Not enough time!

I'm doing a very short update tonight to say that there won't be an update tonight. Too much driving, too much of LA to enjoy, too late (02:00 in the morning!!) means I just simply have to crash into bed without writing anything. More updates will however follow =).

Las Vegas - day2

Our first complete day in Las Vegas started slow and calm. We enjoyed the luxury of our amazing hotel and just decided to relax these two full days in Las Vegas. We didn't experience a lot of different things in Vegas, but it was finally a true "summer vacation", with swimming and lots and lots of sun! After our slow morning, we went looking for breakfast. The buffet at the hotel was alluring (despite the $16 price tag), but had a 45min wait attached to it. We decided  to skip  it and went looking for something cheaper and more accessible. Further away from the jingle of the casinos (which of course occur all through day and night, regardless of what time it is) and the long line at the breakfast buffet, we discovered a little hole-in-the-wall-style bar that had a small sketched sign reading "$9 Breakfast burrito". Nobody in line, so we figured we'd try it out, at least we didn't have to wait. While we weren't disappointed by the food, it didn't exactly thrill us either. Right then and there we decided that the next morning, we were going to try to reach the breakfast buffet early, so that we could sample what The Bay has to offer in the morning.

Heading out on the strip was a shock. The temperature had climbed another few degrees since arriving the day before, and was now showing the insane number of 105°F which is 40.5°C! When the wind would pick up, it felt like someone was blowing a fan on its hot setting, straight into your face...and it was still morning! Of course, that was exactly what we asked for, so we only complained the minimum swedish amount (we Swedes always seem to have to complain about something regarding the weather >_<). After sitting by the curb for 10min, waiting for the valet to pick up our car, we were soaked in sweat. It was wonderful to jump into a car with the AC cranked at its coolest setting, but considering the fact that all 4 swedes on this trip has had a cold at one point, we can all attest to how bad that extreme temperature-change really is.
The reason why we ventured out into the blistering heat was so that we could pick up the laundry we left at a "wash and fold service" the previous night. It was with high anticipation and worry that we entered the little laundry place in eastern Las Vegas (thank you google!) to grab our bags of supposedly clean laundry. I had the smallest amount of clothes (which happened to be _all_ the clothes I brought on the trip besides the nice dress pants and shirts I had), only 6 pounds, which set me back the total sum of $8. A little less than 3kg of dirty laundry for 52SEK. Fantastic! It all smelled wonderful and was neatly folded, and as far as I know, nothing was missing. Tomasz had the most, clocking in at 9.5 pounds, which amounted to around 12dollars. We all agreed with his statement, that if a similar service existed at a similar price back home in Sweden, none of us would ever do laundry on our own ever again!

With our suitcases filled with fresh clean clothes, we went down to Mandalay Bay's famous pool area. Since  we couldn't enjoy the pool area and bring our cameras at the same time,  we actually don't have a single photo of the pool. To compensate, I'm using 2 photos from the website http://mandalaybayphotos.blogspot.com. That site also has a short description of the hotel, which is better than what I'll be writing here anyway >_<.


Time flew and 4 hours later, the 4 swedes (now beet red) made their way back to the hotel room. A quick shower and we were ready to hit the town. Tomasz, Dan and I went to the very special restaurant called "Heart Attack Grill". It was an amazing experience, definitely something you'll never find in Sweden. Upon entering the premises, you're asked to put on a hospital gown and you actually get tagged, just like you would at a hospital. The customers are even referred to patients, and the waitresses, you guessed it, are nurses! It's a perfect showcase of what Vegas is, because they even had a huge sign that read "customers that weigh more than 350lbs (which is almost 160 kg!) eat for free !!! The restaurant is controversial because of  its name, their policy toward the mordibly obese and their food. Everything is geared toward bad health. Obviously we had to try it out!
The menu itself caused plenty of laughter among us, since their hamburgers were called "double bypass burger" if you ordered two beef patties, "triple bypass burger" if you had 3 layers of beef, and so on up to the largest burger, that had 8 layers of fat-dripping meat mixed in with cheese and fresh onion, a piece of lettuce and a slice of tomato. Insane hamburgers, but definitely tasty! There was even an option to smother the lowest layer with chili (the best way to explain "chili" is to say that it's what we swedes would call "chili con carne without beans"). I had the single bypass with chili and loved my burger. I skipped on the fries though (which happened to be deepfried in pure lard!!!) since their rule on "finishing your plate" scared me. If you left food, they didn't offer you a doggybag like all  the other places in the states...instead, they offer a paddle! They spank you on the ass and they sure use a lot of force when administering the punishment. Dan ordered the triple bypass (albeit without chili) and a large serving of fries. I was _sure_ that he wouldn't be able to finish it, but sadly, he came through and no Swedes were injured during that visit. The guy sitting next to us however...well, watch this:

