The Ferret

We're on a DC-9 to Dallas

Sunday morning in Albuquerque, our last in the sunny South West before our return flight via Dallas to Detroit and then our drive home to London on the 401. It will be good to be home again.

Click on the image for a photo album.

Kate and Reg are up early and walked to a nearby Pancake House to get some coffee. They find it's not open — a Pancake House! not open! on Sunday morning! New Mexico seems quite paradoxical in it's attitudes towards restaurant hours, alcohol service and many other things. They have drive through liquor stores where you can buy a liquor miniature and a glass of ice (for your sore ankle) without ever leaving the car, but you can't buy liquor on Sundays and you can't get breakfast on a Sunday at a Pancake House! The downtown stores all closed at 5:00, even Friday night. What is going on? Kate blames most of it on the proximity of Utah and the "Morgans" (that's what Kate and Reg like to call the Mormons/LDS). Alcohol, coffee and God don't mix.

Since there is no coffee available nearby we start driving towards the airport by way of the University of New Mexico area. Here we find a 24-hour place that is open. We park the car but before we reach the restaurant we are stopped by some street people hawking a newspaper the homeless have put out. The woman asks for some money to feed her pet ferret that she seems to keep up her sleeve — quite spooky.

The restaurant is really hopping; lots of people and activity. Reg is quite fascinated by an armed guard/policeman and a woman wearing extremely tight pants and an uplift bra who are emptying the cash from a video rental machine. I guess he's her guard; they fear the homeless might rob her. The cop is also reading a wanted poster and seems to be scanning the crowd for suspects. Luckily that kind of wanted folk are found to be wanting today.

After Reg has his breakfast and the girls have their coffee we continue driving towards the airport and find a proper coffee house along the way that advertises espresso! This coffee shop is next door to a woman's feminist bookstore. We're excited; finally an alternative to the "brown water" they call coffee in this part of the world.  Here we all order espressos to jolt us awake. It's great to have some real coffee, although Cindy finds hers too strong.

We find our way to the Alamo car return and within minutes are whisked to the airport in a shuttle bus. The driver keeps up a non-stop conversation with us (we're the only passengers) about the weather. Apparently he gets up at 4:00a.m. everyday and watches the Weather Channel so he can have these conversations and then verify the forecast. "Today in Albuquerque it's going to be sunny and warm." Check! But isn't it always?

Reg has a window seat for the flight to Dallas but there's nothing much to see. There was thick cloud cover most of the way. But there's a final note from him in the diary: "As I write this I discover we're on a DC-9 from Albuquerque to Dallas. We'll see Dallas from a DC-9 although not at night." His homage to the Flatlanders.

From Dallas it's another flight to Detroit where we pick up Cindy's car and head home to Canada. It's been quite an adventure: Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico from April 24 through to today May 3. Over 1,000 miles travelled with lots of scenic country and lots of stories to tell.

These notes, originally composed by Kate, Cindy and Reg at the time of the trip, were transcribed '21/07/08 with the help of Google voice recognition.

Albuquerque

After dinner liquers, Maria Teresa Bar, Albuquerque

On our last night in Santa Fe, in the "baby rooms" at the St Francis Hotel where we are staying, Reg pays ... at about 4:00 a.m. he is awake with a terrible allergy attack. His nose is completely full, stuffy as all get out and he cannot sleep. He spends the rest of the morning in their bathroom sniffling, sneezing, reading and waiting for the antihistamines to take effect. This allergy attack may be related to crawling home last night.  As they say, "I wish the hard life weren't so easy for me." Kate is left to catch some much-needed shut-eye.

Click on the image for a photo album.

They're doing a photo shoot this morning on the veranda of the St Francis Hotel. A photographer, with an assistant and two models, is trying to capture the European look. The model reads a paper in the morning light with a continental breakfast — an espresso with some croissants. This looks like fun work but they are up awfully early. I find them busy at 7:30 and they're not done until about 8:30, I don't know how long they've been at it. I assume they're trying to catch the "golden hour" early in the day when the sun is just right (the gold reflector migh help too).

There's also a row of about five polished and chromed Harley-Davidson motorcycles parked in front. I asked the photographer if they were part of the shoot but apparently they're only guests at the hotel.

We say goodbye to the Saint Francis Hotel and historic old town Santa Fe and head south to Albuquerque (what a spelling nightmare that word is). Albuquerque is about 60 miles south. The city is on the Rio Grande and it is large with about 700,000 people. It's sprawls with a tallish downtown — banks, hotels and the convention center. There is an old main street with angle parking as in most small towns out west. This main street is the old route 66 which we had drove on before in Arizona. The street, Central Ave, has bordered up stores, seedy bars and pawn shops. It's not very inviting.

We head to the "Old Town" — a tourist trap with a treed plaza, old adobe church, and verandas in front of each shop. This is the old city for sure and reminds us of the town squares in Taos and Santa Fe.

We're looking for a motel that's a bit cheaper than the Sheraton at Old Town (yes we checked) and find one rated by the AAA on old route 66. It's the Monterey Motel ("simple lodging with an outdoor pool") on Central Ave SW. There's tons of mom and pop motels along that street and some are really ratty, like $10 a night, but this one is nice enough for all of us. We cannot check in until 2:00 and Reg is asleep on his feet with his allergy problems.

Kate and Cindy ask the motel clerk, a woman with a kid that looks all of 14, for a mall to shop. Kate is getting worried having not found any throws for our couches back home. The mall she sends us to is much nicer than the one we found in Santa Fe.

In the mall the girls shop and Reg is left alone. He finds a DOA (Canadian Punk) CD in the only record store; it's quite a poor record store but they do have DOA. We can't find the artist that Pat has sent us searching for. But we did buy a couple of car tapes during our trip. We have a "Best of Kris Kristofferson", an audio book "Skin Walker" by Tony Kellerman we got in Canyon du Chelly (the story is set in the reservation), and finally a Jeff Walker "Best of" for our drive to Albuquerque from Santa Fe. This hasn't been a trip for music — unlike our Austin adventures. We read the Santa Fe has a vital music scene but no venues and no one supports it. Huh? Apparently, Albuquerque has a better music scene and more clubs but we're not there long enough to investigate. The DOA CD suggests that the music scene here may be more hard care than country and folk.

Kate and Cindy find some throws at a department store called "May D&F" (aka May-Daniels & Fisher). This department store is a very small chain with a store in Denver and this one in Albuquerque; there's only the two. It's a big Eaton's kind of department store with lots of nice things on many floors. I guess it's what they call an "anchor" store for the mall. It turns out they don't accept any charge cards other than their own. So, what to do? The clerk suggests that we open a charge account with them and notes that you get an additional 10% off your first purchase if you do. This is just too weird but is in fact what we do! The throws are 30% off in the first place and here's a bit more off that. Kate and Cindy also decide to take advantage of the first time 10% off deal and buy "Superpercale" sheets which are already at 50% off. Kate is surprised to find the pillow cases cost as much as each sheet. We, of course, settle the bill when it arrives later back home in Canada.

Finally Reg is tired and on his knees. Kate is happy because she has the throws and a quilt and matching pillow sham for her parents 50th anniversary. So we head back to the Monterey Motel to check in. Kate and Reg get an enormous room with two queen size beds and Cindy gets a pretty big one with one bed and a mirrored headboard — there are just too many strategically placed mirrors in her bedroom. Cindy is sure this must be a "hot pillow" joint. Although it seems respectable enough and is own and managed by the "Bugg" family. No bug references please.

