Las Vegas (81)

The drive to Las Vegas was a little mountainous at times but nothing much to write about. Well marked and 2 lanes each way for the most part, there were no problems negotiating these small mountains even after we turned off the Interstate 40 and on to highway 93 heading north-west to Vegas.

The campground we had chosen was the Oasis Las Vegas RV Resort. Its appearance is very grand with a large marbled entrance to the reception area, a fountain at the front, a theatre, restaurant, meeting rooms and a large swimming pool and surrounding area.

We had plans to see a number of places and things to do while we were in Vegas, but one of the most important items on our list was to have our washing machine repaired. Although it was only a few months old it had stopped working when we were in Williams, however being such a small town there was no service company available for repairs. As our arrival in Vegas was on a Saturday, we needed to wait till Monday to arrange a service.

Sunday was a beautiful day and thus we headed towards the Las Vegas strip to have a look at the casinos. Grace remembered Vegas’ factory outlets from our previous visit there in 2001, so that was high on her list of places we “must-do”. Unfortunately for me, on the way to the strip Grace recognised this shopping mega-haven so we called in...for a while.

Having XY genes, I’m not much of a shopper, I go in, see what I like, pay for it and then leave. Not so for my female family; comparisons are required. Hence, four hours later we left this bargain bonanza, confident and happy in the knowledge of how much money we had just “saved”. We still had a couple of hour’s daylight to explore and drove to the south end of the strip and parked in the car park of the Mandalay Bay casino.

Naturally our girls have never seen the inside of a casino before so the sight of hundreds of people, thousands of poker machines and gaming tables was a new experience. I asked Chantelle what she thought of all this glitz and her reply was, “it’s OK”. I’m sure I was more excited when I first saw similar sights, but I wasn’t 10 years old. I told them the best sights were yet to come because the poker machines and gaming tables were not the reasons we wanted them to explore the casinos.

We travelled on the monorail from the Mandalay Bay to the Excalibur, the brightly-coloured castle looking building and entered through the basement level where all the children’s games and play areas are located. That was much more interesting for them; however, they were disappointed when we told them this still wasn’t the reason for us looking inside these casinos. Excalibur is on a corner and opposite was New York New York, diagonally opposite was the MGM Grand.

If you’ve been to Vegas you’ll understand, these are probably four of the least attractive casinos for the girls to be introduced to, bearing in mind their age. They’re grand on the outside but leave little on the inside for the imagination to excite young children. Somewhat deflated, we left these venues late in the evening and although they looked more exciting at night with all the colourful lights, first impressions had been cast. The monorail ride and walk back to the car was quieter than I would have expected; still, tomorrow’s another day.

I called the washing machine service company the next morning and they couldn’t give us a precise time or day when they’d be there – either Monday or Tuesday. Hence, we needed to review what we were going to see and crossed Death Valley off our list as that is a very full day of travelling (about 3 hours each way) plus sight-seeing. We decided instead it was a good opportunity to concentrate on schoolwork for a couple of days.

The service guy arrived on Tuesday morning, pulled apart the washing machine and found a rubber hair tie caught in the water pump but couldn’t get the machine to re-start properly. From experience, a timer times out when you do something wrong and you need patience to sit and wait for it to time out before being able to try again. Clearly, he had pressed a few things incorrectly as he sat watching and waiting for over 30 minutes. At $160/hour I didn’t want him sitting, watching and waiting for too long because I can do that for no labour cost.

He agreed and left with the machine in the middle of the bedroom floor, but needed to return another day once we confirmed the machine was working correctly, reposition it and replace the door frames etc he had removed. About 10 minutes after he left the machine kicked into life and cycled correctly. I called the service company to re-book him and again, they couldn’t confirm a day or time other than to say, sometime during the following 2 days, but not today.

This left us free to explore Vegas on Tuesday afternoon as we needed to wait in the Sierra for Wednesday and Thursday for him to return. The delay in returning meant that we needed to cross off more places to see, so Hoover Dam and the Valley of Fire National Park were deleted – a very frustrating time indeed.

Deleting these destinations did have an upside though. It allowed us more time in Vegas so we searched local things to do and see. Despite the expense, we booked a helicopter flight on the Thursday (we’d delay the mechanic’s arrival if necessary) to see the Grand Canyon, flying over Lake Mead and Hoover Dam along the way, landing on the canyon floor and flying back through the Valley of Fire and along the Vegas strip before landing. We also booked tickets to see David Copperfield after the flight for his late afternoon show.

