Back on the Road

The car feels a lot better on the road. All round shocks, left front wheel bearing, new front brakes, rotor, dizzie cap, points, plugs and a tune-up do make a difference. I bi-passed Phoenix. I can't work out what makes it one of the faster growing cities in the US. Hoover dam is great but I think its also the site for the dam that makes it such a marvel. Building a dam that large when they did must have been hard but building it where they did makes it even greater. I have had a head full of dust for the last 3 to 4 days and think it may have taken its toll. It is spring here and I feel like I have hay fever fairly bad.
Walked the strip and had a gander around but will be glad to be leaving for the sterile beauty of Death Valley and the backside of the Sierra Nevada range.

Tucson Thumb Twiddling

If I had my guitar I might be able to concoct some corny blues number with this title and verse.
I haven't got the car back yet but should tomorrow AM. Damn, will miss out on going to the Titan Missile Museum as I am short on time.  Hopefully I will be at Hoover damn early arvo then Vegas that night. I spent today catching a bus into downtown and getting cash to pay for the repairs. Catching public transport always gives a different view to a place than that seen by a car or taxi and I usually enjoy it, particulalry when I am biding my time.
I picked up this on the side of the road when I was walking back to my hotel from the Air and Space museum:

It's an 11/16th ring and opened ended spanner. If it comes in handy in the next 2 weeks I will know it was given too me by the spanner gods. Stay tuned.
The waitress must have seen me coming in Salina. She put this in front of me.

At least there's a Dirty Harry movie on TV...

Sunny Arizona

Arrived last night in Tuscon and stayed at a cheap motel in town. The drive yesterday was a bit of a nightmare. I went to Meteor Crater but it was a real let down. I have wanted to go there for years but I expected to park at the base and walk to the rim and maybe trek down into it. The car park is just below the rim, 15 bucks and 2 flights of stairs later your at the rim but you can only walk about 50 meters around it. There's a Subway and movie theater but I stayed about 15 minutes. After that I went through a series of wrong turns - 1 cost me a 2hr back track, there was a fatal accident in road works north of Lake Tonto that took 1.5 hrs so I was quite late getting into town. I put the car into get new plugs, a tune up and bushes on the front steering and got a lift out to the Pima Air and Space Museum where I am waiting to go on a bus tour of the Aircraft Grave yard. Can't wait except I forgot the camera :(

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Fixed up the spelling.
WOW! that was the best Aircraft Museum I have ever seen. I was there 6 hours and didn't see everything. I got kicked out before I got to see the hanger with the fully restored B-29 Bomber (I was on the phone outside the hanger... Thanks Steve :) nah kidding. The bus tour was great but the displays of weird and wonderful craft parked outside in the museum itself where amazing. Beautiful 31 degrees of sunny Arizona weather and 6% humidity made me a fan for ever.

F111's. we used have them...

  Walked back to the motel the 5 or so miles and was happy to do so. Almost 2 weeks driving 10-14 hours a day have made me a different shaped human. Needed to stretch the shanks so to speak :)
I had a great dinner at a placed I walked past which was so much more appealing than the usual fast food fair around the hotel. Hopefully I get the car back tomorrow and can be on my way again.

Back and Forth on the Colorado Plateau

Well it seems I may have underestimated the Grand Canyon. It's different to Zion and hard to say which is better. I like Zion because you drive through the canyon floor with the massive sandstone cliffs towering above. The Grand Canyon is well... epic.

West Entrance Zion
Obligatory Cougar shot	Bryce Canyon
Vermillion Cliffs	Navaho Bridge
Lake Powell	Glen Canyon Dam
Colorado River...

I finally got a hat today at Glen Canyon dam. All the ones I have seen so far looked like truckers caps. Sorry to anyone in advance that wears them but I think in wearing one I would need an accompanying T Shirt with the logo "I'm with stupid" and an arrow pointing up at my face. If APEC comes to Bullhead City, Arizona I am sure the nations delegates will be wearing a truckers hat as official costume but the shirt will have the same logo, just with a 3 headed arrow pointing left, up and right.
Tonight I am in the Super 8 west, Flagstaff Arizona. If the camera battery hadn't of dies I would put in more photo's.

