Cities, Deserts, & Canyons; USA 2018

USA 2018 CITIES, DESERTS & CANYONS - a wedding in LA and a great tour

ANTICIPATION

Going away in mid-April should be a non-starter for a gardener. It is the key time when outdoor sowings begin and greenhouse plants are gradually prepared for the rigours of real life. I have made sure the garden is in good nick.

At the end of April, I anticipate seeing delightful new growth to mitigate the anticlimax of coming home or will a couple of severe late frosts provide a different reality? What will it be like?

We are eagerly anticipating Jenni’s niece’s wedding and meeting distant family and friends – our excuse for this two-week adventure. Jenni has spent many hours on the lace pillow producing this handmade lace wedding garter for the bride – a fantastic new family heirloom!

There is an inherent conflict in this web site. In the longer term Livetheflow is about exploring faith, reflections and experiences in the ordinary journey of life. But the trigger for starting the site was the desire to share with family and friends a spectacular break from the normal routines: our time in New Zealand. At the time we were not expecting to make this trip to USA. Understanding the relationship between the ordinary and the unusual is a challenge.

I am also anticipating a different conflict. Livetheflow deliberately espouses the imagery of water. This trip will encompass landscapes dramatically shaped by water but now renowned for its absence. Death Valley, here we come – not to mention Las Vegas!

Travelling today is much less about seeing. It is about emotions and all the other senses; about encountering, experiencing, feeling, absorbing, reflecting and, not least, sharing. It is also about embracing the unforeseen and the unscripted. Thankfully I cannot at this point know what that will be! I know roughly what we will see but what will it feel like?

I know roughly what we will see, but what will it feel like?

2. TRAVEL REALITIES

There is no way to dress it up, inter-continental travel is the nightmare bit of the dream holiday. Even Jenni said towards the end of ‘the day’: “Why are we doing this !?”

Tim got us to Manchester Airport the required 2 hours before the 9.0 am flight. We landed at Los Angeles airport around 3.0pm local time about 13 hours later. It took getting on for three hours to get from the plane to the hire car and almost the same to get to lie on the hotel bed just over 50 miles away.

Immigration Control was something else. For over two hours, hundreds of us snaked our way up and down nearly a dozen cordoned queue lines about 80 yards long. Then it was the delight of driving an unfamiliar car on the wrong side of the road and navigating a new city at full-on USA rush hour with log-jammed freeways – all this when my body was hours after its bedtime. We survived!

We stayed in Corona, a city to the East of LA which originated in the late 19th Century based largely on mining and growing lemons. The family wedding was in Eastvale a few miles north of Corona.

3. DREAMS

Eastvale is a new city, only a few decades old and it is still growing. I was unprepared for the impact this would have on matters that have already occupied my thoughts. Some of you may have read the ‘Travel Thoughts’ page on this site. It explores ideas about the way we tend to live these days in a series of boxes connected by our precious mobile boxes: the car and the phone. Eastville is close to the ultimate expression of this destiny. Is it the American Dream for the ordinary family – is it our dream?

Eastvale is largely residential: an L.A. dormitory. It appears to consist of a series of effectively walled “Communities” housing attractive streets of nice, detached houses. These are connected to each other, the shopping malls and eventually the large multilane freeways by large four lane roads. The houses and the cars are mostly spotless.

Our hosts have a bungalow on a corner plot and have worked very hard to make a breath-talking yard: everything you could dream of to exploit the long warm Californian summers.

An utterly fabulous dream venue for a small family wedding

4. LABELLED FOR EVER

Death Valley got its name from a chance comment by an early pioneer.

The name stuck, and now it earns its keep by attracting tourists like us. It was relatively cool while we were there! Death Valley’s main claim to fame is that it holds the record for the highest reliably recorded temperature on earth: 134 degrees Fahrenheit in 1913. In the treble rain shadow of a succession of mountain ranges, it is the driest place in North America.

Here at Badwater Basin it is also the lowest point on the American Continent: comfortably in the top (or is it the bottom) ten of the lowest places on earth.

Canyons and staggering rock formations of all kinds and colour abound: a geologist’s delight.

Of course, it is no more a ‘death place’ than the thousands of square miles of other remote desert wilderness areas in the region. Death comes to those who do not know what they are doing: those who cannot find water.

Before this trip under the heading:, “Anticipation”, I reflected on the potential conflict between the themes of ‘Livetheflow’ and desert places. If anything, the reverse is true. In my ignorance, I was completely wrong! The message of engaging with the flow is even more poignant.

