San Francisco (82 – 89)

Following our arrival to the campground we raided their tourist brochure stand, a procedure that has been adopted as our “SOP”. The stand is generally kept up to date (with a few exceptions) and is a great way for us to compare what we had in mind, plus learn about other exciting things to do and see.

It’s also a good way for me to correct my misconceptions, as until then I had always thought that Fisherman’s Wharf was a single pier among many piers in the dock area of San Francisco Bay. In fact, our software shows a road travelling on to Fisherman’s Wharf that’s located just past Pier 39. As I learnt, Fisherman’s Wharf is an area that encompasses a number of piers.

The best and least stressful way for us to travel to the San Francisco CBD is by water and the nearest ferry terminal was at Larkspur, about a 15 minute drive from the campground heading south towards the city. Parking there was free and the ferries departed every 30 minutes during peak periods and hourly outside of those.

Once again we needed to balance what we’d like to do and see with the volume of required schooling for the girls, so our first full day was allocated as a study day. On Tuesday morning we excitedly rose to prepare for our trip to the city. Driving to Larkspur wasn’t a problem but trying to find an available spot in the car park was impossible. It was also quite difficult to manoeuvre the Chev through the small distances between cars in the car park - I expect this will also be the case when we eventually bring it home to Sydney.


Leaving Larkspur



We tried to time our trip to be at the ebb of the morning rush period, however miscalculated the time required to find a car parking spot and missed our planned ferry departure time by a few minutes. This meant a wait of almost an hour, but gave us the opportunity to look about the small ferry terminal and surrounding area. The morning breeze beside the water was much colder than we anticipated; fortunately we had taken more clothes than we thought we were going to need as a cosy looking waiting room was the other side of a turnstile that wasn’t to be opened until 30 minutes before the ferry’s departure.



Plenty to see and time to annoy!



Whilst standing and waiting in a queue, we struck up a conversation with an elderly couple waiting in line behind us and they turned out to be lovely people who made the waiting time dissolve quickly. Some others also joined in our chat and soon our group was being hustled into the entrance of the "now open" turnstiles by people waiting in line further back – the time passed quickly indeed! The view from the Larkspur ferry for the 35 minute journey was a delight and its route passes near the Bay Bridge in San Francisco Bay, however you aren’t able to see the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Bay Bridge

 As a quick note that may be of some help if you are going to consider a similar trip to San Francisco, there was also another location to catch a ferry a little closer to the city from a place called Sausalito. The driving distance between the two places is only about 7 kilometres and you need to pay for the car park in Sausalito, which may have make it easier to find a parking spot than in Larkspur. However, the ride on this ferry takes you between Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge and its terminal is beside Pier 39, near the centre of the Fisherman’s wharf area – a fact I only discovered once we had departed San Francisco and had reached Los Angeles :-(   Neither of these ferries stop anywhere else – their route is from the above locations to the city and return.

Our arrival from Larkspur was at Pier 1, about 4 kilometres from the Fisherman’s wharf area but this location did have benefits also. After a short walk through some street markets, we found a cable car terminus which was great as that’s one of the items on my Bucket List! We boarded the cable car and sat on seats located on the outer edge of the cable car facing outwards. The driver was directly behind our seat and operated the cable car with two long steel levers that disappeared somewhere into the bottom of the vehicle. The levers had hand-clamps and were pushed and pulled forwards and backwards to make the cable car stop and go – I have no idea of how they worked, nevertheless, they were very effective as some starts and stops were on quite steep hills.

We left the cable car once we reached the terminus at other end of its journey and walked towards the wharf area. Frankly, we had no idea at all of where we were, other than we were still in the city and needed to ask directions to the wharf area a number of times. We boarded a “bendy” bus that took us further towards the wharves and disembarked at the location suggested by the driver. With San Francisco Bay still not in sight, we stopped at an Ihop (turned out to be a chain of restaurants that we have frequented a few times since) restaurant, had a terrific lunch and asked for directions to Fisherman’s Wharf. It turned out to be only a few blocks away so we burnt off some calories with another walk to see the sights of the Bay.

The wharf area was a great place to explore and we were surprised about the small number of people walking about. Seemed at times we had the place to ourselves other than a few fishermen on boats. The day was cold and quite overcast which may have explained the lack of people, so we weren’t too nervous about being in a dangerous city location.

We walked to Pier 39 and found a throng of tourists exploring the shops, carousel ride, street entertainers and restaurants, and from the end of that pier we had a beautiful view of both the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island. Sunset was around 5pm and once the sun disappeared, the temperature dropped quickly. We decided to head off home to carry on exploring this area the following day and for a different mode of transport, rode a tram back to Pier 1 to catch the ferry.

