Dear Italy. Wouldn't it have been more fitting to have thrown a model cathedral at the Pope and a sc...
Dear Italy. Wouldn't it have been more fitting to have thrown a model cathedral at the Pope and a scarlet woman at Berlusconi?
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One of our fly-drive holidays to California also took in some of Nevada.
Setting out from San Francisco, we headed inland via Sacramento, the state capital of CA, staying long enough to visit the Transport Museum - if you think some of the locomotives in York Musuem are big, you should see these!
Pressing on over the Donner Pass, scene of that tragic over-wintering by the trapped Donner party on their way west, we entered Nevada and stayed at Reno overnight. As the sign over the road says, The Greatest Little City in the World". It certainly doesn't take its role as casino town too seriously compared with Las Vegas, but more of that later. What's more important at the end of a long drive, is that it's packed with cheap places to eat, some of them casinos.
Then it was off in a southerly direction, and back into CA, staying at Mammoth Mountain, a winter ski resort close to the real Ponderosa Ranch, and accessed via the shores of Lake Tahoe. A strange place to stay in summer, but very a very scenic drive to and from the hotel.
The next day, we set off for our journey towards Las Vegas.
Driving south with the Sierra Nevadas on our right, we stopped to look at Mono Lake, with its salt stacks looming from the water - this place is really LA's reservoir, so no wonder the level is dropping!
Before joining the freeway that joins Vegas to LA, we stopped in Mojave (the town, not the desert) for lunch at some Spanish lady's cantina, where I summoned up the courage to compliment her on the photos of her grandchildren (in Spanish, I might add) - this did wonders for the service received, and we left well stuffed. The place was just like you imagine it, right down to the tumbleweed.
Once on the freeway, it takes about 30 minutes just to pass the outer fence of the famous Edwards Air Force base, looking out for Joshua Trees all the time.
We overnighted in Barstow CA, at a typical desert motel (with a POOL!), after having a typical desert Korean (?) banquet.
The next day we arrived in Las Vegas. What a waste of the earth's resources this place is. Blackpool on steroids. In an environementally conscious era, why build a town for humans in a desert, and then expect the electricity industry to make life bearable for you?
If you don't like gambling and aren't after a quickie (wedding that is), there seems little point in seeing the place with three exceptions:-
a) It's an excellent place to fly to Grand Canyon - short air trips abound. We did one, it was brilliant, but do bear in mind that fixed-wings can't negotiate the chasm, so the whole thing is a bit remote.
b) Hoover Dam has to be seen to be believed, and if you cross it you are in another time zone, and Arizona (tick off another state!) It was only $1 to visit when we went being a govt site.
d) Death Valley - amazing colours at dawn and sunset, and amazing heat in the day. Do make sure your hire car is up to the job. If the aircon has been acting up don't go!
From Las Vegas to LA it's about 300 miles - do-able if more than one of you is driving, and so we completed our round trip of two states (3 if you count 10 mins in Arizona)
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Dec 18th, 2000
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