Reg takes a nap to try to kick the allergy and Chardonnay blues while Kate and Cindy head over to the shopping plaza/square in the old historical town. The walk is several blocks and the weather feels the hottest we've experienced so far. They decide the first thing they'll do upon arriving at the plaza is find a place for a drink (alcoholic that is). This is easier said than done — most restaurant type places don't seem to be open. They finally find one that's open, walk onto the outside veranda and are told that alcohol can't be drank outside. Inside they find that in order to have a drink, food must be purchased. The waiter, who hails from Washington State, agrees it's weird but it's the law. Apparently, alcohol can't be served within 300 ft of a church in New Mexico without food in case people go all crazy and disturb the either the church or the church goers.  And of course there's a big old adobe Catholic church, the San Felipe de Neri Church, at the one end of the square. However, the force feeding turns out to be okay — they have nachos that are done differently than at home. They are really good.

After lunch the girls explore the plaza stopping at nearly every store picking up a few souvenirs here and there. At 4:00pm Reg shows up having had his much needed nap. There's some more shopping and soon enough it's time to find a restaurant for dinner.

Two blocks from the plaza we find a restaurant called Maria Teresa housed in a huge old Spanish hacienda dating from the 1840's. At one time grapevines grew around the house and all the rooms opened onto a central patio. There have been several renovations in history of the house and the grape vines are no longer in evidence nor do all the rooms open onto the patio. In any case, it's a very interesting place with quite a remarkable women's restroom -— all tiled with an analyst style couch in case of the vapors. 

A note about restrooms in Arizona and New Mexico. A few have been lovely —- the Inn of the Anasazi in Santa Fe and this one with bright tiles and every amenity. Others have been quite awful or just plain wretched — high toilet seats, low toilet seats, two toilets, no doors, doors that won't let two people in and doors that require the toilet seat be lifted to open. Such is life on the road.

Our waitress at Maria Teresa is an interesting old cow, but the food is only fair. The first part of our meal is disrupted by a family with two little kids who are busy screaming away. Things become more interesting when the family leave and two young couples in formal attire arrive for dinner — they're dressed to the nines for a high school graduation/prom. Or perhaps it's for Cinco de Mayo? Or perhaps a debutante's ball? Who knows!

After dinner we retire to the bar for a liqueur. The bar is very old with mirrors and ornate carved wood. Kate has a Spanish coffee, after grilling the rather smart mouth bartender about how she will make it. [You will recall this is the south west where coffee is barely brown water.] Reg has a Drambuie, and Cindy has a sherry. The room with the bar is too smoky for us so we retired to the second lounge which features this six or seven seat judge's bench in red leather. The bartender tells us that Cinco de Mayo is the May festival celebrating the birth of the Holy Mother Mary and all that kind of Catholic stuff. Later Kate and Reg see something about it on TV where the reference seems to be about Pancho Villa (the Mexican revolutionary). It's one of life's mysteries. 

"Cinco de Mayo (pronounced [ˈsiŋko̞ ðe̞ ˈma̠ʝo̞] in Mexico, Spanish for "Fifth of May") is an annual celebration held on May 5, which commemorates the anniversary of Mexico's victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862". Wikipedia 2021

On the way out of the restaurant at about 7:30 we hear that without a reservation people need to wait 1 hour to be seated! Seems there mustn't be much good food in Albuquerque if that's the case. We see several more well dressed young couples arriving with their reservations. The girls seem to favor a deep blue for their dresses. The boys are in tuxedos. We hope they enjoy their dinners.

The walk back to the hotel through a residential area is interesting. People all seem to be Catholic — lots of BVM's (Blessed Virgin Mary), etc. Some houses are immaculately kept with well landscaped yards, while others are quite neglected. It's a mixed neighborhood.

We're to bed at the Monterey Motel in decent time. This is our last night on this adventure through Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Tomorrow we fly home via Dallas and Detroit.

These notes, originally composed by Kate, Cindy and Reg at the time of the trip, were transcribed '21/07/07 with the help of Google voice recognition.

Taos

Taos Pueblo, NM

This was our day to see the famous Taos "art community". Taos is a small town about 70 miles north of Santa Fe in the upper reaches of the Rio Grande river. It's supposed to be a really neat place according to our friend Rae although later, after we had been there, we've come to doubt that she had ever been there herself. The other reason for going was to see the Taos Pueblo.

Click on the image for a photo album.

The scenery was quite lovely on the way up; we are following the Rio Grande River for part of the way. There are magical mountains on the way, the "Land of enchantment", and winding mountain roads that cars take at high speeds — even passing we slow tourists on solid line curves. On the way we passed several wineries and on the way back we stopped in one for a tasting. The one we stopped at had awful wine but a great gift store.

Taos is a mountain town and as you arrive looks much like the small towns in the mountains of BC. However, the tourist area in the old town, with lots of adobe, is arranged around a square, a plaza, as in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. We parked in a lot adjacent to the plaza for $3 rather than driving into the plaza and parking for 25 cents. Oh well! The traffic was bumper to bumper in the square the whole time we were there. It's a busy town but most of the traffic seemed to be beat up pickup trucks.

Although we expected Toas to have some high class tourist shops, in fact most of the shops, especially in the plaza area, were more on the order of Niagara Falls tacky. We did manage to find a few interesting stores, one with expensive but interesting hippie clothes, and another with very nice pottery. We also toured the nearby Kit Carson cemetery and saw where the sainted explorer, or nasty murderer depending on who you believe, was buried.

"During the late nineteenth century, Kit Carson became a legendary symbol of America's frontier experience, which influenced twentieth century erection of statues and monuments, public events and celebrations, imagery by Hollywood, and the naming of geographical places. In recent years, Kit Carson has also become a symbol of the American nation's mistreatment of its indigenous peoples." Wikipedia 2021.

On the way to Taos we saw signs for several Indian pueblos — these are communities with buildings of mud adobe that Reg was expecting to see in Canyon du Chelly. The ones in Canyon du Chelly are mud and stone built by the ancient Anasazi not the current active adobe pueblo communities built by the Pueblo indians. Each of these Pueblos seems to have bingo and "pull tabs" — they advertise on the roadside. The latter are, we believe, some kind of number game. Kate is not at all keen to visit a pueblo, Cindy is indifferent, and Reg is really keen. Our plan therefore is for Reg to visit the Taos Pueblo a few miles to the north of the town while Kate and Cindy shop. But we shop together for a while to get a feel for the town and so Reg can buy some souvenirs for his workmates and shoot some photos of the town. It turns out the shopping is enough and we all head out for the Taos Pueblo.

The Taos Pueblo is built along a swift-flowing tributary of the Rio Grande. The creek is the water source for the village. The village has been occupied for over 1,000 years making it one of the older towns in the United States. On each side of the creek is an open space, quite large and quite dusty. Behind the open space, on each side, is a rambling three story Pueblo community built of red clay and straw. These aren't the permanent concrete and stucco erzatz adobe of the city. Santa Fe has all that adobe in the historic center on purpose — it's a tourist draw and a local building requirement. Likewise for Taos and Albuquerque. On the other hand, here there's a crew of fellows who are reworking the adobe on some homes with fresh clay and mud. You can see fresh adobe and other areas where the adobe is quite worn away by the rain. Maintaining the Pueblo must be a full-time job!

It costs us $5 to enter the Pueblo and park our car along the creek. In addition Reg pays $5 to use his camera; Kate and Cindy decide to rely on his photos and postcards. There is a guided tour of about half an hour but we decline that as well and just wander about unattended. However, our first job is to find a loo. We approach that a idea with some trepidation for the Pueblo is quite dusty and dirty. And, within the Pueblo there's no running water or electricity! Fortunately there's a tourist restroom at the entrance that's clean and bright.

Kate and Cindy decide to explore some craft shops and Reg explorers things on his own. The shops are in public buildings and are, in general, cool and tidy with the usual Indian crafts (silver, pottery, jewelry, etc.). We see a nice T-shirt, "Custer's Last Shirt"; it is covered in arrows. Some shops have gas lights but skylights are more common and make things very bright inside. Interiors are whitewashed, floors are usually covered but I'm sure it's packed earth underneath.

