November 2009

A full moon, super weather and a beautiful route through the National Parks, National Monuments and the State Parks of Southern Utah was the start for the month.

From there to Las Vegas the city that never sleeps and we had a ball and did not get much sleep either but saw the town by day and night, did a bit of gambling, ate some great food had nice drinks, and went to some great shows.

Onto Palm Springs to meet up with Dan and Tanja and her parents, who were in Laguna for a quick stop over before heading on to New Zealand.

Last but not least a Thanksgiving feast in Laguna with Dan and Todd at Kora's house with lots of other friends a great evening.

This view and lots more of these views is what Darren and I saw from our window in the van. It is an amazing drive through Southern Utah along and through the many National Parks.

This rock formation is called the Three Sisters, my sisters and I ?, it is in Arches National Park.

We took a hike up to one Utah's State Symbol, delicate Arch and as you can see we had to hike along a bit of a ridge with a deep ravine next to it, not realy me as I do not like heights but......

....it was all worth it once we got there. Just how was i going to get back.........

At the furthest South-Eastern point of the State of Utah is a place that is called the four corners and it is the only place in the States where 4 States meet. Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico so we each placed a foot in a different State.

More of what we saw out of our window driving through this amazing landscape.

The next Park was called Bridges National Park, and had several incredible formations to which we hiked. The difference between a Natural Bridge and an Arch is that they are both formed by erosion but an Arch has not been formed by water but solely by wind and through brake offs.

Are you still with us in the van? and are you getting an idea of what we were seeing.?

Stop for the night at Lake Powell, a Lake formed through damming of the Colorado River for irrigation as well as power winning. A great spot and we had a mighty big campfire later in the evening with a full moon very special. The reflections of the moon and later the sun on the surrounding hills were magic.

Very differnet rock formation and as you can see autumn is back after we had all ready had a bit of very cold winter!! That is what happens when you travel with the sun south.

Not only Arizona has a lot of Petrified forest so does Utah and we took a nice long hike up a mountain to find some great pieces of "wood/stone".

One of the very few clouds we did see on our trip through the parks, and what a beaut.

Bryce Canyon in all it's glory, hard to desribe how special a sunset or sunrise is in this park overlooking the spires but maybe this photo shows it a bit. We have taken so many photo's of all the parks that we are going to make a seperate page with just the parks. I hope to do this when we are in Magdalena next month.

Las Vegas here we come.....

Busy Las Vegas day and night, we walked many a mile

A lot of the hotel/casino's put shows on at night from pirates fighting each other to dancing -singing water fountains, to lava spewing volcanoes.

This is inside the Wynn Hotel/casino one of the newest and most luxurious hotels, we won a diner for two there and it was superb.

Freemont Street, the oldest part of Vegas were it all started and were the casino's are still going strong but they can no longer compete with all the new lures and glamor. However it has it's own charm and we spend a nice evening there.

Look at that face............do not realy know what I was thinking or for that matter Darren but we did have fun playing some of the machines and even got away with some winnings..

Darren went up the Stratosphere Tower and took this photo from the strip. It gives you a bit of an idea about the magnitude of the city and it's buildings.

On top of that same building were three types of rides for the brave at heart, and Darren went in all three and I did not even go up to the top of the tower! Do I need say more about this ride? and no it is not super imposed.

We stayed for a whole week in Las Vegas, four nights in a hotel and three nights in a campground and the price per night was the same....that is what the recession is doing here.

Hoover Dam one of the USA's major architectual feats, now being enhanced with an extra bridge spanning the river as the road over the dam can not handle all the tourism traffic.

Endless desert roads from Hoover Dam to Palm Springs through Indian reservations and nothing much else.

But there was an oasis in the desert, Joshua National Park, so named after th trees that are in reality Yucca's very impressing.

In Palm Springs on top of the mountain, Palm Springs is in the desert and when you want to escape the heat you can take a gondola some 7000 feet up and enjoy some cooler temperatures. Here we are Darren, Tanja's mom Agnes, Dan, Todd Dan's partner and Tanja. Willie, Tanja's dad and I were missing in action.

All out for diner at Dan's restaurant in Palm Springs named Wangs, good food (chinese) and good company.

Walk and a drink on the beach before Thanks giving diner and after pre diner drinks, we had a very nice evening with traditional thanksgiving food such as Turkey and Cranberries but nothing much else was traditional but fun.

A very, very busy but fantastic month with a lot of variety from busy city life to Parks and hiking from mountains to desert from solitude to thousands of people from Darren and Lidi to lots of friends what an energy packed month great.

December is going to seem quiet for a while after all this excitment, but you never know what might happen and by the third week of the month we are heading to New Mexico for a family Christmas which we are both realy looking forward to.

Take care and have a Merry Christmas and a very Happy and Healthy New Year

BRING ON 2010 LOVE DARREN AND LIDI

November 2009

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