Having learnt lessons from our first trip to the strip in Vegas, we decided to park much further north in the strip and walk from there. We chose a car park... actually that’s not correct, by accident and not design the Treasure Island casino chose us as I was driving in circles trying to find somewhere to park.

Exploring the casinos from that end was great. We were disappointed Meryla chose not to come because the first impressions weren’t very good, but the four of us had a wonderful time looking about Treasure Island, the Mirage, the Luxor, Caesar’s Palace, Harrahs, the Forum Shops with curved escalators, statues and domed roofs. Unfortunately the wind was blowing too hard for the water fountains at the front of the Bellagio to be operating.

The Paris casino & hotel

We walked almost all the way down the strip (it’s 3 miles long) to find the M & Ms shop. Four storeys of eye and tooth candy temptations. We bought a frightfully expensive few ounces of all of the 22 available M & M colours in a mixed plastic bag (once home and much to the girls chagrin, they were only able to identify 20 different colours) and stayed for as little time as we could because of the pleas of the girls finding all types of M & M gifts. Their merchandise included almost everything you could imagine, pens, pencils, key rings, hats, shirts, stuffed M & M dolls etc etc.

The very long walk there had been exciting because of the rainbow we’d just seen, but then reality hit – we had a long walk back now without a rainbow at the end! There were distractions aplenty to see, though some of them were very unwelcome – I couldn’t count the number of men and women (certainly more than 50) trying to hand out leaflets for “women on call who will visit you in your hotel room” or strip shows with naked and lewd photos, certainly not the impression you’d like young children to remember about Vegas. To be fair to these people, I wasn’t handed any directly because I was always holding one of the girl’s hands, but they were being passed to all and sundry around us.

The Venetian

We stopped at the Paris casino for a very late lunch/early dinner and enjoyed the beautiful outdoor scenes inside – if you’ve not been there, the ceilings are very high and painted as you were looking at a beautiful blue sky with white clouds. The inside has been built to resemble French streets, cafés and restaurants.

The meal we had in the Paris was without doubt the worst meal we’ve had while in the USA. It was expensive and had clearly been sitting in a baine marie or under a food warming light since lunchtime. Once again, we found the gratuity to be included in the bill – seems where this happens you either have shocking food or service!

We needed to return home as soon as we finished the meal to make sure Meryla was OK. Despite the fact we were walking back in darkness, it was still only 7pm. Our drive back home through the strip in bumper-to-bumper traffic provided another opportunity to see glitzy Vegas alight at night.

Wednesday was another schoolwork day and the mechanic arrived late afternoon to complete his work – a several hundred dollar lesson for us to ensure everyone’s pockets were empty before going into the washing machine :-(

Thursday’s helicopter flight was to last 2 hours which was made up of a 45 minute flight to the canyon floor, 30 minutes for lunch while on the floor and the flight back over a different path. We were to leave at 11.45 and needed to check-in 30 minutes prior – this early time was to allow us all to be weighed with our hand luggage and anyone older than 18 was required to provide a valid photo ID. The helicopter held 6 passengers plus the pilot so we were hoping to have the chopper to ourselves. Once we completed our check-in procedure we were ushered to the waiting lounge where we met a man sitting by himself.....oh bother, he was the 6th. He was a friendly chap who lived in a suburb of Sydney and was travelling with his wife visiting friends in Vegas; his wife didn’t want to take the chopper ride.

We boarded a small bus that took us out to this, seemingly far too small helicopter beside which was our pilot. He introduced himself, talked a little about the chopper and told us where to sit. I was in the back row on the left side, the other man was on the opposite side to me and Meryla and Chantelle were seated between us. Grace and Rochelle sat in the front seats on the left, beside our pilot to the right.

This helicopter ride was another of Grace’s fears she was facing and sitting in the front seat with windows all around and at her feet to the front didn’t help. We all put our headphones on and adjusted the attached microphones so that we could be heard and could hear each other. Seat belts were adjusted and tightened and we were ready to go!

Lake Mead and Hoover Dam

Then with a whine the engines started, followed by bouncing from the main rotors slowly starting to rotate – faster and faster they went and the pilot remained unbuckled, sitting forward in his seat intensely watching the instrument panel. About 2 minutes passed with him staring at these gauges until he was satisfied with what he saw then he sat back, buckled up, put his headphones and sunglasses on, tested our internal communications, spoke to someone outside the chopper on a different channel, increased the engine and rotor speed and we slowly lifted off the ground and turned 90 degrees when we reached an altitude of about 1 metre from the ground.

