including Elvis Presley’s (which was strangely positioned next to Terence Trent Darby’s).
• James Brown’s cape.

Not quite sure why I picked this picture out of all the photos.

While the drive took an exceptionally long 9 hours, we did manage to take in some of the most breathtaking scenery that I’ve ever seen.

Get this… we’re driving along the desert and we see some snow capped mountains in the distance. OK, that’s a little unexpected as it’s in the high 90’s (over 30 degrees centigrade) down here and there’s snow up there. Anyway, we keep driving and about three hours out from our destination we run into a detour. The Tioga Pass, which was meant to provide us a short cut to our night’s accommodation, is shut. So I punched a detour into my GPS and it reroutes us to another road. So we begin a steep hill climb through the Sonora Pass. Next thing we know those snow capped mountains that were once in the distance, were now all around us. It was like someone flicked a switch and everything became white. The strangest thing was that it was still very sunny, and it was still in the 80’s (high 20’s). So we did what all mature people would do in this situation… we jumped out of the car and started playing with the snow.

See, we’re in the desert and there are snow capped mountains in the distance.

Next thing we know, we’re surrounded by snow.

It was still quite warm outside, which I think prompted Elaine to boldly run across the snow barefoot.

There was more snow here than most years at Mt Buller.

The next three hours of driving turned out to be most pleasurable thanks to the magnificent views, and just a little scary due to the long steep decents. On a number of occasions the brakes overheated causing some serious shuddering and a slightly unpleasant burning smell. Luckily the brakes didn’t fade too badly.

Thankfully the heat kept the roads reasonably dry despite the melting snow, meaning we arrived safely at our destination in Groveland, the Hotel Charlotte. Groveland’s a sleepy one-street town located on Highway 120. It’s about 30 minutes from Yosemite, and serves as a base for many travellers headed there.

Groveland (just about all of it).

After a long day’s drive we headed out for some local tucker. While the restaurants on the main road looked inviting, we needed something simple and fast. We caught sight of a small place just back from the main road, nothing more than a fenced off area with yellow placards advertising Stan’s BBQ. We (somewhat hesitantly) headed in and were quickly greeted by a lady. The size of her personality was even larger than her apparent girth. She confidently gave us a free sample of her local fare which consisted of various BBQ’ed treats. We were hooked. We immediately ordered a meal of baby back ribs that were to die for. They were meaty, juicy and smothered in the craziest barbeque sauce.

Baby back ribs, yeah baby!

Feeling very content with ourselves got an early night’s sleep at the Hotel Charlotte. We were going to have a very long day ahead of us.

Interesting US observation for today:

• The US GST system sucks big time. In Australia it’s mandatory that the GST is included in the advertised price, so retailers advertise in nice round-ish numbers such as $9.95. In the US they advertise GST exclusive prices, so $9.99 turns out to be something like $10.76.
• This brings me to my second gripe, which is that the US still employs 1c coins. So taking the above example, if you were to pay using a $20 note, you would receive back one $5 note, four $1 notes, two 10c coins and four 1c coins. That’s 11 pieces of currency for something that was advertised for just $9.99! It’s no wonder that my pockets are full of shrapnel at the end of each day.
• That also brings me to by third gripe, which is that all the US notes look the same. They are all the same colour and size, and for the most part they all have very similar designs. You have to be damn sure the note you’re handing over is the one you think it is. That especially goes for tipping… which is yet another gripe, but for another time.

After a night in our onsite hotel we got up early to take one last look around the Grand Canyon. Seeing it again in the morning was as awe inspiring as seeing it for the first time. However after a few quick snaps it was soon time for us to depart and head back to Las Vegas.

A distant view of the Colorado River.

On the way back we stopped at Hoover Dam which provides the Las Vegas area with hydroelectricity from the Colorado River. It’s quite an impressive manmade structure with its towering wall holding back an incalculable amount of water (although I’m sure someone’s actually worked how much is there).

A picture of the area surrounding Hoover Dam taken from one of the surrounding hills.

The dam wall was so huge that even my 10mm lens couldn’t even get it all in.

Being in the area felt a bit strange as we were surrounded by steep walls, huge ravines, vast amounts of water and powerlines that stuck out in all sorts of directions.

The dammed side of Hoover Dam. The big tower you see is one of four that bring the water down into the power station.

We arrived back in Vegas late in the afternoon. This time we chose to stay at the MGM Grand. It’s was one of the first mega hotel/casinos on the newer part of The Strip.

The MGM boasts the largest bronze statue in North America.

