Karol Kaczmarek

Date: 17.09.2011 – 29.09.2011 (13 days)
Visited countries: USA (California, Arizona, Nevada)
Traveled distance: 3 540 km (by car)
Crew: Me & Czarek
Goal: Enjoy sun in the Sunshine State
Route/Visited places:

Pokaż California Road Trip 2011 na większej mapie

Blog posts:

Day 1 and 2: San Francisco
Day 3: Silicon Valley
Day 4: Yosemite National Park
Day 5: Sequoia National Park
Day 5, 6 and 7– Los Angeles and the “magic” of Hollywood.
Day 8 and 9: San Diego
Day 10: Ridin’ Route 66
Day 11: Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon
Day 12: Ghost Town and Death Valley –great places to die in?
Day 13: Las(t) Vegas day… the very last one

Waking up in the morning was strange. We knew, that Just in a couple of hours we have our plane to Seattle. It was the last day of our amazing California Road Trip . Ok, ok, it wasn’t only California, but… who cares?

Anyway, there was one more thing to do left… after spending three days in Vegas we didn’t do almost any sightseeing in the city yet! 

To be honest, it’s hard to call it sightseeing, but I just wanted to walk along whole Strip  (the most famous street in the city  with incredible number of hotels, casinos, clubs, bars, restaurants and who knows whatelse) from one end, to another . We ate quick breakfast in some fast food restaurant (hell, yeah, let’s do it in American style!), bought some water (it was HOT that day!) and set out for almost 2-hour walk (well, Czarek didn’t want to go that far, so he choose a bit shorter option )! 

First, casino in our hotel! Believe it or not, but I doubled the amount I played there (no, don’t spoil the fun and please don’t ask how much I played. I’m just not the gambler-type ).

On the left – Denny’s! We’ve checked almost all fast foods during last 3 months, but didn’t manage to go there… hopefully next time

Next stop – some of hotels. But if you look carefully…

the one on the right immitates Venice, if you didn’t notice, here is a close-up

Ok, maybe it’s not that similar, but they think it is! 

Just few more steps from Italy and… we are in Paris!

Not a long walk from there and you can be in New York…

or even in medieval castle… wanna be knight? Come to Vegas .

And at the end we are in… I have no idea where… but it’s probably not the Egyptian Sphinx  .

My next stop was unfortunately the parking where we left our car and all luggages. We drove to the airport, returned car, checked in and… in the late evening we’ve reached Seattle where we had our flight to Poland from (the next day).

It was a great adventure, we traveled 2200 miles (more than 3500km), visited 3 states and had (almost) two amazing weeks of fun!

Now, after more than a year, I come back to Poland and continue my studies in Poznan. It may be a bit weird at the beginning, but the the only thing I’m really afraid of is… jet lag. I simply hate it!

Day after visiting Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon we went to a pleasantly called place – Death Valley. It’s claimed to be the hottest place on earth so we thought it would be worth checking it out .

We set out early in the morning, as always (11am or so ) and took the way which was going to take us to our destination.

To be honest, getting there is not a big deal. You basically go straight…

then you pass some mountains on your right…

and some on your left…

and you go straight again, veeery long straight .

Actually there is more than one ways to get there, official website of the Death Valley National Park lists shortest, easiest, most scenic and the one with ghost town. As we choose the last option, we’ve encountered a lovely city of Rhyolite on our way…

As I said, it was pretty adorable, but not very welcoming.

First of all, we couldn’t find ATM to get some cash and step by somewhere for a drink or two. Secondly, when we managed to find a bank, it was “out of order”.

Finally, all shops (in the total  quantity of one) were closed! Holidays or something???

We went to sheriff to ask what was going on there, but he clearly likes privacy, as he surrounded his house by a barbed wire.

No banks, no shops, no sheriff, let’s go for some hike!

No way!

Tough luck, it’s time to go again on our way to the death valley, hopefully people there will be more friendly (side note: they were at least not unfriendly, as there was no people ).

So, a little bit more straight on (by car or by foot, as you prefer).

And we are right there! The place called Hells Gate (another lovely name, isn’t it?), with the beautiful view on the Death Valley

Few photos and we drove down directly to the middle of it.

Quick glance at the thermometer…

Looks like a great day for a stroll!

We found a beach, but… where the heck is water?

Locals took care of us and gave valuable hints…

which I should probably take more to heart, so that I wouldn’t end up like this…

Ok, I was just taking a short nap and very soon was more than ready to continue the trip!

We’ve stayed in the valley till sunset and it showed us the second, equally beautiful face

What a beautiful day!

While Las Vegas is definitely the most interesting by night

you have still a planty of things to go and do during a day. Three main ways to spend a day are:

1) Go for shows and exhibitions prepared for tourists

2) Travel around to some of the most beautiful places on our planet like Grand Canyon or Death Valley.

3) Gamble

We’ve choosen the second option, went to the Grand Canyon with a stop on a enormous Hoover Dam.

It’s situated exactly at the border between Arizona and Nevada (or border is situated exactly where the dam is )

and looks incredibly, especially from the new bridge which was built near there to take all traffic out of the dam.

At the beginning we crossed the bridge without even noticing there was our destination. High concrete barriers successfully hide all stunning view and you are not able to see anything from your car. It’s definitely worth to go to the visitor center and walk around a bit.

Our next and final stop was Grand Canyon. We decided to go to the west rim, as opposed to the most popular south rim, as it would require us to drive 5 hours more one way. Well, lack of crowds is not necessarily a bad thing and it still offers breathtaking views .

The way there was quite pleasant and nice, only last 10 miles were a little bit bumpy, as road doesn’t have asphalt surface there.

This part of Grand Canyon is owned by Hualapai Nation.

After small line for the tickets in a visitor center we bought the tourist package which included bus to the best view points and some other attractions like visiting traditional Hualapai village, where I tried to  light a bonfire (yes, I failed… those stones weren’t even flints, just ordinary pieces of rocks ),

shooting with a bow or throwing an axe

Especially the last activity was quite fun, so be careful – next time you see me with an axe I may not necessarily be cutting trees .

You can even rent the helicopter to take you down to the canyon, so that you can see it from different, probably equally amazing perspective. We’ve didn’t do it. First reason is that we wouldn’t have enought time, the second is that one of my dreams would be coming back to see the south/north rims and flew a baloon over it… hopefully sometime in the future .

As far as throwing axe was cool, it wasn’t by any means the main point of our day there. So let’s write about Grand Canyon. Or rather, let’s post photos here, as those explain everything .

And at the end my “artistic vision”. I don’t offer any interpretation of this photo, I don’t really know what I was going to show, but it’s a nice shoot .