Using our experience from the previous day, we knew where to find a good spot to park the car at Larkspur and how much time was needed for us to catch an earlier ferry. Our plan came together and we arrived at Pier 1 about 1½ hours earlier than the day before. We chose to walk the 4 kilometres to Fisherman’s Wharf from Pier 1 and explore the other piers along the way. To the girl’s delight (OK, us “oldies” had fun too) we came across a pier that had a warehouse full of old arcade games dating back 50 years. Everything was still in working order and we had so much fun we even forgot to take a photo or two!

Further on we passed a chocolate factory with free sampling (the 2 small pieces we were each given wasn’t all that good and the price, sheesh, I thought they might have at least included some shares in the company with each box – needless to say, we didn’t purchase anything) and arrived at the pier that ferried people to Alcatraz.

Leaving the wharf for Alcatraz 1¼
miles in front, slightly to the right

Monopolies aren’t a great thing and this ferry company had sole rights to transport tourists to and from Alcatraz. One of the ferry captains we chatted to from the Larkspur ferry told us this newly formed company (about 2 years ago) won the Alcatraz 5-year contract and shortly after taking over, increased the ticket price by about 50%. The return ticket price for the 15 minute each way journey cost us $105 for the family, but we really wanted to see Alcatraz so we paid and joined the other 100 or so people already on the boat for the ride there.

The Golden Gate Bridge in the
distance behind Alcatraz

For accuracy, I think it’s best for me to plagiarise some paragraphs from a book we purchased there:

“...In the 1920s, Prohibition had created a well-financed, well-armed and well-organised criminal class; then, the Great Depression of the 1930s spurred what many Americans considered to be a crime wave of epic proportions

....[J Edgar Hoover], a master at raising the FBI’s profile, did little to quell the celebrity surrounding “public enemies” – including Ma Barker’s gang, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow and John Dillinger. Yet the gangsters caused problems for the federal prison wardens. Pushed by Hoover, US Atty General Cummings agreed on the need for a “super prison”: they chose Alcatraz and selected James Johnston to run it.

...On three of the prison’s quartet of free-standing, three-tiered cell blocks, Johnston replaced the key-opened doors of soft strap-iron with bars of tool-proof, case-hardened steel and installed a new locking system. The heavy metal slam reminded prisoners that guards were in complete charge.

...A firm pull on a lever closed fourteen of the prison’s cells at a single time. In a mere three seconds, each 250 pound door shut and locked with an explosive crack of metal thunder. Perhaps the most intimidating sound in the history of American justice, the very definition of “slammer”, it’s a signature of the United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz.

...From 1934 to 1963 Alcatraz housed bank robbers, gangsters, kidnappers and killers, reputedly some of the toughest and most incorrigible federal convicts in America. The island’s roster of felons included Al “Scarface” Capone, Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, George “Machine Gun” Kelly and the murderous Joe Cretzer. Used as a threat against convicts in other federal penitentiaries, Alcatraz took only criminals who couldn’t follow rules elsewhere. Ostensibly escape proof, it was known as “Uncle Sam’s Devil’s Island” or “Hellcatraz”.

The cells below were used for solitary
confinement and let no light in at all,
no bed and limited food rations

...Most penitentiaries had one guard for every ten convicts; Johnston hired one for every three Alcatraz prisoners. He ordered twelve official “counts” per day, and random and unofficial tallies sometimes pushed the daily total past fifty.

...Restless bodies turned in other cells. From one came the snoring of a human cave bear. The muffled engine of a passing boat crescendoed and faded. Dancing across the water on gusts of wind were the taunts of San Francisco: horns, sirens and even female laughter from the St Francis Yacht Club, just 1¼ miles away, yet for a convict, an insurmountable distance.

And then there were the birds. A seasoned con might sleep through the periodic outbursts of nesting gulls. But for a new “fish” (inmate) on Alcatraz, the sudden squawks rudely broke an uneasy slumber. At two in the morning, The Rock sure had a way of giving its residents the unholy creeps."

There’s so much more I could write about The Rock including the “Birdman of Alcatraz” and the attempts at escapes including the one based on the movie where they, to this day don’t know whether or not they lived (or are still alive) or perished in cold waters of San Francisco Bay.