We were flying!! I couldn’t see Grace’s expression as I was behind her, but I reckon it would have been priceless. I’m sure if he landed the helicopter after this 3 feet high elevation Grace would have been more than happy to say she’d ridden in a chopper! Soon enough though we were properly airborne and headed away from Vegas towards the Grand Canyon.

The views were fabulous from our 2000 to 3000 feet high flight. We passed over Hoover Dam and although we couldn’t sense the size of the dam from the air, it was at least some compensation to see it following our cancelled road trip. Lake Mead is huge and it was interesting and easy to see how low the water level had dropped, and potentially how close to water restrictions Las Vegas, Los Angeles and other cities supplied by this lake have become.

We reached the Grand Canyon and weaved about various canyons before sighting where we were to have lunch. The area we were about to land on is owned and controlled by an Indian tribe as landing within the government controlled section is forbidden. These landing rights are negotiated annually between the Indians and helicopter companies that wish to land on the canyon floor. Nothing is supplied at all by the Indians in terms of services or toilets, but the land is theirs.

The area on which we landed was quite small and had a wind sock, a few tables and chairs and an old, torn bright blue nylon tarpaulin that would have provided no shelter at all from wind, sun or rain. Nevertheless, it was great to be there and be able to look up at the surrounding canyon walls. The temperature was surprisingly cold and the wind chill factor made it even colder. Our lunch was packed in a small cane picnic basket with a sandwich, packet of chips and an apple.

A bottle of water was also offered and we walked about while eating as it was much too cold to sit.

Our allocated 25 minutes (the pilot reduced it by 5 minutes) passed quickly and we were ushered back into the chopper. Prior to our flight to the canyon, we were advised not to take photos or film until we were airborne. I asked if we could film the takeoff and he said “no problems”, hence I’ve attached our take off from the canyon floor. [update: unfortunately the server rejected the upload several times and I cannot upload the video]

During our return trip he played many popular songs to do with flying and I was tempted to sing along with some of them, but there was no way of turning off my microphone so I sang along silently. The pilot was a young man, married with a small child and he told us he recently bought a 3 bedroom house in Vegas that was priced at more than $400,000 three years ago, their purchase price was $120,000. There are certainly bargains galore to be had in real estate over here.

A section of the Valley of Fire

Once we were safely back on ground we quickly made our way to the Chev and drove to the MGM Grand where we were to see the 4 o’clock David Copperfield show. Finding the theatre entrance was a challenge and we found ourselves weaving in and out of rows and rows of poker machines on different casino levels, past the live lion display and large crowd watching intently through glass windows for any movement until we finally spotted the queue which had already started moving indoors to be seated for the show.

Copperfield is a great entertainer and illusionist and some of his “tricks” were simply amazing. You have to wonder though whether or not there are people “planted” in the audience for a couple of things he did, but it seems unlikely by the way he chose them by first throwing a frisby or large balls into the audience, then having the everyone re-throw them again and again till he called out to stop and the person (12 people in the case of the balls) left holding the item was brought up on stage.

I haven’t yet mentioned that today was Thanksgiving Day in the USA and unlike Canada who seemed to let the day pass without much fanfare; the Americans were very vocal about it. As we had missed out on the traditional turkey dinner in Canada, we wanted to find a good place to eat and had asked the staff at the campground reception about local restaurants. One lady suggested Dean’s Place located very close to the campground and once the Copperfield show had finished, I called them to see if they had any room for us.



And a great time was had by
us all, well almost all...

We were extremely fortunate as it turns out because the lady in Dean’s who we spoke to needed to first check with the kitchen. There was just enough left of their special $9.95 turkey with cranberry sauce and all the trimmings for 5 people – we’d be there in 15 minutes I told her. The meal was without doubt one of the best we had had during this journey. It was a huge serving that also included desert for in the price and the amount of food we were allowed to take lasted us for 2 more meals.

The weather had become an issue again as another very large low pressure system had descended on North America’s west coast. It brought with it extremely cold temperatures rain and snow and very bad driving conditions. I had a call from my son David who had been speaking to my daughter Kristy in Banff, and Kristy said that one of the mountains on which they were going to do some snow-boarding was closed due to the temperature dropping to -35°C.

Rain with possible snow showers and freezing conditions was forecast for Vegas over the weekend and as we were due to leave on Saturday, we once again watched with intent the weather forecasts. We wanted to head up to Yosemite National Park but they were already experiencing snow falls of more than 3 feet at the 3000 foot level, more than double that at the 5000 foot level and even worse at the top at around 8000 feet. Added to that were winds in excess of 40 miles per hour.