As it is positioned a little further south of where we were previously staying, we chose to explore southern part of The Strip in a bit more detail. It turned out that we spent a lot more time than expected at M&Ms World. Walking in I wouldn’t have fathomed how they could fill more than one floor with M&M merchandise. After all, they’re only colourfully coated chocolates. Boy way I wrong. There were in fact five whole floors dedicated to those little melt-in-your-mouth-not-in-your-hand chocolates. There were clothes, mugs, magnets, games, toys, badges, tableware, kitchenware, car accessories, a Nascar(!!!)… and 22 different varieties of M&Ms that were in unique colour and flavour variants.

Spending that time around all that chocolate made us hungry, so we headed across the road to the Monte Carlo buffet. It was $16.99 for all you can eat and drink. After our second buffet in the one week I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t eat as much as I used to. Just imagine me sitting there hunched over the table, mentally and physically crushed that I couldn’t muster the appetite to consume my last two crumbed prawns. Two tiny prawns! We didn’t even get through all of our desserts either, which meant that the usual soft serve ice cream finale was skipped. I was a broken man.

Anyhow… thus ended our second stint in Vegas. The town is certainly like no other that I have ever visited. It was as bold, flashy and more “Vegas” than I ever thought it could be.

Interesting US observation for today:

• Las Vegas is generally a very clean town. There weren’t that many disturbances despite the free flowing money and alcohol (albeit an occasional ambulance flying down the street – probably for the same reasons). I think a big part of that were the police officers sitting down just about every alleyway waiting to spring out on unsuspecting criminals.
• The only major annoyances were the hoards of men and women handing out flyers for the cheap strip clubs. The flyers were printed out on business cards, and the people handing them out would flick them with their fingers, making a really annoying flicking sound. Flick, flick, flick. You’d have this happen all the way up and down The Strip. Dammit, if I don’t want the first flyer I certainly don’t want the seventh one in line. And hell, if I did really want to find a strip club I’d just follow one of the many trucks hauling huge strip club billboards up and down the street.

Day 07 brought with it an early start as we had to pack up and leave Las Vegas. Next stop… the Grand Canyon.

As one of the most notable tourist attractions in the US, I wanted to personally see just how truly “grand” this potentially over glorified hole in the ground was. It took us a bit over four hours of pretty boring driving to get there. Let me say that desert driving is certainly not one of the more interesting things to do on your holidays.

I’ve yet to introduce y’all to our trusty steed for the first half of our US trip. Meet the Dodge Avenger. It’s a stylish 4-door car with a nice aggressive coupe look to it. Pity the engine’s a little on the weak side though.

On reaching the park you pay a $25 entrance fee, which covers you for a 7-day period. Unlike in Australian National Parks, there’s quite a bit of infrastructure built inside the park’s boundaries including a number of hotels, restaurants, shops and a post office. As we wanted some time to look around the area we chose to stay in one of the hotels within the park.

Another difference is that you have to park your car then walk a fair distance to reach the major attractions. Not so in the US, no way ma’am. Less than 20 metres walk (or should I say 22 yards) from the first major car park we were presented with the Grand Canyon in all it’s glory. Let’s say that any scepticism of possible levels of grandeur was quickly dismissed.

One of the first photos taken at the Grand Canyon. There were two over-caffinated American tourists who were more than happy to take the shot for us.

The Grand Canyon is so large that you completely lose all scale of how far and how deep it reaches. Only when you look down to see some of the hiking trails do you get any sense of how enormously massive it is. According to Lonely Planet it’s over miles deep and 10 miles across. To put it in perspective, it takes over five hours to drive around to the other side.

The funny thing is that all the land around the canyon is relatively flat. You would have no idea the canyon was there if it weren’t for the signs. I can only imagine the shock on the faces of the first white explorers when they turned the corner only to see the massive void which they now had to negotiate. Talk about a bad day on the job.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking and driving to various lookouts around the South Rim. Despite the fact that we were looking at the same hole in the ground, each lookout (or as they call it over here, vista point – stupid name IMHO) provided a completely different perspective and opportunity for taking more photos.

Behind us is the tower at Desert View.

The view from the tower at Desert View. It’s the only time you can get fractionally above the surrounding area.

Our dear Dodge Avenger parked next to another one.

After a long day we had a quick dinner at the park’s cafeteria. It’s one of those classic ones you see in the American TV shows where you grab a tray and head down the line picking up different things to eat. They even weigh your salad. Nothing flash, but a bit of fun.

Coming to the Grand Canyon was a rare experience where I expected a lot, and got a whole lot more. There’s no way any picture or movie can capture the true size of this place, you really just have to see it with your own eyes.

Interesting US observation for today:

• The road infrastructure in the US is amazing. The highways are generally a minimum of 2-lanes each way, trucks always keep to the inside lane, the maximum speed is 70mph (but everyone travels at >80mph, about >130kph), they crisscross with seamless overpasses and interchanges, and they deposit you in the heart of the major cities without having to slow down for small towns or outer suburbs.