Several stray dogs wander the plaza at the creek mooching food. We meet one mutt who is paralyzed in his back legs, very skinny, but it manages to shuffle about dragging its hind quarters along! Really pitiful. He must have had a run in with a car some time ago. Unfortunately, he survived. Kate and Cindy feed the fellow some pretzels and have nightmare dreams for days about him — what should we do? Reg thinks he ought to have been put down and out of his misery.

The Pueblo is supposed to have some 1,500 permanent residence and is certainly big enough for that. Kate and Cindy were talking to a native who tells them that most people live outside the Pueblo — especially since the arrival of electricity which isn't allowed within the village. Those who live outside return to their homes within during the summer for special occasions, e.g. religious ceremonies, dances, etc. .... and to sell trinkets to tourists like us.

On the way back we saw some white water rafting on the Rio Grande between Taos and Santa Fe. The river is pretty wild in spots. We stopped to take some photos and Reg caught an upset where two were dumped into the river. One they pulled back into the raft very quickly. The other made it safely to shore. We ask ourselves, "Is this really fun?"

Back at Santa Fe we decide to try out the restaurant in our hotel. We are plesantly surprised and glad to discover that the hotel has an enclosed patio out back with trees, a fountain, running water, umbrella tables and lots of birds. The finches are especially noisy — they're busy with spring mating. These are small sparrow sized birds that are brown in color with reddish heads. Is this what we call a "house finch" back home? The restaurant has a gateway on Water St but I think the main entrance is through the hotel. It's aptly called "On Water". 

We have an excellent dinner — not as exotic as at the other places but probably the best in a while. There are so many good restaurants in town. Kate and Cindy have sworn off the chardonnay but Reg orders a glass and lets them have a sip. They change their minds and a bottle is ordered. The girls are pretty moderate.

After dinner we wander the narrow side streets for a while and find a club several blocks from the square but within easy crawling distance of our hotel. It's done up as an English pub but Reg avoids the fancy imported beers and sticks to the Budweiser on tap. Kate and Cindy are "on the wagon" but Kate has a few sips of a glass of wine (the restaurant only serves beer and wine). We have to buy some chips and salsa with our drinks — this is an old practice we had in Ontario years ago. It must be due to licensing requirements for "restaurants".

We're about the first to arrive at around 9:00 and take a table near the front. We engage the singer in conversation. He's a lanky cowpoke kind of character named Jerry Ferris. He's originally from Brownsville Texas and moved here in 1963. One reason we get to know him so well, apart from the fact that we're the only ones there, is the beers we buy him.

Jerry is quite a good singer and sings his own songs. Kate says it wouldn't be a good idea to make any Guy Clark request. At the break, this is a literal break in that the sound system quit, he comes to our table, we buy him another beer, and we find out most of his life story. He knows people we like.

"Jeepster" — that's what he calls Gary P Nunn. Kate thinks it's a derivation of Gary P, to GP, to Jeep, and then Jeepster. That makes a lot of sense but at this point we have no data or any other theories. We asked Jerry about the extreme weather in Santa Fe. Is it anything like Canyon du Chelly where they get cold winters?  We've seen a lovely frame photo in our hotel of the plaza covered in snow so we're curious. We're told that the summer seldom gets over 100°! Say Jerry, that may not be as hot in Brownsville but it certainly is hot enough for us!

Reg stumbles back to the hotel with the assistance of Kate and Cindy. It's within crawling distance and it's our last night in Santa Fe. He pays for it later that night ...

These notes, originally composed by Kate, Cindy and Reg at the time of the trip, were transcribed '21/07/07 with the help of Google voice recognition.

Santa Fe

Jackalope Mercado, Santa Fe NM

We arrived last night in Santa Fe New Mexico having visited Canyon du Chelly in Arizona the day before. After some searching we found a place and stayed overnight in our "baby rooms" ($75 versus $150 for the regular rooms) at the St Francis Hotel in Santa Fe near the town center and the old Town Square/Plaza. 

Click on the image for a photo album.

We have breakfast at Pasquale's next door — a Mexican motif restaurant with tortillas instead of toast. We wandered the old town together for a while but split up after a bit so Kate could return to the hotel and have a rest — she's feeling those two chardonnays from last night at the Coyote Cafe.

The old town is all done up in an adobe style —- even the Woolworth's Store. There's an historic square with trees, it's a pleasant and active place. The shops around the square are all sheltered by verandas with sunning areas above. At one end of the square as the Governor's Palace — this is a large museum that goes the length of the square. The veranda there has all sorts of Indians selling crafts, mostly silver and turquoise jewelry. We have a sense, perhaps wrong, that this has been going on for centuries. This area was settled by the Spanish about 1650 (the Camino Real is the road and Mission Trail from Chihuahua in Mexico to Santa Fe here in New Mexico). There was a Pueblo revolt about 1680 where the Spanish had to retreat from the Indians. 

The art gallery on the square has a walk of fame — the only name we recognize is Georgia O'Keefe. The gallery is one of those most photographed buildings and Reg photographs it too just to keep up the count. 

Reg returns to the veranda of the St Francis (our hotel) to meet up with Kate and Cindy. Kate has been out wandering as well having had a short nap. After some stumbling about, Kate was having a "bad hair" day, and some tears we decide to check out a mall. Kate hopes to find a throw or blanket or etc. in the Navajo style that she can use back home on our new couches. And Reg needs more film. 

On the way out Cerillos Road (that's also the road we came in on) we stopped for a quick snack at Casa de Margarita. It looks like a real cowboy dive on the outside but turns out to be baronial inside with a tin man pretending to be a suit of armor. Lunch hits the spot, as do the drinks. 

Across the road is a very weird spot, the Mercantile & Trading Co., with lots of folk art, some folk artists, south west antiques (like second hand cowboy boots) and a burro tied up outside. Kate and Cindy are keen to check out the scene and the burro. He's friendly but tied up with no water or food. The burro's owner is this drunken cowboy cum folk artist but likely just a "hanger around" kind of guy. He has quite a buzz on and is drinking beer from the big bottles. These are quite large, sell for about $2 and contain about a six pack of beer. They are for the serious drinker and he's a serious drinker. He's keen to talk about selling his burro and how he'd never eat it although he does eat dogs! Or at least so he says. There are other artists around working with found objects to create neat things. For example carved tin cans to make lamp shades, but our friend with the burro, and the regulation ponytail, is far too much for us and we make a run for it. Off to the mall. 

The mall is a disappointment. Kate finds her throws in Albuquerque on our last day.

One objective on this trip was the Jackalope Mercado. There's a small store downtown but we fear the downtown prices. The Jackalope is a big joke around the west and you regularly see mounted Jackalope heads, mounted on wood and stuffed like a deer head, and Jackalope postcards. It's a Jackrabbit that has Antelope antlers, a ficitional creature and quite a joke. There's lots of folk art at the Jackalope Mercado, and imported trinkets from around the world, but especially from Mexico. Furniture is in a style unique to this area — rugged unfinished pine with some carving and detailed accents. But the look is frontier and looks sort of home made. 

The Jackalope Mercado was kind of like a Southwest version of Pier 1, although they also have Pier 1 in Albuquerque. It was very large with lots of neat things including most of the usual souvenirs. It also had a huge yard with all kinds of clay pots and clay lawn ornaments. The ubiquitous coyotes, sleeping compadres, jack rabbits etc. Kate writes that when she first saw coyote symbols and souvenirs in Texas she thought they were really neat. But now we've seen so many versions of coyotes that were starting to agree with the bumper sticker that we saw recently that said, "Stamp out coyote art!". The crowning touch to the visit however was the prairie gopher area where they had a hill a prairie gophers fenced off and you could sit and watch them play. They're darn cute.

We find out later that they will be having live music and have applied for a beer and wine license at the Jackalope Mercado. It's mostly an open air affair, a fun place to spend time on a sunny day.