Canyon Fever

really shitty WIFI so had to wait to post. Went through Black Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Red canyon then Zion Canyon. Bryce was a $25 ripoff compared to Zion Canyon which is probably the most spectacular natural feature on the planet and that includes Kylie in those Gold hot pants. Yeah those ones. So good I decided to go back through it so yesterday I drove from the east gate through the west gate to a town fast food strip called Hurricane where I stayed in the Travel Lodge. Hurricane is at the foot of a series of steps off the Colorado Plateau. Today I will drive back through the west gate back through the park, out the east gate then onto the Grand Canyon (north rim) and Glen Canyon dam. Have a look at Zion National Park in Google Earth. Awesome.  How they can sully such a spectacular geologic formation with this place is beyond me.

I think I have been lucky with the weather so far. I have had just one bad afternoon of snow and sleet. On the Weather channel there have been constant reports of heavy hail and tornado's in states I have driven through so hopefully any bad weather will hold off for the rest of my time here.

Utah

I have added a page I will update called GPS Trail under the Pages tab. Unfortunately the GPX files created by both the phone and laptop are too large to upload to easy Trail or other sites. I can't reduce the interval of both GPS devices to make the files small enough so will stick with this for now.I should call this section "The view over the bonnet"

South Idaho
Ford F450 Super Duty
Pony Express camp	View back after seeing the end

These are fairly low resolution photos as the wifi is slow. I am glad I pulled over last night when visibility was low as the scenery was great coming from Idaho into Utah. it must have dumped snow on the higher parts of the Salt Lake city as it looked quite thick. It periodically snowed on the interstate which is quite low. I see they are refining salt from the Great Salt lake... With a petrochemical factory a couple of power stations and some reasonably intensive animal farming up river I think I will pass on this salt for my chips. It was a bit boring getting to Bonneville Speedway but then picked up. There's a town called Wendover that straddles the Utah-Nevada border. I checked the Auto Transmission fluid, properly this time with the engine running in park, and the dip stick was dry. There was an Auto Parts store but we worked out I needed Type F compatible fluid and they didn't have any... They didn't have any parts I wanted like a new air cleaner so this may be a problem. I then went to every gas station and even a "Lube while you wait" store (I didn't realise there was such demand for this service) but finally got some in the last store I went too. Lucky. It was a long way back to Salt Lake city or to the next large town. As I drove south I crossed the border which was painted on the road and there was a massive casino literally on the first block they could build one on. I was wondering why there was a reasonably sized town in the middle of no where and now it was all explained. The strip continued on into the usual fast food and hotel blasphemy but I turned left in a south east direction hoping to make the hypotenuse to a right angle triangle and get back back close to the main route south of Salt Lake city. 100's of dirt miles later I realised it probably wasn't the best plan however at least I got to follow the original Pony Express trail... If you look at the GPS Trail you can see the Right angle triangle idea should have stayed in the Year 6 math class. I am staying in Salina Utah tonight and had a half rack of Utah Calf ribs for dinner :)

Wyoming - the Equality State....

Great state slogan. However Wyoming makes up for it by having some amazing scenery. The Painted valley around Dubois and the road to the Grand Teton national park are the best I have seen so far but it's the park itself that looks the best. I am disappointed that Yellowstone is shut mainly because it is a super volcano and I wanted to go see that. I have been to 2 others in Sumatra and on Kyushu in Japan. there's another that forms the big lake on the North Island of New Zealand and The long valley in California. That's all that I know of.

Unfortunately it started raining south of Idaho Falls, which then turned into sleet, wet snow and dry snow. The car has a leak in the driver side foot-wall so it drips onto my feet whilst driving. The heater works well but could barely keep up with that and defrosting the screen. I decided to stay in a motel in Malad City in Southern Idaho. The snatches of scenery I saw looked good so I don't want to miss the transition it must take into Salt Lake City and the big salt lakes of Utah. The camera is in the car and it is raining or sleeting I am not sure which. The motel owner said there was meant to be 3 inches of snow tonight so will be interesting if so.
I saw this out in the car park:

I doubt he holds up traffic while going up hills.