With this terrible weather in front of us, we decided to drive to Bakersfield on Saturday which was our original plan and reassess the situation from there. We used Friday in the rain as another study day and left for Bakersfield on Saturday which is the next blog.

Williams, Arizona (76 – under 80)

As we left the campground in Moab, Utah we had a drive of a little over 320 kms to reach Williams in Arizona. We had heard the driving in Arizona was very easy but at that stage we didn’t know how close to Arizona (and all that easy driving) we were. The campground road led us to highway 163, we headed south and found the Arizona border about 150 metres down the road! And a lovely, easy day of driving ahead it was.

We arrived at the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park around mid afternoon and saw many cars and people milling around. The campground is only a few years old and very well appointed - it’s all bitumen sealed and everyone has to put pads or timber under their stabilisers, the waste pipes must be set up on brackets, not lying on the ground etc. There is also a hotel attached to the group who own and built the campground and we were allowed to avail of their spa, pools and lounge area free of charge; they also have a restaurant. 

The Campground at sunrise





Piped music from the 1960s was played in the outdoor, covered BBQ areas, the laundry and toilet block – music from the 60s was apt as Williams was the last stretch of Route 66 of the Mother Road to be closed in 1984. The campground was exceptionally clean and it would be a real pleasure to stay there, with one possible exception. Adjacent to the hotel is the Grand Canyon Railway Station and the thought of trains blowing horns throughout the night wasn’t appealing at all; been there, done that! Hence we only booked there for a 3 night stay.



As I mentioned above, we were a little perplexed as to why so many families were milling about the hotel area adjacent to the railway station. After enquiring we discovered the families were there to get onboard a train called The Polar Express, which is an annual family event that brings people from all over the USA. The train concept follows the original book the subsequent movie of the same name starring Tom Hanks.

The train’s first adventure for the season started the night before we arrived and the next train trip wasn’t going to run till the following Friday night. Frankly, the excited looks on the children’s faces and the thought of this adventure as a family enticed us to stay for the entire week. So, unbeknown to our girls, we went straight to the reservation desk, booked our trip for what turned out to be some of the last available seats for the 8.30pm trip and extended our stay from 3 nights to 7 – we just hoped any passing night trains wouldn’t be too noisy.

The shady looking dudes on the
scissorlift are hanging Xmas lights
on the sign

Williams promotes itself as The Gateway to the Grand Canyon and is a place I’d highly recommend you visit if you also wanted to see a great section of the old Route 66 – it’s much better than the section of 66 we saw in Oklahoma. Williams is only a small township and has a wonderful feel to it, sort of like what you think the Mother Road should look like, if you know what I mean. 


The days were beautifully sunny and clear and temperatures were about 12 degrees, but overnights were down to around -6°C. It was perfect weather for sightseeing so we set off the following day to see the Grand Canyon. From Williams the southern section and view points of the Grand Canyon was a drive of about an hour (each way) and an additional 30 minutes plus stops to get to the Grand View point which is over half way to the eastern view points.

We had some trouble trying to find the 180 heading north to the Grand Canyon because, unbelievably, the Tom Tom didn’t have the Grand Canyon viewpoints as tourist destinations entered into its program. After driving the wrong way for about 20 miles, we did a U turn and back-tracked following the highway road signs.

We stopped at the visitor’s centre nearby the southern viewpoints to establish the location of the best vantage points. The Grand Canyon wasn’t visible from this visitor’s centre but we soon found out which way to walk by the ant-like trail of people following a concrete path. We joined the trail and soon saw the Canyon in all its glory.

The Grand Canyon, in a word is huge and has taken the Colorado River over 5 million years to slice through layer after layer to carve out the canyon to a depth today of about 5000 feet from the ground above where we stood. The canyons stretched as far as you could see and the Colorado’s ability to erode further downwards has been slowed now that it has reached the very foundation of the continent, the Basement Rocks.

Erosion and weathering of the layers in the canyon walls exposes records of time, however with the disappearance of so much rock, stories of the most recent 270 million years including the time of the dinosaurs has been deleted. Where Paleozoic Rocks rest directly on Basement Rocks, the contact represents a gap of 1,150 million years. Geologists call this gap the Great Unconformity.

