Big Chief Coffee with Long Life

Saturday 30^th July

Travelling in America is easy.  On some roads you do have to keep an eye on your fuel gauge, as gas stations can be sparse.  The desert heat and dry air also means that one should consume at least four litres of water a day.  Restrooms are available pretty much everywhere and for the most part so is food.   The type and quality can vary enormously.  The concept of a sandwich without cheese is not known here, which for a pescatarian like myself sounds like great news.

However, these same sandwiches must by law also contain meat of some description which on our travels has ranged from chicken to buffalo.    In the desert, several hundred miles from the sea, the safest bet has been Subway where you can build your own sandwich.  Also, you can do the sandwich building thing in Safeway supermarkets here, which seem to be the UK Waitrose equivalent.   One we visited outside Denver also made sushi to order.  The guy doing this was a more than a bit deaf and we felt it would be safer to get have him make us sandwiches which he did very well, and very slowly.

Of course, what you really can get everywhere is coffee.  American filter coffee; and in the larger towns you may find a coffee shop or two, serving Italian/Seattle style.  The one in Gardiner, Montana has already featured. 

As we checked out of the Hat Rock Inn in Mexican Hat, I asked the receptionist if there was such a coffee shop nearby.  She said there was a hotel that had a ‘real’ coffee machine down the road.  It did have a real coffee ‘pod’ type machine and they made lattes with UHT milk.  It took a very long time and I put this down to the fact that they had to individually open those little cartons found it motels and UK B&Bs everywhere,  until they had enough to make one medium and one large latte.  That’s a lot of work right there.

We continued on down the US 163 back through monument valley and onto the US160 and then north on the US98 (Indian Route 22) which passes through part of the Navajo Indian Reservation.  At Page we stopped for lunch and a view of the dam at the western end of the extraordinarily massive Lake Powell.   

The lake stores 30km³ of water when full and is 186miles long.  Whilst Lake Mead to the west is larger in volume, Lake Powell has nearly 3.5 times more shoreline, some 1900miles.

From Page, we headed to the eastern entrance of Zion National Park where the landscape once again changed to sandstone canyons and towers, with rivers and waterfalls.

We drove through the park and exited at Springdale and our next motel, the Desert Pearl inn.   We had a fantastic room with a terrace where we sat and watched a thunderstorm roll in.

Sunday 31^st July

Up at 530am for our day in Zion National Park.  Vehicles are only allowed a half a mile or so into the park where trailheads are served by a shuttle bus system.  Our first hike was to Emerald Pools a series of three small ponds at increasing elevations above the canyon floor, which brimmed with insect and amphibian life.  Our hike was made all the more pleasant by the fact we were enjoying it without anyone else around.

All around were the ubiquitous Rock Squirrels, a stockier, meaner looking version of our own Grey Squirrel.   

We took the shuttle bus to the northern most stop called the Temple of Sinawava where the Narrows trail follows the Virgin River through Zion Canyon for some 16 miles.   We went as far as we could which for me meant chest high in the river and a slightly stupid feeling as I emerged with my shorts rolled up.  

We found a rock overhanging a white water part of the river further south and had a picnic.  Shortly after, it started to rain really heavily and we got soaked but it was fun and we got back onto the shuttle to tour the rest of the park whilst we dried out.   Flash flooding is common across the western united states and we heard many radio warnings and local newspaper items detailing the dangers.   

We left the park via Springdale again and to our next destination, Las Vegas.  It helped that we were still slightly damp as we knew five nights of luxury awaited us, and where most probably if you were ever given a UHT Latte, the perpetrator would be taken out into the desert late at night, and shot.

Our journey was straight down the Interstate 15 and we gained a hour as we drove across the Nevada State Boundary and onto Pacific Time.   It was cloudy as we approached Las Vegas and we didn’t quite have the vista we had planned on driving in, though by the time we actually got to the Wynn Encore, the clouds had magically disappeared as if it had all been pre arranged.   

We got a room high on the 59^th Floor with a view of the golf course and north Las Vegas and were able to actually unpack for the first time on our trip and later that evening ate dinner not wearing shorts.

Hot Rocks

Thursday 28^th July

Up early for breakfast in the hotel and then a short drive north of Moab to Arches National Park.  Despite the name, it isn’t all arches here.   Many fin shapes, towers and balancing rocks were formed when salt remaining from ancient evaporated seas pushed up overlying sediment which became Entrada sandstone.  The salt was eventually dissolved by groundwater and subsequent erosion, freezing and thawing created the interesting rock formations seen here.

We drove north through the park heading for our first planned hike at Devil’s Garden on what is known as the Primitive Trail.  It was 7.5 miles through some pretty tricky terrain.  In some places, a wrong footing would have meant a slide several metres down a rock face.  It certainly made for a much more exhilarating hike. 

The temperature was around 92 degrees and we were carrying around 5 litres of water which we got through pretty quickly.  We saw several arches on the route and some impressive geological structures.   

After some further driving, our next hike was to Delicate arch, the most famous arch in the park.  The temperature was now 95% degrees and we could feel our hearts beating in our ears.    The reward was an amazing free standing 52ft arch on the edge of a large bowl formation.

A long and tiring day for us ended back in Moab with a great meal and a bottle of wine.  Interestingly, the state of Utah alcohol laws means that you are not allowed to be offered alcohol in a restaurant, you have to ask for it.  Also, you can only have one drink in front of you at a time. 

Later, when I tried to remove my contact lenses, they hung onto my eyeball and I feared they had melted on. There was an audible sucking and popping noise like flipping the inside of an inflated cheek with one’s wet finger.

Friday 29^th July

We planned another early start but got chatting to a guy from New Hampshire at breakfast.  He was just as interested in our culture as we were in his and we exchanged candid views.

Today was our day in Canyonlands National Park.    We would spend it mostly on the road systems as it is an enormous place, with the drive from the main road to the park gate taking over an hour each way.   Our first stop was in the north of the park in an area called the Islands in the Sky district, where we were looking down into the canyons.   

  

Later in the south of the park, we were driving through the canyons and rock formations which we had seen from the north.    Due to its size and expanse, this was definitely a park for driving around.  There is a 100mile long road called the White Rim Trail which takes several days to complete in a 4WD vehicle.  For the time we had, we did see everything we could on the normal park roads, and managed to get down a couple of dirt roads.

From Canyonlands, we headed south to Mexican Hat, name due to a rock formation which looks like....you guessed it.    We had timed this part of the trip so that we would arrive an hour before sunset.  This was so we could check in and then straight away drive the 20 miles further west to  Monument Valley.  

Despite all the amazing geological structures we had seen so far, and our familiarity with the vistas of Monument Valley, it was still quite breathtaking to see this huge monoliths in the desert.   

 

Whilst our timing was perfect for the setting sun, unfortunately some low clouds meant the sunset light was short lived.  We had dinner at the View hotel.  We had originally tried to stay here for the amazing view, but found it fully booked. Judging by the quality of the food and service in the restaurant, I think we dodged a bullet. 

It was dark when we finished dinner and a storm has started across the valley.  We sat outside with bats flying around us and watched as sheet and forked lightning lit up the sky behind the monuments. 

A great end to another long day and we headed back to our motel.  The next day was another long drive and our sixth national park which would almost turn to catastophe when I was given a latte made with UHT milk.