https://vimeo.com/71000514 (it'll be available within the next 45min of writing this)

Pontus didn't come along to the Heart Attack Grill, instead he walked along the strip to see what Vegas looked like before dusk and had a good time. Las Vegas is just simply one large playground, with fantastic sights all over the place, like the fountain show outside of the Bellagio. I guess the only thing that he objected to were the bikini-clad girls selling hotdogs on the side of the street that went after him, toting waterguns high in the air. He got squirted good! He still has a good time though. I'll say it again and  again, Vegas is a playground and can be enjoyed by everyone in my opinion.

I was planning on writing about our second full day in "Sin City", but once again, it's too late for me to keep writing. More tomorrow...

Viva Las Vegas

Our morning in flagstaff started out like any other. Tomasz was up early, disturbing everyone else's beauty sleep, Dan soon followed by filling the bathroom with noxious gasses and I made everyone wait while I looked up our route and planned our stops etc. It was wonderful, because we knew what was close. Just a few hours later, we would roll in on the strip in Las Vegas! One entertaining anecdote I have regarding our short stay in Flagstaff occurred just a short while before we packed our suitcases into The Fish. We were getting ready for our drive and I was taking my suitcase into the car, so I opened up the door. Right outside, a woman was passing by our motel door to reach her room and happened to look in through the door opening. Inside, she could see Tomasz wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, smearing sunblock all over himself while Pontus was lying on the bed with me exiting the room wearing a small black case. I realized that it might look _very_ weird, but she just laughed and said "guytrip!". It was entertaining to say the least.

After 3½ hours of uneventful driving by yours truly, we reached our 22nd state and observed the modern marvel of american engineering that is Hoover Dam. It was another movie location for me (think Superman 1, Transformers 2...beavis n butthead do america ;) ) so I was filled with glee just to be walking around on the massive concrete construction holding back the colorado river, to create hydroelectric-generated power. It really is an impressive feat to look at, especially if you consider the fact that it was made during the depression, right before the second world war. Those were bad times in the states, and they managed to create this great wall of concrete, the size of which had never been attempted before. I was in awe!
The fact that the state line between Nevada and Arizona cuts through the middle of the dam, including two different timezones, makes it even more cool!

We left Hoover dam and badly wanted to arrive at our fancy hotel. We were ridiculously eager...and yet we would stop ourselves from reaching it by another hour, by visiting a shopping mall outside Las Vegas. You  see, I needed a pair of nice black shoes to go with the long pants that I bought at Walmart days earlier, and I needed to find said shoes before we started walking around in Vegas. The Sunset galleria outside las vegas was chosen, and we spent far too long looking at various things (including the food court). I felt that I spent too much money when I didn't actually plan on spending any money at all regarding clothes, but at least it looks good.

With a full stomach but an aching wallet, I drove the gang the last couple of miles into Las Vegas and finally we were greeted by the famous sign, visible in close proximity of in my opinion, the best hotel in Vegas - The Mandalay Bay (which of course is the hotel that we stayed at!). 

Checking into the hotel was a breeze, like all other hotelexperiences we've had during this trip. If  I haven't mentioned it before, I'm definitely going to do so now...booking.com is the best site for dealing with hotels that I've ever come across. They have an equally good android app. Everything just works perfectly, and with the 14 hotel reservations I've made and changed during this trip, I'm definitely one who speaks with experience! If you ever search for hotels then head over to www.booking.com, regardless of what your destination is.