So near to freedom, yet so far. The area
Below was rec area for those guards
and families who lived on The Rock

Within the gift shop on the way out of Alcatraz sat Darwin Coon, an elderly, former inmate. He was there at the time of the escape and I asked him what he thought (I bet many people do). He suggested they successfully got to Brazil, although.... If you would like to read more about Alcatraz, use this link to: Alcatraz

Alcatraz and the Golden Gate are to
the right of this picture

Following our return to the wharves, we walked up to Pier 39 where each of the girls had a caricature drawing done and we had time enough to properly explore the shops and restaurants. Hours once again had passed quickly and at almost 4pm, we sat down in a Japanese restaurant at the end of the pier to have a very late lunch/early dinner. The price was quite expensive but the meal and views were worth every cent. We were at a window table and had views of both Alcatraz and the Golden Gate during sunset. Once again, the very chilly night air surrounded us when we left the restaurant, so we headed for the tram and ferry ride home.

Thursday and Friday were allocated as school days with a quick shopping trip for groceries. I also needed to find a location that sold propane as we had finally emptied the second 7 gallon bottle – I was surprised how long the gas had lasted because we were now 3½ months into our trip. There were many other things we would have liked to have explored in San Francisco but, ironically, we felt were limited in time by the vastness of what lay ahead in our travels in the USA.

One thing we had ticked as a “must do” was to see the Golden Gate Bridge close up. As we were to leave on Sunday, this left Saturday as our nominated day. We studied the Trailer Life software of where to drive as “Homer” was of no help at all and our USA atlas didn’t show in sufficient detail what we needed to find out. In the end, we just got onto highway 101 and “winged it” hoping for some signposting once we were close.

Alcatraz is on the extreme left

That turned out to be the best strategy because when we were almost on the bridge, a signpost pointed the way. A semi-thick fog covered much of the city and Bay area but not enough to dampen our excitement of the views. One thing that surprised me was the colour of the bridge – call me dumb, but I didn’t expect it to be an ochre red colour – ‘tis a sad day when you don’t learn something new!

The Golden Gate Bridge, designed by Chief Engineer Joseph Strauss and others on his staff, long-considered an impossible dream, was constructed between the years 1933 and 1937. The concrete piers at the bases of the towers went in first, in cold, deep water with a strong tidal current. The art-deco towers were then erected on the piers, the suspension cables were emplaced and the road deck was installed in sections from each end. The bridge was opened to vehicles in May 1937 – ahead of schedule and under budget.

I found a number of the statistical facts about the suspension bridge quite interesting:

    • the length of the main span of the bridge between the two towers is 4200 feet

    • the distance the centre span can swing in either direction is 27 feet and under extreme load and temperature, can drop as much as 10 feet

    • the height of the main towers is 746 feet making them the 4th highest structures in San Francisco

    • it took 27 years to totally repaint the bridge and it’s only been painted once since 1937. Continual spot-painting has been deemed as adequate to retard corrosion

We drove around the Marin Headlands on the north side of the bay; they tower almost 1000 feet above sea level and provide a beautiful view of San Francisco, the Pacific Ocean and the Bay Area and then explored some of the old gun emplacements at Battery Mendell. Just as in Sydney Harbour, the headlands were critical positions to defend the Bay, as from the Marin Headlands to the Golden Gate Bridge on the north side there are 3 forts, Forts Cronkhite, Barry and Baker and on the south another 3 sites, Forts Miley, Winfield Scott and Point.

For the first three quarters of the 20th century, the Marin Headlands were fortified with weapons that evolved from canon to nuclear warheads. The guns became more and more powerful, able to hit warships way out to sea. Anti-aircraft guns appeared on key hilltops during World War 2, after the development of aeroplanes and aircraft carriers made aerial attack a possibility. Finally, during the Cold War, radar-guided Nike missiles bearing nuclear warheads were installed and remained ready for launch against enemy bombers until 1974.

We walked about a kilometre to the lighthouse on Point Bonita, passed Bonita Cove where we saw many Harbor seals lying on rocks sunning themselves, and through tunnel, carved by hand in the 1870s. The bridge to the lighthouse was closed to tourists and frankly, we weren’t all that disappointed as it was narrow and may have been a little un-nerving.

Time once again passed quickly and all too soon, we headed back to the campground to prepare the rig for our trip to Paso Robles tomorrow and a visit to Hearst Castle.

Las Vegas (81) to San Francisco (83 – under 89)

Saturday morning’s weather was an improvement from what the weather had been, and what the forecasters had told us to expect. We had some cloud cover but plenty of blue sky and good driving conditions – we tuned in to the radio and they were saying that the cold front was still on its way but now due to hit Vegas tomorrow.

We wondered, therefore, if we were going to drive into the cold front as we were heading to Bakersfield, pretty much due west from Vegas but in a large curve to the south. Bakersfield was a good choice for us to stay overnight, meaning that we had two choices of destination from there.

