This Is Our Lives

Eric and I like to travel and it is our hope to visit every state in America. We have been lucky enough to have already travelled extensively throughout the South Western states which we love. In March and April 2005 we spent three weeks ttouring around. It had been our intention to fly into Phoenix and then travel south to Texas and Big Bend National Park, but on arrival the weather forecast for Texas was poor and Death Valley was in bloom for the first time in living memory. After a brief discussion we decided to turn our itinerary around and spent the first day of holiday driving to Las Vegas via Sedona and the Grand Canyon.

We had planned to bbok into a hotel in Las Vegas, but hadn't realised that there was a conference on and that all accomodation for miles around was booked. We spent the night sleeping in the car in a casiono carpark some miles away from Las Vegas.

The next day was my birthday and we had breakfast in a garage, the only place that we could find serving food. We drove to Death Valley following the diversions where the roads had been washed away by the excessive rain that had ressurected the long dormant plant seeds in the valley itself. I'm not sure what we expected Death Valley to look like but it was very different from the way we had experienced it on previous visits/ Eric preferred the rough, brash non-plant version, but I like the wild flowers showing their heads in unexpected places.

After a few hours we left and drove towards Utah and Zion National Park and then Bryce Canyon where we spent the night in Ashleigh's favourite motel, the Ruby Inn. The rest of the first week was spent touring the red rock national parks, all of which are incredibly spectacular. The only disappointing part was that we experienced the best and most spectacular sites early on and the later days were therefore somewhat disappointing by comparison,

I have always wondered why some people say that America has no history especially since they havecave dwellinhs from ancient inhabitants. As the week progressed we travelled back into Arizona and visited some of these dwellings.