However, as grand and beautiful as it is, both Grace and I felt that it lacked the intimacy of those views we saw in Utah – Dead Horse Point, Canyonlands, the Arches and Monument Valley. It’s understandable why it is one of the 7 Wonders of the Natural World, but we simply didn’t feel as “connected” as we had in Utah. Perhaps it was because we were at the same level as the canyon tops and the valley floors were so far away? Perhaps if we saw these icons in reverse order; we couldn’t “put our finger” on exactly why?

We walked for hundreds of metres around a path near the edge of the canyon and took many photos. The views, however, didn’t change all that much as a few hundred metres on the side of one of these monstrous canyon edges paled into insignificance. They were certainly magnificent views and spent well over an hour and a half walking about this section.

View from the Grand View

Wanting to see the canyons from a different perspective, we drove anticlockwise for another 30 minutes further around towards the eastern viewpoint, stopping at 3 spots on our way to the Grand View outlook. Each viewpoint provided spectacular views but the “disconnect” feeling didn’t go away - the vast size of Grand Canyon continued to contrast the lack of intimacy and personal touch which we had felt with the previous places in Utah, a feeling then of being part of nature and the location rather that observing it as an “outsider”.

As the time was getting late in the afternoon and we had to drive 1½ hours back to Williams, we decided to leave and return another day to see if we felt differently. On the way home we decided to have dinner out and went to the Route66 diner in the main street of Williams. It had the authentic 1960s look from both the outside and inside, however the service from our waitress was terrible.

Lousy service but we still had fun

Customers, including us were generally unsuccessful in gaining their attention even by waving hands and arms and I had to stand up, walk about and find our own menus. A door-to-door perfume salesman came in to the cafe half way through our meal and the entire wait staff wandered off to a corner for ages while sampling the products, completely oblivious to the patrons needs.

At the end of the meal we decided we were going to offer a very small tip, if any to express our feelings but much to our disappointment, an 18% gratuity was automatically added to the bill. Pretty much explained their “couldn’t-care-less” attitude.

The following few days were set aside for schoolwork with just a little bit time for exploring. We needed to buy pyjamas for each of us to wear on our Polar Express journey and decided the time was right for buying and setting up Xmas decorations in the Sierra. There was a Dollar shop at the edge of town that provided cheap but ideal decorations and we negotiated a great deal on the last white Xmas tree that was already decorated and still on display.

The -6°C nights quickly took their toll on the propane bottles, one of which needed refilling after the third night. I must say though, the ducted heating from the furnace did a very good job of warming the Sierra, particularly in the girl’s room. I set the temperature for 18 degrees in an attempt to minimise the propane usage, and that appeared (just guessing really as I have no data to compare it to!) to work as we only needed to refill the one bottle while we were there.

Sedona is a city situated about 100 kilometres south and it takes about 1½ hours to drive there. We had been advised by a number of people to see it and it was originally in our planned route to be there, however in our attempts to stay away from very cold and icy driving conditions, we had taken Sedona out as a destination.

The road to Sedona from Williams is quite straight-forward, an interstate highway at first and then after turning off onto a narrow single lane-each-way road, nothing at all interesting to see. After driving almost 85 kms we thought we’d wasted our time and started planning what we might do for the balance of the day following our visit there.

The road for the last 15 kms became a twisting, windy, steeply descending path that made us extremely glad we hadn’t taken the Sierra as well. We dropped 2,500 feet in elevation and quite sheer cliffs off the side of the road would’ve made our journey down with the full rig a very scary drive – we would have had to use much more than our allocated half of the road on blind corners to avoid the Sierra’s wheels getting perilously close to the edge. As it was, the Chev’s 22 foot length was a bit of a task at times. On the bright side, the views were fantastic and once we reached the valley floor, the terrain flattened out and beautiful autumn coloured trees lined each side of the road.

Sedona initially reminded us very much of Santa Fe with adobe styled houses on the outskirts. As we entered the small city we found a mix of adobe and more modern designs and most was single storey. It was quite unique and appeared to be a delight to explore.

We sought out the local visitor’s centre and while there met an Australian couple from the Gold Coast, the first Australians we’d met in our travels doing what we are doing. After chatting for over 30 minutes, comparing notes of what to see in various locations and sharing places to stay, we discovered they had flown to Vancouver and had re-entered the USA on new visas. Our growing dilemma of what we needed to do to “refresh” our visas before Feb 19th became more clouded. We know we have to leave and re-enter the USA, but were advised we couldn’t travel to a contiguous country (Canada) and then re-enter to receive a new visa, yet this couple had done exactly that!