After we checked in, we put on our fancy new clothes and decided to hit the town. And with that, I leave this blog for tonight, with hopefully another update coming soon enough about our second day in Vegas =).

Ready for what Vegas has to offer!

Djupt nere i hålet

Efter tre dagar av motell, museum och bilkörning genom platta jordbrukslandskap och människor med ganska roliga dialekter väntade nu en annan slags utmaning. Vi utgick från staden Flagstaff i Arizona för att besöka en av världens naturliga underverk och en av USA:s största sevärdheter; Grand Canyon. Vägen dit var ödslig men blev efterhand mer trafikerad av andra turister. Vädret var lite molnigt, det duggade bitvis men temperaturen var ändå mellan 35 och 40 grader varmt. Vi hade inte pluggat på så mycket innan, området var såvitt vi förstod stort, så vi tog hjälp av guiderna på besökscentrat som visade oss en ambitiös rutt från den södra kanten till en viss Skeleton Point. Sen sa guiden något om vatten som vi inte lyssnade så mycket på. Vi tog den angivna bussen och kom fram till den mest häpnadsväckande syn jag sett i mitt liv.

Grand Canyon är alltså ett ökenområde där diverse omständigheter gjorde att Coloradofloden grävde sig ner i jorden och skapade ett 446 km långt, 0,4-29 km brett och upp till 1,8 km djupt hål i marken. Geologer älskar stället då de har hur mycket material som helst att kartlägga jordens historia. Men framför allt är det en av de mest häpnadsväckande och vackra naturformationerna i världen.

Till stor del beror upplevelsen på att man har två kanter i samma nivå rätt över varandra, hos oss var den andra kanten någon mil bort, vilket ger ett pampigt intryck, däremellan en ravin man inte ser botten på (man kan dock se botten längst uppifrån från andra ställen).

I allmänhet annars ett varierat landskap, ibland brant sluttande men oftast knivskarpa stup där miljön bestod av röd ökensand, vita klippor, buskage och ibland rentav några trädliknande växter. Längre iväg var konstiga blåa klippor som såg ut som de kunde komma från en annan planet. Lägg därtill svindelkänslan hela tiden, två steg bort från var man än stod låg en ravin man inte såg botten på, något som fick även de av oss som inte var höjdrädda att rygga tillbaka mer än en gång.

Inga foton kan göra detta ställe rättvisa, men vi gjorde vårt bästa. Dock när vi blev rastlösa begav vi oss iväg ner mot Skeleton Point, en så kallad moderat svår väg ett par kilometer ner i ravinen. Den bestod av serpentinvägar som var någon meter bred, backe ibland varvat med trappsteg. Det var enkel gång att gå neråt, tyckte vi alla och när solen kom fram åkte tröjorna av.

Vi hade nått halvvägspunkten där det fanns ett par platser för skugga samt toalett. Där mötte vi en guide som såg ut ungefär som John Locke från tv-serien Lost, som starkt rekommenderade att inte gå längre ned, det hade blivit för varmt och vi hade för lite vatten med oss. Mina reskompisar tyckte det var struntprat och gick vidare. Själv har jag alltid gillat John Locke, kände mig lite mindre som elitidrottsmän än de andra, var förkyld, gillade utsikten som det var och blev således kvar.

Där under trädet roade jag mig att sola och studera de blåa ekorrarna (såg troligtvis också de så kallade flygande ekorrar). Fick ännu ett exempel på amerikanska vänligheten då jag mötte en kalifornisk familj som också körde coast to coast, en ännu mer imponerande prestation än vad vi försöker oss på, tyckte jag då de hade fyra barn med sig.

