Day 16: the Death Valley

The Death Valley

There is no place like the Death Valley in July, when the thermometer reaches 125 degrees! The heat is so intense that we both literally felt short of breath in several occasions along the long drive across the desert.

The Death Valley

Nonetheless we were mesmerized by the beauty of the colors of the rocks, the plants and the dunes. Certainly not a place to be visited with little time and certainly not in the summer. We would love to be back in the spring when I heard that some parts of the vallery are covered in wild flowers.

The Death Valley

Some areas of the valley are below sea level by a couple of hundred feet and they are completely covered in a thick layer of salt. With the heat of mid day we could literally hear the crackling sound of the salt breaking all around us when we stopped by the Devil’s Golf Course.

The Death Valley - the Devil's Golf Course

Overall this was one of the most intense days of the trip and we were very glad when the road took us away from the heat of the valley to Mono Lake, at the feet of the mountains of Yosemite National Park, where we arrived a little past sunset and enjoyed a nice spicy dinner on the patio of a small restaurant.

Day 15: Las Vegas

Our suite at the Venetian in Las Vegas

This is the amazing suite that we had booked at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. I am not even going to go into too much details but the bathroom was at least as amazing, the view (see below) was breathtaking both during the day and at night. We even had free Japanese NHK TV on the telly!

The view from our suite at the Venetian in Las Vegas

The Venetian Hotel is really more than a regular hotel. It’s a small city, with two large towers with more than 2000 suites, two large swimming pools and two smaller ones, a large mall that is built to resemble the streets and canals of Venice - including a long indoor canal with gondola tours! - and a replica in scale of the gorgeous St.Mark’s square.

The indoor replica of St.Mark's Square in Venice, where the sun shines 24/7

There are, of course, also two large casinos where we had some fun, especially the first night and first morning when we used our free $50 voucher to win about $400 in cash that we immediately spent treating ourselves at some of the best restaurants in the hotel and shopping in the stores of the hotel/mall.

The amazing fountain that connects the Venetian and the Palazzo towers

We spent only a couple of nights in Las Vegas and we had so many things to do and to see inside the Venetian - including two seats at the Phantom, the best show in Las Vegas - that we didn’t really even try to go out much more than going to the front entrance of the hotel (see below). The 115 degrees of Las Vegas kept us indoor most of the time. Furthermore, judging by the amount of people walking from the strip into our hotel, we were lucky enough to be at one of the most popular places of Las Vegas anyways, so there was really no reason to go out…

The balcony overlooking the entrance of the Venetian and the replica of the St.Mark's bell tower

Day 14: Route 66

Twisters in Williams, AZ

A cross country road trip wouldn’t be complete without including historic route 66 in Arizona. And a trip there wouldn’t be complete without a malt shake (or a beer float) at Twisters in Williams, AZ.

Hackberry General Store on Route 66

Same goes for the famous Hackberry General Store on Route 66. Both outside and inside, the store is filled with memorabilia of Route 66 and its long history.

Santa Fe freight train along Route 66

I was also lucky enough to spot a gorgeous Santa Fe freight train traveling on the railroad along route 66. Given that these long freight trains travel at a very low speed I was easily able to pass the train and find a nice spot few miles down the road where I waited for the same train to arrive and capture it in a series of cool images.

Day 13: Antelope Canyon and Grand Canyon

Antelope Canyon - Detail

At 11:30 we had an appointment for a photography tour of the Antelope Canyon. A Navajo guide is the only way to visit this marvellous slot canyon in the desert south of Page, AZ. We were very lucky to have a guide who was very knowledgeable of the canyon and had a background in photography.

Antelope Canyon - Detail by Yasuko

Unfortunately I had only one tripod with me, but Yasuko surprised me with one really good sequence of details of the walls of the canyon and some really creative and unique compositions like the following.

Antelope Canyon - Detail by Yasuko

After the Antelope we drove south to the Grand Canyon. All afternoon long we drove across some really beautiful places in Arizona which under normal circumstances we would have probably stopped to take pictures of, but after the Antelope overload of beauty nothing can amaze one’s eyes anymore.

Sunset over the Grand Canyon

Nonetheless, the Grand Canyon did not disappoint us. We stopped at a couple of overlook points along the South Rim and then we saw this gorgeous sunset forming in front of our eyes and we had to stop to enjoy it to the last ray of light.

Sunset over the Grand Canyon

Day 12: From Bryce to Page, AZ

Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park

Even though we left the hotel at Bryce not so early, we soon realized that we were going to arrive to Page, AZ very early and we really didn’t have any special plan there until the appointment on the day after at the Antelope Canyon for the photography tour. This is why, after a brief stop at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Utah, we decided to drive south to the Grand Canyon North Rim.

Vermillion Cliffs at sunset

The visit at the Grand Canyon North Rim was just ok, nothing too amazing, mainly because the light pretty much sucked and also because we were coming from much more amazing sceneries. What was nothing short of breathtaking, though, was the drive back from there to Page, AZ through the Vermillion Cliffs.

Vermillion Cliffs

As bad the light was on the Grand Canyon a couple of hours earlier, as gorgeous was the sunset over the Vermillion Cliffs. We literally stopped more than twenty times in a few miles to try to capture the most beautiful sunset we had ever seen before…

Vermillion Cliffs

More amazing images will come in the days after the trip is over. For now just enjoy these teaser images that I randomly selected from a series that will probably be one of the best of the trip, in my opinion.

After all this, we ventured on a short hike to the Horse Shoe Bend, a famous bend of the Colorado River just a couple of miles south of Page. Sunset is not the best time to take pictures there, sunrise is much better. Also, the canyon is very deep and there is NO protection (no rails, no anything) and I am afraid of heights, so it was NOT easy to capture this image, but overall I am pretty happy with it (will do a better edit later on, probably).

Horse Shoe Bend (Colorado River) by Page, AZ