The group returned to the Saint Francis and leveled out with drinks on the veranda before going to the Inn of the Anasazi  on the old Town Square for what was advertised as "Native American" cuisine. Kate would tend to call it "Continental New Mexican" and most of what we ordered was pretty good. Especially Cindy's goat cheese something or other. But Kate's shrimp appetizer, which was served as a main course, was far too salty even for her chip loving palette and had to be returned for a lamb something or other that was okay. Reg had another variation on a Caesar salad, embraced the chardonnay, and had a bit of Bambi appetizer as his main course (little slivers of venison with lots of exotic mushrooms). We enjoyed our dinners.

The highlight of the end of the Anasazi turned out to be the ladies washroom. It had beautiful green tiles, it was large, probably bigger than our room at the Saint Francis, and nicely furnished with individual hand towels and much more.

For the first time on our trip we actually felt chilly walking back to the hotel it was cool. We're high up at 2,194m so it's much cooler here.

Lesson of the day: visit the Jackalope Mercado, wander the old town square, visit the galleries, shop for silver and turquoise, and try some of the many great restaurants.

These notes, originally composed by Kate, Cindy and Reg at the time of the trip, were transcribed '21/07/06 with the help of Google voice recognition.

Canyon de Chelly to Santa Fe

Canyon de Chelly Tour

We arrived last night in Chinle (say "chin-lee"), gateway to Canyon du Chelly (say "duh-shay"), having visited Monument Valley the day before. Kate's friend Dougal suggested that we ought to check out this very interesting part of Arizona. This is a canyon you can explore from within — unlike the Grand Canyon where it requires some effort to get down to the river. And, get this, it's still occupied by the Navajo nation!

Click on the image for a photo album.

We learn that Chinle means "where the water flows". The small town of Chinle is in the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona, we're here to explore the Canyon de Chelly. It was here that the Navajos surrendered to Kit Carson in 1864, after which they endured their "trail of tears" into New Mexican exile for several years. A shameful history.

At breakfast we were approached by a native, obviously under the influence, who tries to panhandle some money. We found some empty NyQuil bottles scattered about. NyQuil is a cold remedy that's mostly alcohol and, I guess, it is available in the town. The alcohol we were searching for last night is not available. The tribal lands in much of Arizona are dry.

We left our hotel in Chinle early in the morning for the Canyon de Chelly tour at 8:00 a.m. The vehicles for the tour are old World War II all wheel drive troop carriers. They are sturdy old army trucks and can travel almost anywhere. About 24 people sit behind a cabin in an open air area. Our driver is a young local native named Timothy.

As soon as we start out we immediately drove to and into the river. The river is probably 2 ft deep in spots. In fact, most of the driving was done down in the river (it dries up in July and August but this is April).

We rock and roll and are jolted around in the back of the truck and are expecting to flop over at any second. It was quite a rough ride. We did see a four-wheel drive jeep kind of vehicle stuck in the river mud but we managed to do the tour without any mishaps on our part. The treat of the trip, besides the truck and the scenery, was our guide who was a really nice person with a quick sense of humor. He was a local Navajo, born and raised in the Canyon de Chelly.

Some funny Timothy quips:

• When someone suggests that we should help out the guy who was stuck in the mud, Timothy says, "I didn't tell him to drive there."
• Pointing out one of the overlooks about 600 ft above us: first he described the overlook then he said, "I see a person up there. A woman. She has blue eyes."
• At a later overlook someone asked Timothy if there was a person up there and what was the color of her eyes. Timothy looks up, paused for a few seconds and then said, "She's wearing sunglasses."
• We went into this little rock area with the truck almost touching the roof. Timothy called it "Martini Rock because it has a big hangover."

The canyon walls have cliff dwellings from long ago. They were all built by the Anasazi — a race who lived throughout this area in the period 500 to 1200 AD. No one knows where they came from and no one knows where they went. They were also in the Grand Canyon. Timothy tells us they were short people, under 5 foot and they only lived to 30 to 35 years. Cindy thinks they probably died from lung disease due to the smoke in the caves and small adobe buildings. The cliff dwellings had small rooms and were built with stones and clay mud. All the dwellings were destroyed by the Spanish around 1600 or so who were looking for gold. One of the canyons is called Canyon de Morte (i.e. Canyon of the Dead) for the Navajo massacred by the Spanish in their search for gold. The Spanish never found any. The ruins you see today have been rebuilt by archaeologist but there are many you can see that haven't been rebuilt.

There are tons of rock carvings and paintings in the canyon. Those by the Anasazi can't be dated but there are some by recent Navajo, say from the 1850's. Those by the vandal hordes of the 1980's (tourists like us) have meant that a lot of spots, as in most, are protected and fenced off. The petroglyphs showing what looks like horses would have to be Navajo as horses only came to North America with the Spanish explorers.

There is a rim road around the top of the canyon offering scenic views from high above the river where we toured today. We should stay longer and do that next time.

At the lodge in Chinle we discovered that the Navajo rugs we admire so much are a little bit out of our price range. They seem to start at about $2,000 for a small one. Maybe we'll find a made in Taiwan imitation rug or something we can afford. We like them and would love to have one for our home, but not at that price. Reg has been trying to convince the girls that an Indian feather headdress would be a good deal for Pat given his love of hats. There's also a nice hat made of a fox/wolf pelt but we won't get that over the border with that! Obviously buying a fancy bourbon is out of the question in the Indian territory.

We enjoyed our tour of the canyon but are anxious to get out of this territory. Our drinks are gone and the no alcohol beer they serve is wretched. Our experiences on the reservation, apart from the liquor situation, have been great. The scenery is beautiful and the people are friendly. It's their beautiful land and they're rightly proud of it.

We drive the 300 miles to Santa Fe and cross the "Great Divide" (where water on the west side flows into the Colorado River basin and then to the Pacific while on the east side it flows to the Mississippi River basin and on into the Gulf of Mexico). The country is mostly pastureland, there's more water here and we're even higher up. We passed several active Pueblos on our way but have no time to stop — we will see one later near Taos. 

The ruins in the canyon were made by the Anasazi. In New Mexico we see there are several pueblos which are still active but those are a different group of natives. Both were/are covered with a clay mud to make that famous smooth adobe look.

We arrive at Santa Fe with intentions of staying downtown in the "old city" where there's lots of adobe. The road into Santa Fe is like every modern city lined with shopping malls, car dealerships and fast food restaurants but the downtown is historic with a square and twisty, winding, one way streets. The first couple of hotels are full so Kate and Cindy set out on foot leaving Reg alone with the car. They return after a very long time with rooms at the historic St Francis hotel. I'm told we have "baby rooms" with the washroom down the hall. In fact we have washrooms in our rooms but the rooms are really small — there's barely enough room to change your mind! Cindy's room is the other side of the hall from ours.

The St Francis is a "refined, century-old Mission Revival-style hotel. 1 block from Santa Fe Plaza and 2 blocks from the New Mexico Museum of Art." [Google Maps 2021]

Cindy's mom, Myrt, sent a restaurant review, from the Globe and Mail, for the Coyote Cafe which is just around the corner from our hotel. The review raves about the New Mexico cuisine and we're convinced we ought to go. The cafe is upstairs and furnished with lots of interesting Mexican folk art. Over the stairway there are some Mexican paper mache figures to make up a Mariachi Band. The figures are all skeleton corpses as in the day of the dead celebrations. Over the open kitchen there are folk art animal figures that are also in paper mache: a coyote (of course), a panther, rabbits, and cute little prairie dogs. The tables are polished stone and the chairs are covered in cowhide. 

