Mega Trip - Grand Canyon, Sedona, Las Vegas, Hoover Dam

[sameerrao]

About 3 weeks back I did a blitzkrieg 3.5 day, 2030 mile roadtrip starting from Fremont, Calfornia to the Grand Canyon and Sedona in Arizona and Hoover Dam and Vegas before hoofing it back to Fremont.

I have swamped with work and havent had a chance to post these pics till now.

Anyway on with the show..

The Drive to Grand Canyon
Went on I5 and then on 58E/I40E. The hills in California were golden as always...
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Passed Edwards Airforce Base ... the place where the Air Force hot shots including one Chuck Yaeger hung about. Unfortunately the base is off-limits to civilians and the Pancho's bar burned down in the 60s or so. I really wanted to see this place after seeing the movie the "The Right Stuff"
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Arizona is amazing ... the scenery changes every 10 miles ... one minute you see a scene reminiscent of "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" with tunbleweed blowing around a desert landscape and the next minute you see greenery.
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Grand Canyon, Arizona
--> The Real Daddyweight (due apologies to Jabba) :). I stopped at an Navajo store on the East Entrance to Grand Canyon and picked up some trinkets including a cool little tomahawk and a cool cowboy hat (Why not ... the atmosphere reeked of a million Westerns and I swear I could hear Clint saying "Go on punk make my day").
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Drove west thru GC stopping at the many vista spots on the way - there was a thunderstorm chasing me - so it was pretty wierd - bright and sunny in some pics while cloudy and moody in others.
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Sedona - south of Grand Canyon - lot of Red rocks here. The first pic is that of a Cathedral hewed into a rock - awesome
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Hoover Dam
- Massive thing ... gave me the heebie jeebies looking over the edge as I have touch of the old vertigo :)
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Saw a "Bentley" parked at the Hoover Dam must be a basketballer waiting for the ink to dry on his multi-million contract before he buys the real thing :wink:
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Las Vegas
- Just spent the night here. Roamed the strip - lots of ladies preened and puffed up to look their best - all the cleavage on display made me go "Feed me" :). Unfortunately all this non-stop driving made me yearn for the bed to catch some Zzzzzs. Missed out on the shows
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The look on the rental car attendant's face was priceless when I returned the car after doing a total of 3000+ miles on the car in the three weeks I had it. Fortunately, I had the unlimited mile policy :)

[dingo]

Wow, some stunning scenery. :shock:

I really want to visit Vegas one day, just need to save up some money so I can gamble it all away. :P

Thanks for the pics, really nice. :wink:

[ARMAN]

http://img293.echo.cx/img293/8219/dscn48488gl.th.jpg (http://img293.echo.cx/my.php?image=dscn48488gl.jpg) :shock: UFO?

http://img293.echo.cx/img293/7599/dscn46979vs.th.jpg (http://img293.echo.cx/my.php?image=dscn46979vs.jpg) very nice :P

I'd LOVE to go there and ofcoure buy that kind of hat, boots and all the other "western" stuff :P Even if I saw maybe one or two westrns in my life :mrgreen: And LV must be exciting to visit
*ARMAN dreaming away and playing black jack in his mind in Vegas with srippers all around him* :lol:

Thanx Sameerrao providing us a tour around the part of US :wink:

[TransAm]

Thanks for posting these pics up, Sameerrao. I've not been to AZ but the pictures are really tempting me to go on my own road trip out west. I found NM very 'western scenery' as well.

The drive from Lubbock to Roswell then up to Santa Fe/Alberqueque is a good one - you'll see little traffic and can floor it most of the way. Not that I would ever advocate speeding, I meant floor it in a 3 cylinder Metro of course lol :mrgreen:

[sameerrao]

Yeah New Mexico is very cool too! As is Utah in the same region.

The next time in the area I want to go north of Vegas - go thru the Valley of Fire and on to Utah and Zion National Park

[ZfrkS62]

Sedona is extremely beautiful. I remember going up there with my parents for thanksgiving the one year they came down while i was there.

If you take the I-17 route North, you pass through a town that has a McDonalds with teal arches instead of golden arches. It's the only one in the world not to have golden arches :D I'll have to get my stepdad to forward me the pics he took.

Driving back to Phoenix though there was an extremely steep portion of the freeway coming out of the mountains. I was getting pased by semi trucks like i was standing still :shock: when we got to the bottom my step dad looked at me and said " you know, i can't remember the last time i was doing 100mph" :lol: Mom had no clue cuz she was sleeping in the backseat :lol: Poor little Oldsmobile Alero they had rented (after the Mustang convertible got stolen :roll: ) must have been happy to get turned back in :lol:

[TT]

Thanks a lot for all these pics!! :good:

[sameerrao]

thx dude some great scenery you got....

one question tough, why did you use a rental car?

I am a consultant by profession and I am in California working on a project for the last six months. Hence the rental car.

I would have loved to do any of these trips in my S4 but it is quietly sitting at home in Houston pining for me :)