Mina stålmänniskor till medresenärer kom naturligtvis tillbaka upp ganska snabbt, en och en halv timme innan John Locke trodde till och med. Lite stukade pga knäskada och vätskebrist, men vid hyfsat gott mod. Sedan började resten av uppstigningen och det visade sig knappast vara en dans på rosor. Snarare vill jag nog säga att om Grand Canyon var bland de vackraste ställen jag sett var nog denna uppstigning bland de vidrigaste upplevelser jag haft. Det var omkring 40 grader, ingen skugga fanns, vattnet var begränsat, vi var på ett par tusen meters höjd och gick snabbt ännu högre upp. Tror i efterhand det var det sista som satte åt mig hårdast, det var som om luftröret snörptes åt så fort man ansträngde sig. Dock efter mycket långsamt vacklande uppåt hallucinerande om att trilla nerför ravinen gick solen i moln och jag kom på att allt gick fortare med många pauser så kom jag upp en bit efter de andra. Troligtvis den dagen vi bråkat minst på hemresan och inte ens Dan orkade träna när vi kom hem. Definitivt en oförglömlig dag.

Något som gjorde dagen extra minnesvärd var hur allting slutade, med ett väldigt nära möte med en älg. En älg lunkade fram till bussen som skulle ta oss till besökscentrat. Han lät oss ta några bilder av honom innnan bussen började rulla.

  

Trötta men imponerade av våra prestationer så gick vi till sängs, Jacob glad att han klarade av den jobbiga vandringen, men orolig över hans knäs tillstånd, med en enda tanke i  våra sinnen....efter en välförtjänt natts sömn kör vi till Las Vegas!

Going deep down in a hole

After three days of motels, museums and driving through flat farmers country and people with pretty funny accents, another kind of challenge awaited us. We left the small city Flagstaff in Arizona to visit one of the natural wonders of the world, and one of America's greatest sights; The Grand Canyon. The road was desolate, but eventually became crowded with other tourists. There were patches of clouds in the sky,  with the occasional  shower  here and  there, but the temperature was still between 35 and 40 degrees warm. We hadn't done any homework prior to arriving, the place was simply big, that much we understood. So we used  the guides at the visitor's center, that showed us an ambitious trail from the south rim of the grand canyon down to something called "Skeleton Point". After that, the guide said something about water that we didn't pay any attention to. We got on the bus that the guide had pointed out and reached the most amazing view I have ever seen in my life!
So the Grand Canyon is a desert area where various circumstances caused the Colorado river to carve a 446km long, 0.4-29km wide and up to 1,8km deep gorge in the ground. Geologists love this place since it contains material for them to study earth's  history going back even billions of years. But most of all, it's one of the most amazing and beautiful natural formations in the world.

The main reason why the view is so spectacular is that you have two rims somewhat in the same level across from each other, at the point we were, the other rim was about 10km away from us, which makes for a very magnificent impression. Inbetween the two rims you have a gorge that you can't see the bottom of (you can see the bottom from the rim at other places, just not where our hike would start).

Generally a varied landscape, sometimes just simply steep, but mostly deadly vertical drops where the environment consisted of red desert sand, white cliffs, shrubbery and sometimes actual tree-looking vegetation. Further away you'd find strange blue cliffs that seemed to be from another world. Add  to that the constant sense  of vertigo, two steps from where you were walking was a ravine that you couldn't see the bottom of, something that made even those without vertigo to gasp and step back from the ledge, more than once even.

No photos can make this place justice, but we did our best. Eventually however, we became tired of snapping off photos all the time and seriously started our downwards hike toward Skeleton Point, a so called "moderate" trail descending a couple of km down the ravine. It consisted of 1m wide dwindling roads with hairpin turns; sometimes hillpaths with a gentle slope, sometimes so steep that steps needed to be cut out from the mountainface. It  was relatively easy to walk down, a sentiment shared by everyone, and when the sun showed itself, our tshirts flew off.
We had reached halfway when we came upon an area with restrooms and some shade. We met a guide there that looked somewhat like John Locke from the tv-show Lost, who strongly recommended us not to hike any further down, it had become too hot and we didn't have enough water with is. My travelbuddies thought that that was nonsense and went on. I've always liked John Locke, felt a bit less of an elite athlete than the others, was nursing a cold, enjoyed the sights and so I stayed put.

There under my tree I entertained myself by basking in the sun and studied the blue squirrels (might also have seen some flying squirrels). Encountered another instance of american kindness when I met a family from California that were also driving coast to coast, an even more impressive feat than what we're doing, since they were doing it with 4 kids on the trip.