Our waiter is from New York City many years ago. A fun, friendly and cute fellow with a ponytail. Ponytails seem to be "de rigueur" throughout Santa Fe. He appears to be gay, which also seems a fashion here, but he's not (there are a few in Santa Fe). He picks our Chardonnay — two excellent oak aged California wines at just a bit beyond $20 each. The first was more than enough, we drank a bit too much. The food met the extravagant Globe and Mail reviews — Kate had salmon which was not too hot, Cindy head chile rellenos which were hot, and Reg had jerk chicken which was quite hot. We shared a variation on the Caesar salad. Reg had several over our time in Santa Fe.

Our cute ponytailed New York waiter, who isn't gay since he mentions his girlfriend who also works there, stops by the table to chat after things slow down. From him we learned that the chef mentioned in the article, his name is Mark Miller, is off today opening a second Coyote Cafe in Washington DC. Mark Miller has also published some fairly well received cookbooks. Also, he tells us that Santa Fe is a wonderful place where there are more days of skiing than in the Swiss alps! And Kate thinks he was the one who told us that humidity was 5% there! Later, she saw on TV, that the humidity was 20% in Albuquerque. But it did seem more humid there than in Santa Fe. Anyways as we became accustomed to saying "it's a dry heat" and mostly it was.

Lessons learned today: in this part of the world book your tours and especially your accomodation ahead. And stock up on your liquor and alcohol supplies before you enter these dry counties.

These notes, originally composed by Kate, Cindy and Reg at the time of the trip, were transcribed '21/07/06 with the help of Google voice recognition.

Monument Valley

Monument Valley, AZ

We stayed last night in Page AZ where we had toured Lake Powell and today we visit Monument Valley before heading on to Chinle and Canyon du Chelly. It's about 125miles from Page to Monument Valley and then another 100miles to Chinle.

Click on the image for a photo album.

This is Reg's day to get silly. Kate and Cindy have promised to drive so he settles into the back seat with a few cool ones having done all the driving so far. We get away very early from Page having awakened Cindy with a phone call —she persists in saying that she "never slept a wink". But we're on the road at about 7:00 leaving our Inn at Lake Powell and the town of Page armed with Mormon coffee, "This isn't coffee, it's barely brown water!!" Our plans are to have breakfast at Goulding's Lodge, a Fred Harvey tour lodge at the edge of the of Monument Valley. That's near the "Four Corners" (where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet). Goulding's Lodge is in Utah while Monument Valley is across the state line in Arizona.

We're traveling in the Navajo reservation and while there are lots of people with roadside stands selling silver, pottery, rugs and other trinkets there aren't too many gas stations or other places with a "pissoir". Kate and Cindy love the scenery — the sheep, the craigy heights, barren washes — but they'd really like a loo. When the pain becomes unbearable we all pull over and "do our duty" behind little juniper trees only big enough to count as garden ornaments. At Goulding our waiter warns us to be very careful when doing so for the wet weather has made for lots of snakes and scorpions. Yes, that would be a painful bathroom break!

The landscape we travel through is mostly pasture land for sheep, goats and the occasional horses. Although there are a few fences the animals do escape and you need to be careful when driving. Especially so since the shifting sands mean that fences are often buried or sometimes left high and dry. On several occasions we encounter livestock on the road.

The Lodge at Goulding, probably the only accommodation for 50 to100 miles, is our brunch destination. It's at Monument Valley but set back a way along a canyon across from the gateway to the valley. The rooms are built into rows along the side of the canyon wall. Each has a beautiful view of the old west landscape of Monument Valley. Over breakfast, or best so far with really neat biscuits that seem to have been a staple for the old timers, we watch airplanes arrive on a dirt landing strip. Our waiter (we seem to have had several servers) tells us the planes come from Page, where we had started out some two and a half hours ago, and are mostly booked by the Japanese and Germans. There are lots of these tourists but I think it's an exaggeration. People used to talk about the "ugly American" now it's the "ugly German" and "ugly Japanese". We're the "ugly Canadians".

At brunch Kate and Cindy talked to a tourist from England; she is awed by the distances and space. We're not so awed, in fact the space is filled with a lot of farm homes: often trailers but sometimes log hogan's, or more substantial homes, and, too often, only tar paper shacks. But the natives we've met, albeit briefly, who live here are friendly and conversant. They have well-deserved pride in their land; e.g. when we say how beautiful it is they say "thank you". Bear in mind this is their land. This is the Navajo nation. Monument Valley is a tribal park although we think, perhaps wrongly, that they may receive federal money as a "National Monument", c.f. national parks. [Ps. They don't, it's native land controlled by the Navajo Nation.]

In any case, we decide to tour the park ourselves rather than take a guided tour in an open bus or truck. Inside the park we are thankful that we did: on the one hand there's the insidious dust. However, on the other hand, we're sorry we didn't given the terrible roads. E.g., we have to make a second run at one hill where we're bogged down in sand.

There are lots of trails through the valley for cars and four wheel drive vehicles. At a couple of places Indians pose for pictures; we pay to take photos of a couple of children with mesas in the background but we could have taken a photo with an Indian cowboy. Reg took a posed picture with Cindy and Kate that he titles "Two butts and a butte".

Throughout the valley there are people who actually live there! Why beats me given the roads, heat and lack of water. There are no rivers or creeks that flow here with any permanence. However, the winter had lots of snow and earlier they had three days of gentle rain. For the moment that means that the ground looks quite green — not so green come July I'm sure.

The ground dust is red as are the sandstone buttes and towering pillars and mesas. The ground has certain feel to it. Sort of like snow with a sleet crust on top. It's hard but breaks to reveal the dusty interior. Everything becomes covered in red dust; especially your shoes from walking in it.

We drive on to Chinle at Canyon de Chelly where we have a hotel reservation — thank God we did! There are only two hotels in town and both are completely full. We saw a couple looking for a room. They may have to drive to Albuquerque before finding one.

At the Lodge in Chinle, where we might have stayed, we book a reservation for a tour of the canyon tomorrow morning. Kate and Cindy are out to stretch their legs and also looking for a liquor store. Reg has finished his last beer and thirst. Our motel has a restaurant, he's hungry for dinner and a drink; it's 7:15, where are Kate and cindy?

Well, it turns out that you cannot buy liquor or beer or etc. on the Indian reservation including here in Chinle. It's a dry town, a dry county, a dry nation. The girls finally come back after confirming the above with the locals and at various shops.

The tired trio struck out to the only restaurant in town and had a pretty good meal (or at least good prices). Kate was going to have the meatloaf but was told it was "off" so she had home pork chops, Reg had a No. 1 Mexican Dinner, and Cindy had a "Navajo Taco" (taco fixings in Navajo fry bread). But we were thirsty. It's bad enough that the Morgan's are dry on Lake Powell and in Utah, why here as well?

Since things shut down at 9:00 p.m. in Chinle everyone went to bed in order to get up early for the tour of the canyon the next morning.

These notes, originally composed by Kate, Cindy and Reg at the time of the trip, were transcribed '21/07/06 with the help of Google voice recognition.

Lake Powell

Pool and Lake Powell at Page AZ

We were overnight in Page, AZ and toured out to the Rainbow Bridge in Forbidding Canyon on Lake Powell today.

Click on the image for a photo album.

We got up in the morning and went to Bubba's Texas style BBQ for breakfast (it really isn't Texas style, nor is it BBQ). We did some laundry, bought our tickets for the cruise on Lake Powell to the Rainbow Bridge (from 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. $50), and went back to the hotel to level out a bit. We decided to stay one more night and drive to Monument Valley in the morning of the next day. Especially since we would not be done the cruise until late in the day.

Cindy met a woman in the laundromat from Seattle who had lived in Minnesota and Phoenix — she said the former was too cold the later was too hot. She also said the reason they don't have daylight savings time in Arizona is because no one would want to cut their lawn at 11:00 p.m. at night! 

