Having negotiated our way out of Vegas in the morning rush hour traffic we headed north-west, across vast empty desert:
Some novelty items when we stopped for fuel:
Zabriskie Point was an essential stop:
At the motel, Si chatted to some fellow petrol-heads about their vintage hot rod:
The photos of the Park that I have posted are a bit random so, as we are leaving today, here are a couple more of rocks and trees to fill out the picture of quite how magical and impressive it is:
And what an ideal base the house was:
A final rock stack:
We then set the controls for Las Vegas (160 miles):
Stopped at Roy’s Diner for early lunch and to break the fast, consisting of a tasty mash up of fried potatoes, bacon, onion, with cheese and avocado on top. Oh, forgot to mention the pancakes …
Vegas is even more trashy, tacky and totally tasteless than I remembered. Two views from out hotel room and Trump Tower:
To my amazement, the Trump hotel – compared to most of the competition – is actually modern looking, simple, and almost elegant, with the reflection constantly changing. Never thought I would ever compliment the Chump on a matter of taste!
In the evening we went to a Cirque du Soleil show. To my delight, it opened with Japanese Taiko drumming, with the special twist that several of the drummers were on trapezes being lowered from the ceiling of the theatre! All the acrobatic turns were stunning and very dramatic, but the comedy/clowning interludes were naff, verging on the embarrassing.
Up at first light (6:15) for a first look at our (stunning) surroundings, as we had arrived in the dark:
The Quail platoon trotted through:
Then we headed back into the Park, stopping first to try (and failing) to get the allegedly easy Roadrunner at the Oasis site, then up to the Cholla cactus “garden”. Extraordinary thing is that it occupies a very small and specific location, with the cacti found nowhere else in the Park:
Same applies to the Joshua Tree, though it is much more locally widespread:
The house with a small rock stack:
RB's journal 