Prior to us deleting our planned trip to Sedona, I had earmarked a four-wheeled drive adventure into the Red Rock Hills that surrounded Sedona. Now that we were there and had the available time, much to Grace’s angst we decided to book a trip with a company called Pink Jeep Tours. They’re the original local company that started these tours and have small jeeps that can take up to 8 people in each. The path/goat track they negotiate is over rocks, steps and quite steep (33 degrees was the steepest) slopes.

The trip was booked for 12.30 and was last about 1½ hours which left us about half an hour to explore their shop and buy lunch before we left. Grace felt as if she was waiting for the executioner as we sat on a bench awaiting our driver. Josh appeared right on time and introduced himself – he turned out to have a great sense of humour and delighted in frightening Grace even more when driving quickly towards a steep drop, then stopping to proceed at a safe speed.

Of course he started the trip by telling us to be on the lookout for the dangerous Californian Black Rattlesnake that falls out of trees which are very prevalent here. They’re very venomous and he had one drop into his Jeep “last week” that bit a woman who needed to be taken out of the valley by helicopter. It naturally follows that I had to tell him about the danger of the Australian Bunyips – as you’re aware, they have a shocking bite and rabies is only mild when you compare the effects from Bunyip bite!!

We were very lucky to be the only people to travel in the jeep and took some terrific photos and videos, a number of which Grace doesn’t particularly want to re-visit as they’re not some of her best travel shots – squealing and hiding her head in a blanket on the seat behind Josh! I’ll have private viewings available on our return to Sydney.

Sedona was a terrific place, and one we’d love to return to and continue our exploration. Part of one day simply wasn’t long enough and late afternoon arrived much too quickly. I didn’t want to drive the very narrow roads back to the plateau in the dark, so we left Sedona with the sun very low on the horizon at about 5pm for our 90 minute journey back to Williams.



The platform during the day



Friday night finally arrived and our journey to the North Pole on the Polar Express was imminent. We all dressed in our pyjamas and even Chantelle’s and Rochelle’s bears were dressed in Christmas clothes. The train was due to depart the station at 8.30pm and we were advised we should be there at least 15 minutes beforehand.





We drove from the Sierra to the train station car park, not because of the distance (about 400 metres), but because of the temperature. At 10pm when we were due to return to the station, it would be around -2°C, not the greatest weather for pyjamas and dressing gowns! Hundreds of excited families were already gathered at the station and lined the train station platform. In fact, we were surprised at the number of people there as we were told by a local that there should only be a few carriages, an “intimate trip” they said.

The train wasn’t at the platform when we first arrived, but at about 8.20 we heard the whistle blowing and saw the light from the engine. Our excitement rose and the noises of all the children and families was palpable. I videoed the train’s arrival and was surprised at its length. Far from being an “intimate few” carriages, there were 20 in all, each seating 120 people – no wonder the noise of the excited families was palpable.

The arriving train carried the families from the first visit to Santa and the windows were full of excited faces waving and yelling and at the end of each carriage were people dressed in chef’s hats waving to us, asking if the children we ready to leave to see Santa’s workshops. Everyone waited till the first group disembarked and were lined up ready to be ushered to our allocated seats.

All the seats faced forward and the seats on both sides of the train seated 2 people. We ended up being seated in front of each and I was supposed to be sitting opposite the girls, however the seat in front of us didn’t have a view outside and was left vacant, so I moved to that as watching the family’s faces was more fun – there was still plenty to see outside out the windows on the opposite side.

With long blasts from the train’s horn we left the station. The train conductor dressed in the same uniform as that from the movie moved through our carriage clipping our tickets whilst a couple of chefs slowly moved through giving everyone a hot (warm) chocolate drink and choc-chip cookie. Once everyone had their drinks, the head chef got on a microphone and told us he was about to play a CD which was the original Polar Express story and if we had the book (we did), we could read along with it. Chantelle and Rochelle sat the book between them and listen and read as the train headed for the North Pole.

A very colourful illuminated sign beside the railway track with a huge arrow indicated we were on the correct path to see Santa’s workshop and as the CD story ended, we were told by the head chef that if we looked out the windows on both sides we could see Santa’s village coming into view. Santa’s workshop was to be on the right side of the train so everyone gathered on that side with cameras poised.

And there it was, a very bright little town illuminated by tens of thousands of Christmas lights, complete with snow, elves, reindeer, buildings and Santa sitting in a chair outside his workshop. The train came to a stop just after the township and slowly started the return journey back along the same track. The opportunity to take additional photos was there – but wait.....Santa’s no longer in his chair.....where could he be??