We did the laundry in downtown Page and shopped in the Safeway for our essentials.  An Indian panhandled $5 from Kate on some pretense of getting to Las Vegas — Kate was feeling generous. Suppose you arrived in Las Vegas with a $5 grub state; do you really think you could build anything on that? Kate sure can't! That evening, at the same mall we had been in the morning, we were hit up by the same Indian — now he tells us he's trying to get to Austin Nevada. This time we said no. 

The afternoon boat cruise on the Canyon Odyssey leaves from Wahweap Marina. There's a hotel there, with a pool and the scenery is weird. It's a whole other country, very odd to have all this water in this arid dry canyon land.

It's 2:00 p.m. and we're currently on the cruise on Lake Powell. It's good that we brought our own supplies as we're heading into "Utah/Morgan" territory and shipboard sustenance is limited to water, lemonade and coffee. Huh? No beer? While Page is in AZ much of Lake Powell is in Utah. The Rainbow Arch is in Arizona but there's no beer there!

Our boat ride was scenic and lots of fun but there's way too much sun. The lake is down some 80 ft from the high water mark of 1983 and there's a white "bath tub ring" left on the canyon walls.. They had too much water then and had to release the excess long, i.e. they couldn't control the river. You can see the high water mark along the shoreline landscape as a white mark on the buttes and canyon walls.

The dam is comparable to the Hoover dam — it's over 700 feet tall, closer to 800 feet and completed in 1963. Once built it took 17 years to fill! The lake is narrower than Lake Mead with much more dramatic landscapes — buttes, narrow canyons, etc.  Our tour goes 40 miles up the lake to the famous Rainbow Arch and there's lots of stunning landscape along the way. The Rainbow Arch is an impressive natural stone arch about 300 ft wide at the base. We have to hike about one mile after navigating a narrow Canyon for about 6 miles from the main body of the Colorado river. When the water was higher the boat went right up to the arch.

By the way it turns out that we could have taken an early morning tour if anyone had let us know; and we had tried to find out!

The important story for the book is how we arrived back at the end of the cruise on Lake Powell. We're exhausted, sun burnt, ready for a car ride back to our hotel, and aren't you glad we decided to stay rather than travel? Only to discover that Reg no longer has any car keys and we have only one set. Cindy leads us step by step through our last contact with them and then points out to us that they are laying in plain view in the backseat! Reg is relieved that it was Kate who had left them this time as this has happened before to him (c.f. Davenport, KY and the Dicks).

The security fellow at the lodge where we had taken the tour has a complete kit for breaking into cars. He tells us he drove a tow truck in Phoenix and this kit was the second best $40 he'd ever spent. He also tells us that he does this about 3 to 4 times a week. In any case, he gets into the car with a minimum of fuss as Kate had left her window open a bit. We tip $5 and are very relieved that the experience wasn't worse. The lesson here is to get two sets of keys when you rent.

We went to our pool back at the Inn on Lake Powell after the long tour to cool down after a day in the sun. Although the day had been very hot and sunny the pool was cold, very cold! Next morning they admitted, only when we mentioned it, that "We usually warn our guests that the pool isn't heated."

These notes, originally composed by Kate, Cindy and Reg at the time of the trip, were transcribed '21/07/06 with the help of Google voice recognition.

Grand Canyon

Mule Train on Bright Angel Trail

President Herbert Hoover, when he first visited the Grand Canyon (1928), was impressed and exclaimed, "Golly, what a gully!" He had a way with words; it truely is an amazing place. It's best appreciated at sunrise and sunset. We arrived last night, caught some spectacular views at sunset and spend most of the day seeing even more.

Click image at left for a photo album.

At 5:15a.m. Kate called Cindy (who hadn't slept wink all night) to say sunrise over the gully was at 5:45a.m. and we had to be there. It turns out that Kate had already knocked on Cindy's door and pushed a cryptic note under the door when she got no answer. So we all showered, packed, checked out of the Quality Inn Tusayan Village and hit the Grand Canyon South Rim a little past sunrise, but still close enough to be awed by the views. 

As usual, the view was pretty impressive, so we drove around to a few lookouts. Each view point has a great and/or greater view than the last. And Kate, who also hadn't slept a wink, regaled us with facts she had gleaned from the Grand Canyon paper which she had read all night.

Kate and Cindy have vivid imaginations: At one look out we were standing by a couple they believe are planning an assignation. He seemed to be a bit of a jerk who displayed his knowledge about the Tonto trail or whatever. Kate figures they're both married to other people who are still asleep in the motels. She figures each had gone out to get a pack of cigarettes and the morning paper. 

At another view point/lookout we met a young woman who wanted to know who the president before Franklin Roosevelt was (it was Herbert Hoover of "Golly what a Gully" fame). After we all speculated a bit about that; she wanted to know what number President Bush was (George H.W. Bush was No 41 from '89-'93). At that point we decided she'd been up all night on acid to see the sunrise over the gully. She'd probably slept in her car!

At two other lookouts Kate and Reg had to prove that they may be 40 but are not dead yet. They both did death defying climbs past the railings and down into the canyon causing the wussies left on the rim to start counting the insurance dollars. Kate notes that one person out there on the rim also had the wussies. You really shouldn't do that. Foolish folk slip and fall over the rim every year.

After all that excitement we decided it was time for sustenance so we went to the Bright Angel Lodge for breakfast. The lodge is one of five or so six lodges in the park and quite rustic. Kate ordered the Spanish omelette with salsa, Reg ordered two eggs up with whiskey toast (a reference to a Tom Russell song that the waiter didn't get, or care to get), and Cindy ordered an onion and mushroom omelette. Cindy had to trade with Kate because her omelette was on the spicy side. Kate says it was "fuckin' hot!"

After breakfast Kate and Cindy hit the gift shop in the Bright Angel Lodge and were very successful on their first shopping expedition — they found presents for some friends, relatives and the cats.  While the girls were shopping Reg saw a guy doing Tai Chi out on the canyon edge. When he told Kate about that later in Chenile she said, "How pretentious!". We all agreed but then people get all spiritual at the gully. 

After shopping we joined up with a one hour short guided walking tour along the rim by the El Tovar and Bright Angel lodges. While we were waiting for the tour to start, we saw a pretty young bride and her attendant posing on the balcony of the El Tovar hotel. Everyone was snapping their picture. On the walking tour we learned some interesting facts and saw some more interesting people. The tour guide said 14 people died here last year from various causes. There were 4.5 million visitors and six people fell over the edge (foolish folk like Kate and Reg on death defying climbs to the edge of the rim).

An oddity learned from the guide: the North Rim is 10 miles away as the crow flies and some 1,000 ft higher. The river is 5,000 below the South Rim. But, there's no water on the south rim. They pipe it over from the north side. Getting it down to the river is easy, why is it hard to lift it up from the bottom? Couldn't they just push it up the 5,000 feet with weight of the water falling down the 6,000 ft on the other side? I suppose an engineer can help explain that.

Following the tour, Kate and Cindy had hot feet and aching legs and all three of us were down a few ounces if not a full quart. We needed an outdoor restaurant to cool down and normalize. We found a nice restaurant overlooking the canyon on the porch of the El Tovar. Reg had a Grand Canyon beer from a local microbrewery with Fred Harvey's insignia on it (Fred Harvey owns all the lodges, restaurants etc. in the gully and many other parks we visited), Kate had a bloody Mary that tasted like a Caesar, and Cindy had a screwdriver that seemed to be just that. Plans are made to go on an hour hike down into the canyon a bit on the nearby Bright Angel Trail, to have lunch, to take in the IMAX show about the canyon and then to hit the road.

We decided that in order to deserve lunch at the four-star El Tovar restaurant we had to go on a trek, if only in a small way, down into the canyon (half mile down, seems like two miles back up!). So off we went on the nearby Bright Angel Trail. It was picturesque but scary sometimes; the edge of the path often went straight down. On the way down we passed a mule train. There's one guy on a mule followed by five or six pack  animals. He would be bringing up garbage and other stuff from the bottom. Presumably right at the bottom — it's 9 miles down to the Phantom Ranch on the Colorado River. There's also a campground half way down at the Indian Garden, they might have been packing up stuff from there. The mules were sweating and by the time we came back up so were we! 