If the weather in Yosemite was bad, we could head straight up the I5 towards San Francisco, but if there was an unexpected improvement we could take our original path up highway 99, turn off at Fresno and stay in Coarsegold which is at an elevation of around 2500 feet. That left a drive of about an hour to Yosemite Valley; that’s around 4000 feet and the reason I mentioned the elevations was that snow conditions were quoted from 3000 feet and above in that region. Snow falls and temperatures above 3000 were currently terrible and many access roads were closed, so whilst we could probably get to Coarsegold safely, driving to Yosemite Valley may not be possible.

The highway from Vegas to Bakersfield was another very easy drive on a separated 2 lane road. After leaving Vegas, we slowly climbed in elevation until we reached eastern California where it continued the climb. Not at all dangerously steep, but certainly enough to reduce the fuel consumption to around 7 mpg. Cacti were abundant on both sides of the road for much of the drive through Nevada and into California and looking for unusual shapes helps whittle away the boring hours of driving. As we drove a little further into California the road began to descend; the peak had been around 5000 feet and by the time we reached Baker on the I15 we were down to 1000 feet.

The distance to Bakersfield was almost 440 kms and we arrived there mid afternoon. As we only intended to stay the night we didn’t bother unhitching the rig, so we parked in a “pull-thru” site that was fortunately quite level.

That night we were glued to the weather channels and internet to see which way we would head the following day, but decided we should wait till the next morning to make the final decision. The next morning we saw that Vegas was hit with the forecast cold front overnight, and the weather in Yosemite was even worse. Overnight temperatures were down to -12°C and daytime temps were going to reach -2°C. The winds were still 40 mph with stronger gusts and a lot more snow was expected; no improvement in the forecast for the next 5 days and there was only one access road open to Yosemite Valley.

It was simply too dangerous to attempt to pull the rig there in those driving conditions, so we planned the new course up the I5 to San Francisco. It was very disappointing to miss the opportunity to see Yosemite because everyone we have spoken to said it’s a location that is remarkable. Nevertheless, we has to err on the side of safety and hope we will have another chance some day.

San Francisco is a journey of just over 500 kms from Bakersfield; we weren’t too sure whether or not we would make that in one day. Weather conditions, traffic and my tiredness would influence our decision. The I5 is a very good, but extremely boring road to drive as there’s nothing much at all to see. There are many citrus orchards along the way and at one point a terrible stench of urine emanated through the car.

The smell was almost overpowering and was mixed with faeces and a strong animal odour. Obviously we had been downwind from the cause because we saw nothing out the Chev windows at first, then to the right after we climbed a small knoll we saw thousands and thousands of cows herded into pens awaiting slaughter. Murphy’s Law dictates (of course), that was the moment I couldn’t get the electronic recirculation button to work on the car’s air conditioning system – we just sucked it all in!!

Traffic was very heavy at times due to today (Sunday) being the last day of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and huge numbers of Americans travel by road to see their families by road. It became obvious we could reach San Francisco in one day’s driving, aided by the fact that in 400+ kms we had only seen 1 rest stop, time for a wee break and quick bite to eat, then on the road again. As we neared San Francisco the traffic north occasionally slowed to a crawl, but we were buoyed by the sight of the bumper-to-bumper traffic heading south to LA – heading north was definitely moving faster.

Part of a group of hundreds of wind
generators beside the road

Surprisingly the choice of campgrounds around the San Francisco area was quite limited. We had selected a site about 40 kms to the north of the city as it was the closest, “decent” campground. To briefly explain (I might have explained this in a previous blog and if so, sorry, you’re going to see it again!) the software we use to plan our travel has details about every campground in the USA and Canada. That detail includes the GPS coordinates, contact details, sites, facilities, services, recreation, rates and a Trailer Life ratings guide that shows scores out of 10 for the park, restrooms and visual.

As we were travelling from the south and I’ve only ever seen San Francisco on television and the movies, I didn’t fancy pulling the rig through the famed hills in the city and trying to “mix it” with cable cars etc. We plotted a course to stay well to the east of the city and hook around to the north once we’d cleared any possible congestion.

Grace was fantastic in helping achieve this goal as she needed to enter new coordinates into the GPS as we were driving, and also double check where we were in case Homer wanted to try to take us through any unwelcome short cuts. With only a small glitch which was my fault for turning one street sooner than I should have, we arrived safely in Novato RV Park in the late afternoon. Time to unwind, relax, enjoy a quiet red wine, plan what we will do in San Francisco and get a good night’s sleep.

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.