My supermen travel companions of course made it back fairly quickly, an hour and a half before John Locke's expectations even. Somewhat deterred by a previously injured knee and dehydration, but otherwise in good spirits. After the reunion, the rest of the ascent started and I quickly realized that it was not a small thing. If anything, I'd like to say that if Grand Canyon is among the most beautiful places I've ever seen, that climb was one of the outrageously worst experiences I have ever had! We had about 40degree heat, no shade, limited water, walking at a couple thousand meters altitude and climbing quickly into thinner air. In hindsight I think it was the latter that got to me the hardest, it was as if someone tied a rope around my windpipe as soon as I used a bit of effort in my walk. However, after stumbling up very slowly and hallucinating about falling down the ravine, the sun hid behind a couple of clouds and I realized that I could manage it if I took a lot of breaks, so I reached the rim a while after the other guys. That was probably the day we fought the least during the trip back and not even Dan had enough effort in him to hit the gym when we returned to our hotel. Definitely a day I won't forget easily!

What made it extra memorable after all that was how it ended, with a very close elk-sighting. An elk sauntered up to the bus that were to take us back to the visitor center. He let us snap a couple of photos of him before the bus started rolling.


Tired but impressed with our own feats we went to bed (Jacob glad over having pulled off the troublesome hike but worried about the state of his knee) with one singular thought in our minds...after  a well deserved night's sleep, we're driving to Las Vegas !

3 museums in 3 days

Once more we were about to leave one of our overnight stays with me thinking "can we experience anything like this ever again?". It felt like we had had a once-in-a-lifetime visit to New Orleans and similarly to Louisville, Kentucky, I didn't want the stay to end. But the itinerary called out to me, we had 6 hours to get to Houston and the museum we were going to check out, The Lyndon B Johnson Space Center, closed at 19:00. We just simply had to get moving.

The drive to Texas was uneventful. We entered Lake Charles in Louisiana to eat lunch and found a small diner in the center of historic down town. They had the best burger I've sampled during this trip! The jalapeño sourdough bread they made themselves was wonderful. The Chipotle mayonaise was just the right amount of spicy and the patty was seasoned and well done. I tried to get Dan and Tomasz to throw away the "healthy" salads they had chosen so that they could  enjoy the fantastic meal that was overloading my senses, but they wouldn't have any of it. Apparently the amount of fat and sugar lately scared them into whatever it was that they chose to eat. At least Pontus agreed that it was the best hamburger so far!

Sadly, reaching Houston "on time" was more difficult than I expected because of a number of unplanned bathroom breaks as well as a very late departure from NOLA. Finding breakfast might have had something to do with it. We reached the Johnson Space Center (or JSC for short) after 16:00, which meant we had less than 3 hours to check out the JSC, which according to their website, would take anywhere between 3 and 5 hours to see.

The first exhibit we chose was a tour tram that brought us around the whole area. The most interesting part to me happened to be the fact that their equipment seems really really old. It got me to thinking what kind of budget NASA has, since their computers are from the last millenium! I took a couple of more shots of various things, but I'll let the pictures speak themselves since we have more events to cover in this post

The JSC was very impressive,  but we still had another 4 hours before we could check into our hotel in Dallas. For some reason I thought that they distance between the two large texan cities was far shorter, but Louisville-friend Stu had informed me just how far it was. Since we were so late from our previous very fancy hotel, the information didn't really help me. We still arrived around midnight, crazy tired from the drive but glad that everything worked out alright.

Waking up in Dallas was pleasant thanks to their breakfastspread. We had checked into a pretty cheap hotel since it would just be a quick stop on our way. We took our time, enjoyed everything (including fresh strawberries!) and then packed up The Fish. Our car, remember? If not, go back and read the second post! Do it, DO IT NAAAUUUOOOWW!! Erh, right...so we had packed up the Fish and drove on to check out our second hotel in as many days. 