We also passed some people told us to never ride a mule down. They had seen one slip and fall although not all the way down I guess. On the other hand the guide had told us previously that there had never been any fatalities of anyone riding on a mule. After marching that little way down Reg has decided that the only way he'd ever go down and back is on a mule — it's far too rugged for the likes of us

After the hike, 2:00 p.m. — we are currently treating ourselves to some wonderful Chardonnay at the El Tovar dining room. Everyone keeps smacking their lips and saying "This is good wine! I think I could stay here a while!" The wine was a Seghesio 1990 Chardonnay with 60% Sonoma county, 40% Mendocino county, from the Seghesio Winery in Healdsburg California. We should try to find it again.We all ordered basil linguine for lunch and hope it's good. It was good. When it was served the waiter came back and told us that he was going to have the same for lunch as well since it smells so good.

We went to the IMAX cinema at the Grand Canyon Visitor Center in Tusayan Village to see a big screen version of things. The show had some history including a reenactment of the Powell's 1869 exploration of the river. And there were lots of death defying airplane trips through the canyon. The river, if you can get down there, is really beautiful. We were impressed.

When we left the IMAX we stopped at a grocery store to stock up and then at a gas station to fill up before setting up for Page and Lake Powell to the east. We went into a tourist store to buy a soft drink and the store people started raving about Reg's "Bart Sanchez" T-shirt as did many people at the Grand Canyon. Nothing would do but Kate had to read the label word for word so that the store keepers could try to order some for their stock. It turns out that although our friend Scott had bought the shirt in Mexico it was actually made in California.

We drove east out of the Grand Canyon with stops at the Desert View Watch Tower at the far end of the park and a view of the Little Colorado just outside the park. As soon as you're out of the Grand Canyon you start to see lots of roadside stands with Indians (Navajos at first) selling crafts, silver, pottery and rugs. They seem to have continuous sales and advertise in the "Burma Shave" tradition with several signs along the way enticing you to the next road side sale/stop.

After a long and sometimes silly ride we arrived at around 9:00 at the town of Page on Lake Powell some 150 miles from Grand Canyon South Rim. We had no problem finding a room at the Inn at Lake Powell although Kate is worried that we are going to need reservations for some of these places we have in our plans. Most of this area is Indian reservations with no amenities. In fact on the way today Kate had to pee among the sage brush and tumbleweed!

A bit of geography: the Grand Canyon, and the Colorado River, is bracketed by Lake Mead (formed by the Hoover dam, 1931) at the one end near Las Vegas, NV and Lake Powell (formed by the Glen Canyon dam, 1956) at the other end near Page, AZ.

These notes, originally composed by Kate, Cindy and Reg at the time of the trip, were transcribed '21/07/06 with the help of Google voice recognition.

Vegas to Grand Canyon

On Route 66, Indian Land.

We were overnight in Las Vegas at Harrah's on the Strip and had gone to the nearby "Splash" show at the Riviera. Today we are travelling to the Grand Canyon some 300 miles to the east.

Click on the image for a photo album.

In the morning Reg wrote in the book/diary and had breakfast while Kate and Cindy tried to recover Kate's grub steak at the slots. Some players were wearing a glove on their coin hand. You touch a lot of dirty coins if you play for any time. Kate got bored and didn't recover any money — she lost more in fact. In total, she may have spent $5 gambling. Not a big deal. Not like the girl I saw playing three machines at once. She must have been really keen to go broke. People come to Las Vegas with the intention of losing money, some come intending to lose a lot, very few return home with any winnings.

We left Las Vegas in the early morning. We sort of stumbled out of town to the Hoover dam with no good map to show the way. But there are only a very few roads so you can hardly go wrong. Our intention is to tour the Hoover dam and make a good start on the route to the Grand Canyon which is 300 miles east from Las Vegas.  We did a bit of sight seeing at the dam itself; the road crosses the dam and there are lookout areas on each side. 

We talked about taking a river raft ride from the Hoover dam down the Colorado River but never had it figured out. There's a casino nearby where you can get tickets for that; I think it's called The Gold Rush Casino. There's also bus tours from the city. It looks like a good idea and we'll have to try it — next time. We also talked about taking a tour inside of the dam. The lineups were very long and the elevator ride is not for the claustrophobic. So again we'll have to do that — next time. We got some snaps from the lookouts on each side before heading on.

We stopped at Willow Beach, the marina and landing down river from Hoover Dam that's the end point for the raft tours. There's a pleasant park with a restaurant and obligatory souvenir stand. We saw a large raft disembark with some passengers making a desperate bee line to the nearby toilet. The raft ride is 3 hours long, it's quite a distance!

We got an ice chest and filled it up with ice at the landing. Last night, on our walk up the Las Vegas strip, we stopped in at the Sands and got a couple of travel cups with lids that Kate and Cindy have put to good use today. Filled with ice, juice and vodka; it puts a new light on things. We bought one here  at the landing for Reg to have a Coke in. He did all the driving today and did get a beer much later.

At Kingman, AZ we decide to take the old route 66. It's a bit of a diversion to the north from travelling the interestate 40 but connects back again. The country side we cross changes from desert land through to pasture land with prairie dogs. The land is very green with lots of flowering cactus. The girls try to impress Reg with their color discrimination — they say those flowers are "fuchsia"; Reg says "pink".

Route 66 is the old two lane highway from Chicago to Los Angeles. For us it's a diversion from the interestate. Off the side of Route 66 is a paved road leading to "Havasu Falls". There's a trail there down into the canyon and it looks like there's a connection to the park at the south rim. This side road is about a 50 mile diversion and near the end is marked, at least on the map as an "unimproved road". The vodka is taking hold of the girls and the plan has been hatched to take this diversion and the unimproved road as an "interesting" detour that will "speed up" our arrival to the main village at the south rim of the canyon. Reg is not too keen on this idea (visions of vultures circling our wilted corpses are dancing in his head) but less sane heads prevail and we are committed to this adventure. Two requirements — we need find bathroom pretty quick and we need to stock up on drinks as Kate and Cindy have have almost finished their vodka.

At Grand Canyon Caverns, a small town on route 66 where this 50 mile diversion to Havasu Falls starts, we find a place to fill our supplies. The few villages we've gone through are very poor; we're in the middle of an Indian reservation. Kate and Cindy rush into the bathroom and get the drinks. Reg decides it would be a good idea if we find out about road conditions and seeks out a local. He chats up an Indian fellow who's waiting in the car with a kid and another adult. We suppose he's waiting for his wife who works at this motel complex. The temperature is 90° by the thermometer in the patio. It's hot but the air conditioned car keeps locals and tourists alike comfortably cool.

To cut the story short the local fellow tells Reg that the view is great at Havasu Falls but the undeveloped road requires a four-wheel drive and there's no traffic and there's no one living out there and we'd better stick to the highway if we hope to get out alive. We take his word for that.

As it turns out we make it to the Grand Canyon just at sunset and have a glorious view of the canyon. We realize now that you're not supposed to be out here without a hotel reservation and panic sets in — there are tons of people, buses, etc. and signs say that all the lodges and camp grounds are full. There is, of course, no room in the park and nothing posted in the gateway Tusayan Village.

But we find two adjoining rooms at the Quality Inn in Tusayan (the village just outside the park at the South Rim). We are lucky as, apparently, they had a tour cancel. The clerk tells Cindy and Kate that we are very lucky to have a room at all. It's not unusual to find ill prepared tourists sleeping in their cars! Cindy tries to get a room in the new part of the hotel but is laughed at. She asks if the room has a phone — he says yes and that by next year they hope to have running water and indoor plumbing. A bit of humor for the desperate.