If you can’t hack it here, it is a matter of life and death. Enough pondering – work it out for yourself. There’s enough for ‘Thought for the Month’, let alone ‘Thought for the Day’!

The area is rich in minerals. Gold and white gold (borax) amongst other minerals bought the early settlers. We saw a fascinating remnant of the early HGV… a train of 20 ponies pulled these wagons loaded with borax and water. Rear wheels 7ft. high.

We walked various canyons and the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. In the vastness of the valley they looked puny …. but up close … It was all I could manage to ‘walk’ the mile to the top of the highest dune. I needed loads of water.

and the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. In the vastness of the valley they looked puny …. but up close … It was all I could manage to ‘walk’ the mile to the top of the highest dune. I needed loads of water.

If you ever visit, it is an absolute must to get going an hour before sunrise. It’s cooler, the colours are better and it is even easier to feel the awesome vastness, solitude, silence .. to experience the aggressive power of nature and the fragility of life side by side with its tenacity.

No wonder we talk of a wilderness experience both positively and negatively. I normally find ‘wise’ cards a touch naff / trite but in the context of Death Valley these “Messages from Nature” were appropriate:

“Find beauty in unexpected places.

Conserve resources.

Embrace change.

Travel life’s peaks and valleys.

Don’t desert your friends.

Be patient through dry spells and show true grit.”

One evening in Death Valley, we watched the sunset at Zabriskie Point.

One day, really strong winds whipped up the sand and dust in Death Valley.

5. GIVE TO CEASAR !

Well, how would you expect an OAP Christian couple from deepest rural Shropshire to react to Las Vegas……..a brash capitalist temple rising out of the desert, dedicated to gambling and providing every imaginable ‘pleasure’ to relieve you of your money.

From Trumps’ golden tower to Caesar’s Palace… there is every conceivable architectural gambit with huge elaborate electronic billboards alongside. Everything conceivable to entice you into the casinos, the shows, the designer shops and whatever takes your fancy!

Richard, Jenni’s brother, was involved in building The Venetian, one of many amazing buildings.

We saw the beautiful Bellagio Fountain display set to music in the afternoon and again in the evening all lit up.

There were several spectacular offerings including the “volcano” that erupts in front of the Mirage Casino on the half hour.

We were staying about 500 yards off The Strip in a very downmarket hotel/casino, which apparently the locals use – rooms from $25. An upmarket hotel will cost you at least ten times as much. The amount of cash swilling around must be staggering.

Needless to say, we did not even scratch the surface of this city, except perhaps once when we took a wrong turn returning to The Strip and found ourselves in downtown Vegas – not a place to get out of the car. Instead, we used it as a staging post.

On the first day, we had a canoeing trip on the Colorado River. We did just 4 miles on this 1,400-mile river. We were just below the massive Hoover Dam.

We visited the dam briefly. Yes, it is big, about 750ft high.

The bridge takes the new Freeway.

Behind the dam is Lake Mead. In May 2016 it was only 34% full. Drought and increasing demand are a potential time bomb.

The next day we visited a Nevada State Park: The Valley of Fire. It is another area of amazing rock formations eroded by water and wind.

Endless images but I was particularly delighted to catch a glimpse [but not a photo] of a desert squirrel just before we left.

Next stop Zion National park … having avoided…..

6. AWESOME CANYON LANDS

We are now deep into Canyonlands.

Yes, the visual impact is stunning.

Everywhere you look is a feast for the eyes.

But it is the total emotional and sensual impact of the land on your being that refreshes, delights and creates the memories.

Zion National Park is a canyon carved out by the Virgin River. We had two nights in Springdale at the mouth of the canyon. One establishment was an inevitable reminder of home!

Cars are left at the entrance or in Springdale and buses ferry you to different parts of the park for a whole series of trails. These vary from short to long and from easy to strenuous.

Our first day was relatively quiet but yesterday, Saturday, there was free access into all National Parks so it was busy. However, when we were away from the bus queues, it did not feel crowded.

The trails include walking the narrows up the river and high adrenaline cliff hanging trails – literally: seven people died on one between 2004 and 2020!

Yes, that is one of the trails – beware looking down!

From the high trails to following the river. Time to reflect again on the Livetheflow theme

Back at Springdale the Virgin River provides further reflections: Livetheflow

Zion is a beautiful place. Next Stop: Page near Lake Powell, over 100 miles East, to join up with the Colorado River again

7. LITTLE AND LARGE

Page is a relatively new town where the highway crosses the Colorado River. When the bridge was built it was the highest metal bridge in the world, but those days are long gone. After the bridge came the colossal Glen Canyon Dam that created Lake Powell. There is enough concrete there to make a single-track road all the way from Page to the southern tip of South America!

