Valley of the Fire State Park

We had an enormous car so we could fit all our stuff in the car easily. From Flagstaff we drove West, to Williams and Seligman. These little towns are on the old Route 66 and still have many reminders of that time. There are old signs and buildings and especially in Seligman it seemed that we had gone back in time. It was very nice to see.

We drove back to Flagstaff and after another night in town, we drove North. We saw one rock formation after another, the whole area exists of rocks and canyons. Through Marble Canyon/Glen Canyon we drove to Grand Canyon North Rim. We didn’t have enough time to drive all the way to the rim, but we did watch the canyon from the east side. The North Rim is about 300 meters/ 1000 ft higher than the South Rim, where we were just a few days earlier, and the scenery is very different on that side. There are different types of trees and vegetation and there are meadows where bizon graze. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any of them.

After a cold night, we continued to Valley of the Fire State Park.We were tipped about this park and we didn’t regret going there. It was beautiful! Red rocks and rock formations everywhere around us, sometimes with other colors in them. It indeed looked like fire because of all that red. We managed to get one of the last spots on the campground and then went to explore the park. There are some places where you can go on not too long hikes on and through the rock formations. The next morning we continued exploring the park, before we drove to Las Vegas.

It wasn’t far to the city, so we arrived there around noon. We booked a room in the Circus Circus hotel, an older hotel with more than 3400 rooms. The room was cheap, but fine and we had a nice view on part of the strip and on the beautiful ‘Sphere’, where constantly different colors and images are projected. That evening we walked the strip back and forth to watch all the hotels en lights. Because the city was in full preparation of the F1 Grand Prix, a lot was fenced off and you couldn’t go to some places. The fountains of the Bellagio were just visable inbetween the partially contstructed bleechers.

The next day we rode on the strip to our next location. After all the crazyness of the nights, the strip is a lot quieter during the days so it was nice to ride there. We were staying with Janice in a beautiful suburb house with a pool. There were bike boxes already waiting for us, so we didn’t have to search for them anymore. In the next 2 days we boxed the bikes, packed our stuff for travel and enjoyed the pool.