Rainbow Canyon Motel Caliente

... this brought me back to the main ridge. And then I went off like a ten year old and climb up a few petrified dunes. It was awesome going up but getting down took a few attempts as the dunes are shallow on one side and steep on the other – like the South Downs – and the steep sides are heavily gullied. As with Zion it was a question of discretion and valour and all that.

And that was pretty much it apart ...

... until the small canyon. That was pretty challenging. Up tomorrow and to Vegas for the last night. May go to Valley of Fire State Park or go on into Vegas and tour a Museum about the developement of the atom bomb. Can't remember the name. May wait to do a final update after we get back home. These updates are hard to do after a hard day of hiking. Lee

... I were feeling a bit tender from the day before. After a hearty breakfast of something like an eggmcburritowhichbrowns, we headed for the first ride. Dave mapped us a route taking us south over some hills towards the heart of Paiute country. Unfortunately for Dave, his Garmin failed to tell us that the road was private and note open to two liberal software freaks from San Francisco. They had it barricaded with McCain/Palin for President signs so we had to turn back. We did ...

... up some rays and enjoyed watching these tiny little birds hop around. We left the outlet mall around 3:30 pm and made our way back to the hotel (which was only about 2 minutes away!). Once back at the hotel we quickly changed and headed down to the pool area. We enjoyed floating along the lazy river in an inner tube for awhile and then headed onwards to the hot tub. Their Strawberry Daiquiri's were awesome and the weather ...

... rocky ride! We thought we were going to be sick! :-) As we left the plane, Tom argued with the pilot about how descents into St. John's are never that crazy! The pilot disagreed though! The Las Vegas strip is SO close to the airport. It loked liked you could reach out and touch the Luxor and Excalibur hotels! Naturally I went mad with the camera! When we arrived in the airport, we were surprised to see video lottery teminals right in the middle of the ...

... Luxor is pretty cool, especially if you stay in the actual pyramid, so one wall of your hotel rooms is at an angle. Nice place, for not a lot of money (at least mid-week). We gambled a little, but not so much to put us into tears. We had a nice dinner at Il Fornaio (I didn't know they had one there). We walked around for awhile, in various casinos, as well as along the strip. $5 tables are hard to find, even mid-week. Surprisingly ...

Las Vegas: You see it on TV, you hear all about it....so you have to see the bright lights and razzle dazzle of Vegas when you come to LA. I was glad to meet up with Jade, a fellow backpacker I met in a hostel in Singapore. A small world! Together we set off for Vegas forgetting it was a long week-end so the roads were extra busy. The roads to Vegas are pretty straight with desert and mountains either way ...

... We decided to do a scenic drive and Ramrod decided to **** himself for the 2nd time since Moab. He overheated on a slow up-hill drive and we had to stick him in neutral to get back to the campsite. We drove into 'town' to ask about a mechanic and he seemed ok. After laundry and an unsuccessful look for food we headed for bed. In the morning we drove to a bigger town about 13 miles away and found out that our fuse to turn on the fan was burnt out and our engine wasn ...

Greetings from the mid West! Well, since the last update we've travelled a lot of miles, Claire has managed to injure her ankle and Steve's brand new (and very expensive) camera has stopped working. So, most of the pictures on this site are from Claire's little (perfectly good) digital, but you can tell the quality just isn't the same..... Hopefully we'll be back up and running with Steve's by Fiji, but until we are I'm afraid we can't load any pictures.....we'll let you know when we're ...

DD and DS stayed in Vegas with the family while DH and I drove SS to a ski trip outing he had at Brian Head. The drive was nice. We got him settled in with his group at The Lodge at Brian Head and then DH and I went skiing. The skiing was ok. Came back to the lodge and had a great nosh dinner (bar food) in the lounge in front of the fireplace. Then DH and I drove back to Vegas.