Driving through this area which includes parts of Nevada, Utah and Arizona is often about a vast desert vista. Mile upon mile of straight road blasts its way across this big, big country except when it cuts through a dramatic mountainous range. For most of the day it is drab. Even the multi-coloured rocks fade into a monotony except where their sheer size or complex shapes and patterns demand your eyes.

There is so much that you can become desensitised to the spectacular. BUT ……enter to centre stage: “Little and Large” .. and add in the effects of light and once again words fail.

‘LITTLE’ was Upper Antelope Canyon. Basically it is a 200m long slit in the ground up to 40m deep that has been created primarily by water erosion. Known as a ‘slot canyon’ it has to be well up the list of so many of the great natural wonders I have seen.

Between us, Jenni and I must have taken well over fifty pictures to add to the millions taken by other visitors each year. One of the sights you never forget.

I leave you with a sun beam … literally! It happens around midday when the sun gets close enough to overhead to shine directly down into the narrow canyon.

‘LARGE’ was a hundred miles west: The Grand Canyon. It is just shy of 300 miles long, mostly over a mile deep and averages ten miles across. To hike from the South Rim, where we stayed, down to the river is at least 12 hours plus an overnight stay.

The Colorado River is barely visible in the centre of the picture.

Again light transforms.

We spent about 24 hours there and saw the sunset from one of the vantage points.

But it was getting up at 5.0 am to watch the dawn that was the most special time.

Gradually the splendour of the morning sky heralded the sun.

Then the sun rose and transformed the canyon. Rocks became radiant in the first rays of light.

What a privilege to experience these wonders of nature.

8. TRAVEL AND TRANSLATION

Leaving the Grand Canyon was, in essence, the start of the journey home. We drove west, going back towards the coast. The first leg was an impressive drive down to Sedona.

We could have seen more of Sedona but we had some long drives to get back for our flight home.

The temperature touched 100⁰ [Farenheit, of course – a struggle for those at home born and bred after we were culturally annexed by Europe.]

But in the States, the boot is on the other foot! As one guy said, when I told him where we were from: “Welcome to the Colonies!”

They still use a lot of imperial measures. Pullouts (Lay-bys) are 500ft away, for example. All their weather forecasts are in Fahrenheit. So, for those who need a bit of translation: 70⁰ is pleasant, 80⁰ is warm, 90⁰ is very hot and 100⁰ is uncomfortable. Anything above that is life-threatening.

If the last blog left you bemused: the Grand Canyon is 446 km long, up to 29km wide and about 1,800m deep.

Our last night was spent on the coast at San Clemente, a lovely contrast to the desert plains and close enough to LA to get to the airport in good time the next day.

9. REFLECTIONS: IN ENGLAND’S GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND

‘Processing’ the last 18 days illustrates that writing a blog is essentially a selfish exercise, even though pictures help! Shortly before landing at Manchester, the cloud base broke up, revealing glimpses of the distinctive English rural landscape.

Instantly, the last line of the much criticised hymn ‘Jerusalem’ came to mind! It felt good to be home. But, what a contrast to our US time spent mostly in desert lands or navigating the conurbation of Los Angeles! During our 18 days away, the UK April warm spell worked wonders in our garden. A cooler and damp winter delayed Spring which arrived in a rush while we were away. The transformation was a delightful welcome home. Plants put out last year now really established and taking off….a riot of peach blossom – but will we get any fruit?!

As a gardener and country lover, I did not ‘connect’ with LA or the frenzy of Las Vegas. I guess that to feel totally at home and really enjoy California you need $millions for a fabulous pad in the right location and all the ‘style’ to go with it. We shared the driving. The manic freeways of LA are reminiscent of the M25. Only they don’t signpost areas or towns, just Boulevards. I like the freedom to go right at red lights if nothing is coming (for us, it would be left).

I noticed some other idiosyncrasies …… the light switches generally work the opposite way to ours …. and of course they make an awful mess of frying eggs.

In the UK we are becoming more conscious of the problem of plastic. Almost every breakfast was served with disposable plates and cutlery and a majority of the food items were presented in disposable plastics. I dread to think how many bags of waste we created in our short visit.

However, it is an amazing country. The natural phenomena are awesome.

Go if you can

but if you can’t, do something like the Wye Valley Walk.