The return journey was filled with Christmas carols that everyone had to sing as loud as possible. If you weren’t singing, the head chef came to you and asked you to accompany him to the front of the carriage to sing the first few lines of the next carol in front of everyone – it was a great incentive to sing as loud as you could!

Then, great excitement as Santa, complete with his genuine beautiful white bushy beard and white hair arrived at our carriage door. He walked through the carriage with a couple of helpers handing out bells to all the children and stopped briefly to pose for photos. All too quickly he had passed through our carriage and stood at the door at the far end, waved farewell and with a loud “Merry Christmas” and a “Ho Ho” disappeared into the next carriage. We continued to sing carols till we arrived back at the station, this time with the aid of the sound of many Xmas bells.

With a brisk walk back to the car and great memories from the night just passed, we headed back to the Sierra to prepare for our drive to Las Vegas the following morning.

The drive to Monument Valley (71 to 72 - under 75) and Monument Valley (75)

Checkout time at the Moab campground was at 10am and the concern of icy roads on the upcoming mountain pass meant that we left at late as possible, right on 10. It was a very gloomy, cold morning, a freezing wind was blowing and the clouds were dark and low. The weather forecast over the next few days was for similar or worse weather, so there was no point in staying longer for an improvement in conditions.

Fortunately, the roads were ice free and the drive on the one-lane each way highway to the mountain pass was quite easy. As we ascended, the temperature fell to about -2°C and snow covered both sides of the road. The pass wasn’t steep and our ascent to the plateau wasn’t dangerous although, just for safety we were travelling quite a bit slower than normal.

At the highest altitude snow drifts danced across the road surface pushed about by the invisible winds, however the road temperature was still above zero and snow didn’t build up. Ice was still my concern, particularly on bridges we needed to pass, so extra care was taken when approaching them to ensure we were straight and well behind any traffic to allow for additional braking distance.

The highway descended from the plateau over quite a distance, thus fears of a dangerous descent were also allayed. Once we reached a plateau quite a bit lower than the pass, the weather warmed slightly, the clouds thinned and there was no longer snow covering crests and hills or in the shadows of the lee away from direct sunlight. My tension and I’m sure Grace’s also had abated significantly.

Despite there being some hills and valleys, the remainder of the drive towards Monument Valley was easy. We passed a place called Mexican Hat about 45 kms north of the Valley, a place we had ear-marked to return to, and saw from a distance the flat rock perched atop a tall rock structure giving the town its name.

The road coming through Mexican hat dropped 800 feet in elevation quickly, from the plateau height of around 5000 feet to a small bridge over the San Juan River, and then climbed steeply for miles to a height of over 5800 feet.

As the road levelled out and we started a slight decline, Monument Valley in all her beauty appeared before us. It was a magnificent sight, one that we shall treasure – unlike the valleys, buttes, spires and canyons that were also wonderful sights, the stark contrast of the level valley with enormous pillars of stone was breathtaking. These monoliths had stood defiantly for eons against the forces of nature, whilst all around them had succumbed to the valley floor.

Goulding's campground and our
connected rig under the trees

We stayed at the Goulding’s RV campground which had a beautiful view from ground level of the valley. This is the only campground nearby and has a great history behind the name. Harry Goulding and his young wife Leone (who he affectionately called “Mike” because it was easier for him to say – Mike in inverted commas is even shown on their wedding certificate!) moved to Monument Valley in 1923. The couple came to live and work among the Navajo people to set up a Trading Post.

They gained the confidence and trust of the Navajos and in 1928 built the original Trading Post which is now Goulding’s Museum. They traded in items of food, household necessities and livestock and like many traders, they would have acted as advisors in government affairs.

In the 1930s Hollywood was making many western movies and Harry felt that Monument Valley would make an ideal setting, thus he went to Hollywood to sell the idea to John Ford. John was the director for making some of these types of films. Harry showed him photographs of Monument Valley and Ford was so impressed he immediately decided to use the Valley as the location for his next western, “Stagecoach” in 1939.

John Wayne, who was a young actor at the time, starred in this film and went on to make many others with John Ford such as “She wore a Yellow Ribbon” and “Fort Apache”. Movies are still being made in Monument Valley and some examples are “Forrest Gump” with Tom Hanks and “Wind Talkers” and “Con-Air” with Nicholas Cage.

We decided we should only stay 2 nights in the Valley because the cold weather front was heading further east and south. Once again we were lucky enough to manage our limited stay in good weather, but the night temperatures were becoming much colder.