That night after visiting the canyon at sunset we have dinner at the "Steakhouse" near our hotel — Reg has a steak, Kate has ribs, and Cindy has shrimps. We're told they are "Genuine Colorado River" shrimps — some joke.

The waiter asked Kate what kind of salad dressing she wants and then proceeded to explain that the only dressing is "Ranch Dressing". When Cindy and Reg were asked the same question they said "Ranch" to avoid the retelling of the joke. The waiter hardly spoke English — oddly, it improves the Ranch Dressing joke. Dinners were barbecued on juniper which tastes a lot like mesquite. 

A notable oddity: The women's crapper at the restaurant was a two-holer — flush toilets of course but a shared space like at the cottage.

These notes, originally composed by Kate, Cindy and Reg at the time of the trip, were transcribed 21/07/05 with the help of Google voice.

Las Vegas

Kate & Cindy, Caesar's Place, Las Vegas

April 24th leaving London, Ontario. To Las Vegas via Detroit and Chicago. Click on the image for a photo album.

Pat called at 6:15 to say Cindy was on her way. We had hoped to take our new car but it's still in the shop and another long story. Cindy says she was hadn't slept and was awake all night — but she missed the thunderstorm. Probably another darn exaggeration!

Anyways, we got away at about 6:30 and had a boring drive, or at least an eventful one, to Detroit. We arrived at the Ambassador bridge and US Customs prepared for the worst but we're passed through quickly after explaining that we were heading to Las Vegas. We assume this happens a lot, i.e. Canadian flying out of Detroit for Las Vegas.

Reg arrived at the Detroit airport terminal at 9:30 after first dropping of Kate and Cindy, parking the car and etc. He has his first beer at 9:45. The plane left Detroit at 10:35 for a short hop to Chicago and at about 11:00 a.m. they came around with beverages. Cindy and Kate each ordered a vodka and orange juice. The stewardess looks shocked and said, "You must be on holidays!" Reg was in the seat behind them but when he ordered a beer she didn't say a word. So Kate turned around and said, "You must be on holidays!" Reg pretended he didn't know these drunken louts! 

Reg had the onerous job of running the window exit — he passed the requirements but didn't have to exercise his life saving abilities. He spilled half his beer on the plane — oh well. He also dropped and broke his camera — it continues to work but will need serious repair when we return.

At the O'Hare airport in Chicago they're overbooked for the next leg to Las Vegas and are offering $300 travel vouchers for any passengers who are willing to take a later flight (arriving at 8:30 versus our flight arriving at 1:30). Kate and Cindy are not tempted although it would have meant a free trip to Texas some time. Four others volunteered which makes the issue academic. But they also got seats on our plane which means that many didn't arrive even though they were booked. So I suppose they didn't get the vouchers.

Rain in London, rain in Detroit, rain in Chicago. Sure hope the weather is better in Las Vegas. 

At O'Hare we were looking for a postcard store to send to Pat from "The Windy City" but didn't buy one because there was no post box on this level. However, they did see a bar that said Bloody Mary's for $5.95 and you get to keep a free O'Hare souvenir glass! Kate couldn't pass that by so she and Cindy each got one in a plastic glass to keep their souvenir glass clean. Reg had a Killian's red beer. Here's the neat thing — they let us take our drinks out of the bar and into the waiting area where it was cooler! Cindy says, "God I love the states!"

We arrived Las Vegas McCarann International Airport to very hot weather. The official "grown up" terminal is much bigger than the charter terminal where Kate and Reg had landed last time. Still, it has lots of slots to play. You ride a train or subway type vehicle to the main terminal where you get your luggage. 

Where is Pat! Cindy tried phoning but got no answer — and he has his girlfriends over!

The Alamo car rental picked us up at the airport in an air conditioned shuttle. There are lots of the companies that do this although it was a little weird to figure out. Damn, our rental car has a tape deck and we didn't bring any tapes along. We picked up some beer and double vodka across the road from the car rental — start your trip right. The clerk told us she doesn't drink, good job I suppose.

What follows is our quick tour of Las Vegas:

We stayed at Harrah's on the south strip near the airpot. It's also a Holiday Inn. Their casino is in a riverboat motif. The rooms are very nice, ours has a nice view of the pool. But, we are on the 18th floor and it's on the 2nd. It seems that casinos are constantly being renovated but the renovations here aren't as intrusive as our stay, last fall, at the nearby Imperial palace.

After a skin bracer (couple of beers and some double vodka) at our hotel we're ready to attack the city.

We had asked the fellow at the car rental to recommend a show. He suggested splash at the Riviera Dash said it was a big production, an "adult" show (which to Reg means naked women!) So, we bought Show tickets at our hotel $38- this includes two drinks and tips and booked for a clock now to some casinos have dinner and get to the show.

We wander through our hotel casino where there's lots of activity — slots and more slots, poker, blackjack, and more. All this at the Holiday Inn! Great family entertainment.

The Mirage, across the street, is the newest hotel at about 3 years old . It's famous for the fountain and volcano at the entrance — the volcano goes off every 15 minutes after dark. We saw this later in the evening just before bedtime.

The Mirage is also famous for it's atrium (so many orchids) and the animals. This time we found the white tigers. S

We showed Cindy the nearby Caesar's Palace — Kate made sure we saw the hologram actors dancing as Rome burns. This is one of the grander casinos with grand entrances, fountains, statues, and lots of crazy Italian chicks. It was built in 1967. 

We ate at "Battista's Hole in the Wall" on Flamingo; just around the corner a bit from our hotel. This restaurant has become an ARF tradition started by Mario (Kate's boss). Louie (Kate's colleague) was there only a week ago and now here we are. As usual, two jugs of wine are served. A red and a white. These wines are aged about 30 days and then filtered to produce a young beast with just a bit of bubbly left in — I'm kidding. They are young plonk though; that's for sure.

The accordion fellow at Battista's must make a real killing. He comes to every table to say hello, chat a bit and play a few bars of some old favorite before taking a tip and moving on. Reg has no small bills but leaves him a $2 Canadian bill -— a $2 bill is bad luck in Las vegas. Sorry!

We walk up the strip, north to the Riviera where the Splash show is playing. The Frontier staff are still on strike and another hotel has workers on strike as well. There are pickets on the strip.

At the Riviera Casino, despite having tickets, we still stand in line for the show. People who arrived earlier have been seated since 6:30 and it is now 7:30. The maître d' is taking us to an obscure corner far from the stage. Reg asks if there are still any good seats and he has some green in his hand (very casual though). After some searching a good spot, or at least one a lot closer, with a good view is found for us. No fuss, no muss, and we tip $10.

The show is a great spectacle with laser writings, fireworks, synchronized swimmers (in a tank on the stage), divers, three motorcyclists who zoom around inside a sphere that is about 12 feet in diameter, four amazing Italian acrobats, one comedian, one magician, and horde of vigorous dancers including Michael Jackson and Madonna look-alikes who lip sync the words (badly). Costumes and stage props, etc. were truly unbelievable. Dancing was well done but repetitive in a workout style to disco beat music.

We were pretty tired and maybe a little cranky, but not Regwho was just "lit", when we left the Riviera Casino. Although bed was our target we found a cab and had a drive through "Glitter Gulch" for Cindy's benefit. Our our cabbie was an older geezer from Texas — he'd been here over 30 years. He was very dry with an Arkansas Louisiana accent. He told us the Grand Canyon is it just a big hole in the ground — not quite! He told us about some of the new casinos being built. A "Temple of Luxor" shaped like a pyramid with boat rides to and from your room. The Mirage is a building an extension that will have battling pirate ships with cannons, etc.  to augment the volcano. I'm sure he was just exaggerating, however, given what is there already he's not likely exaggerating too much.

These notes, originally composed by Kate, Cindy and Reg at the time of the trip, were transcribed '21/07/05 with the help of Google voice recognition.