The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas is a very special kind of "Museum". I'll try to explain why it exists for those not familiar with a certain popular conspiracy theory. You see, in 1963 American President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. He was riding in an open top limousine and a sniper managed to squeeze off a number of shots toward JFK. The president was pronounced dead 30 min later. There have been two investigations by the United States government into what happened on that day, the first in 1964 claimed that the apprehended shooter Lee Harvey Oswald was indeed the sole shooter, the second investigation (done in 1978, 14 years later!) claimed that JFK was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy". These two investigations, the differences between them, various unnecessary cover ups has led to a number of conspiracy theories regarding Who killed JFK. That in turn means that there is now a museum in an old book depository in Dallas, Texas catering to the notion that if you get as much of the "facts" as possible, you can make your own mind up. I put the word facts in quotationmarks because if you are to believe in conspiracy theories, then they include falsified reports and evidence. 

The museum was definitely very fascinating to check out and led to firey discussions between myself and  Pontus about what actually happened. I wont go into detail about the actual theories, or events of it all, but I will say that if you're ever in Dallas, then this place is something you should most certainly check out, regardless what you know (or think you know ;) ) about the assassination!

After a wonderful visit to that famous (it has spawned 2 tvshows just by its name, so I'd say it's quite famous) city in Texas with its crazy museum, another long roadtrip waited. We were going to drive from Dallas to Roswell, New Mexico. It would be a 7 hour drive, and if our previous stretches on the road had been uneventful, they would seem like wild parties in comparison to what we encountered between Dallas and Roswell. We drove through barren dusty lands that housed nothing but oil pumps, proving clearly why a lot of foreigners view Texas as a big rich state, thanks to their massive oil reserves (almost twice as much as the next state on the list, alaska). We tried to see something entertaining on the road, but really _nothing_ happened. It was mostly a straight road, that let us drive right through Texas, into New Mexico.

                    Dust...                               Hot air = optical illusion             Loong straight road

Checking into our cheap(est) hotel in Roswell was the first snag that we hit on this trip. For some reason we had only gotten a bedroom with a single bed. It was late, the hotel receptionist didn't speak english very well and I just wanted to go to bed. Tensions were running high and I felt sick to my stomach that we wouldn't be able to get any proper sleep that night. Luckily, I managed to cool down and realized that in this particular town, I had actually reserved two separate hotel rooms instead of the usual two queensized beds in one hotel room. I ran back to the pakistani receptionist and asked for a hotel room in any of the other travellers name and breathed out a deep sigh of relief when a reservation in Dan's name was discovered. 

After a hot near sleepless night in Roswell's blistering desert heat, we slowly made our way "downtown". Roswell is a very small area, with two major roads (and lots of smaller ones of course), Main Street and 2nd Street. Right in the center (meaning at the crossroads between Main and 2nd, you'll find the one singular reason for our visit - The Alien "Museum". Another day, another museum, yet another set of qutotation  marks. This was so far the cheesiest, most ridiculous museum we visited. Another place based on conspiracy theories regarding government coverups and if Aliens  live among us. That's the reason why we drove to Roswell, that's why we were in that little dump! We were there to find aliens. Sadly, nothing was on offer, we took a couple of pics and then went on our way.

A cultural couple of days that just meant stops along the way to a long awaited stop - The Grand Canyon! More on that tomorrow.

Long time, no blog

I would like to begin this post by apologizing to all readers of this attempt at chronicling our adventures. There hasn't been an update in over a weeks time now! That's what happens when you arrive late to hotels and feel too tired to start typing. Because of a lack of ability to charge the laptop in the car, I was not able to scribe when not driving. In the end, Pontus became tired of not seeing any updates, so he went into walmart and bought a Nexus 7!! For those not in the know, it's a tablet =). Now we can truly blog on the road =D.

This post is just to inform you all that the creative side of this team hasn't died but rather just gone on hiatus. As we're in three brink of to the final week in this impressive country, the blogging will now go into hyper drive. The goal is to publish a new post every day, starting today Saturday 20th.

I hope we still have an audience interested in what we do over here in the west, that will come back every day to see what has happened during our travels. Until then, enjoy whatever updates we post on Facebook =).