We had enough time left on the day of our arrival to explore the Goulding’s Museum and have a late afternoon tea in their restaurant overlooking the Valley. In fact we were still there to watch the setting sun and when we left, the walk back to the car felt like Arctic conditions.



When we arrived back in the campground we chatted to a Navajo lady working in the shop. She was fascinating to chat to and had many stories about her childhood and stories she had passed to her from her grandparents. It was one of those times you wish you had a tape recorder. She has 8 children and they all have Navajo names; the only names I now remember are Wind Dancer, White Shell and Nazhoni which means Beautiful One in the Navajo language.

She explained the significance of your hand and the meaning of each finger. The thumb is you, the forefinger is your mother, the middle finger is your father, the ring finger is your grandfather and the small finger is your grandmother. In this way, your hand represents your family and the bond that exists between each member.



The following morning we left Gouldings on our way to the Monument Valley visitor’s centre, however, just outside the campground and down the small hill is an airstrip and beside that a dome shaped structure covered with earth or clay that had a pipe sticking out the centre of the roof.



The Hogan door faces east, hidden from
view from this photo taken from the NW

As we learnt yesterday evening, this dome shaped structure is called a Hogan. The Hogan is a Navajo home that is made of logs and tree branches, sometimes covered with a layer of mud. Storytellers say that the Holy People taught the Navajo how to build these dwellings. Hogans are still an important part of Navajo life and even people who don’t live in them sometimes build them for use in ceremonies.



Hogans remind the Navajo of values that are important to their culture. The logs that form the wall of the Hogan are joined together to represent the strong bonds between a husband and wife and the doorway always faces east so the Navajo can begin each day by greeting the light of the rising sun.



We would have loved to look inside the Hogan and gingerly made our way around the side, but weren’t sure whether or not it was a display home or one in which people lived. Accordingly, we settled for taking a couple of photos.

Beside the Hogan was a small airstrip and we’re not sure if that is the airstrip that would be used by aircraft bringing people to Monument Valley. If it is, then you would have to travel in a small Cessna or similar because it was only small. That morning there was a group of people in small, propeller driven sort of hang-glider thingys.





Left Mitten and Right Mitten with
Merrick Butte on the right

Once we had watched them take off, we headed out to the Monument Valley visitor’s centre and paid our entrance fee as the land belonged to the Navajo as a Tribal Park, not covered by our National Parks annual ticket. The view from there was just incredible. Beside the visitor’s centre is The View Hotel  that blends nicely into the local environment, and if you ever wanted to visit the Valley and needed a place to stay, that is certainly the place to stay.



Everyone is allowed to drive on a dirt road to the valley floor to explore the monuments from much closer, so down the track we headed. You don’t need a 4-wheel drive vehicle, a normal car is fine and seeing these monoliths from ground level makes them all the more spectacular. There are also guided tours where you pay to travel in a small bus driven by someone of Navajo descent, and they take you to private roads, forbidden to those of us who wanted to drive for ourselves.

The gravel road is easy to follow and there are about 10 places clearly signposted where you can stop for photos. The only distraction and small disappointment at each stop were many tables set up by Navajo people, primarily selling jewellery and assorted trinkets. I understand that is the way they earn a living, but it made me see the commercial side of what we were enjoying, and you were left with a sense of guilt for not buying something to help support them. We bought necklaces from one of the vendors at the first stop and tried to avoid eye contact at each stop from there.

After several hours we drove back to the top to have something to eat and chose a café inside the visitor’s centre. We tried to select food that was of Navajo tradition, but other than Navajo bread which resembled pide, all the other dishes just had Navajo names.

Once we got back to the Chev to drive back to the campground I noticed a diesel spill from the tray, coming out and down the back of the truck. It was particularly noticeable as a fine red/orange coloured dust from the valley floor covered the entire truck – not a good thing to see but the diesel was coming from the recently purchased 5 gallon emergency tank, carefully strapped inside the back. All the bouncing about on the valley floor had vibrated the cap a little loose.

We still had enough time left to drive back north to see Mexican Hat that we had passed on our way to the Valley, and driving without the 6 ½ tonne Sierra on the back certainly made the trip easy and faster. When we arrived we found some intrepid climbers scaling the hat and watched them for a while before heading back to the campground – time enough to wash the truck and luckily there was a truck wash at Gouldings and still enough daylight left to get the job done.

Tomorrow we planned to drive to Williams which is as close as we could get to the Grand Canyon, and that’s the next blog.