Las Vegas

I wasn't sure if I was going to like Vegas or not but I LOVED it! It is just the craziest place and is so much fun.


We arrived on Friday evening into the weekend rush hour traffic so drove straight to the hire car place to drop the car off and got a taxi to the hotel. We stayed at the Trump Hotel which we were really pleased with. It's just off the main strip and doesn't have a casino so is not smokey like the others and you can still walk around all the others and visit the restaurants.

After dropping our bags at our hotel we walked along the strip to the Bellagio hotel. We ate noodles for dinner in one of the restaurants and Chris had a quick go on one of the fruit machines in the casino. He put in a $1 and won $2.50! Then I made him walk away with his $1.50 profit and that was the extent of our Vegas gambling.


Outside the Bellagio hotel are the famous fountains. Every 15 minutes they do a show to music which I actually really enjoyed!



On Saturday we went into the Wynn hotel for breakfast. I had the best pancakes that I have ever had, they were so fluffy.



We spent the day walking up and down the strip going into the hotels and doing some shopping. It's actually a good place to shop, the shopping malls are huge. We had a late lunch at Caesars Palace then in the evening we went to see the show Jersey Boys which was brilliant.

On Sunday we had a buffet breakfast at the Mirage hotel. We both ate far too much and had to waddle back to our hotel afterwards to get our taxi to the airport. We caught our flight at 1pm on Sunday and eventually got home at midnight!

Grand Canyon

On Friday we drove from Sedona up to Grand Canyon. We left early because we knew we had a long day of driving ahead of us. It took us about 2 hours to arrive at the South Rim and we headed straight for the visitor's center first to decide what to do.

We hadn't really thought sensibly about what clothes to bring with us on this trip and had just been thinking about the hot weather we were going to have in Tucson and Scottsdale. When we got to the Grand Canyon there was snow on the ground and all we had to wear was sweatshirts. Everyone else was wrapped up in their coats, hats and gloves! We braved the temperatures and took so many photos. We drove east from the visitor center and stopped at various view points along the way to take more photos. We thought the best views were from Lipan Point where you could see the Colorado River. We're planning to come back to the Canyon again at some point and I'd like to do one of the rafting trips down the river.






After leaving the Canyon we drove for about 4 hours to get to our next stop the Hoover Dam. As you cross the dam you pass from Arizona to Nevada and from Mountain time to Pacific time so that means losing an hour. We arrived too late to do any of the tours into the dam but we walked across it and took more photos.





Next we drove on to the last stop on our road trip - Las Vegas.

Sedona

We arrived in Sedona on Wednesday evening and headed straight to the airport where we were advised to go for some good views. There were quite a lot of people at the viewpoint waiting for the sunset but it was really cold and we weren't really dressed for it having just left the sunshine of Scottsdale so we just took a few photos and headed for our hotel.


On Thursday we spent the day hiking some of the trails around the red rocks. The views were amazing.





The picture below shows some Sedona weirdness, there were hundreds of these little rock towers near Cathedral Rock, must be something to do with the New Age culture that Sedona is famous for.


The last walk that we did of the day was to Devil's Bridge. I had been hoping Chris wouldn't see this one in the guide book because I didn't fancy it. But he found it and of course wanted to go! The guide book said that you could drive your car close to the start of the trail but when we turned off the main road there were big signs up saying the road had been damaged and you shouldn't drive any closer unless you were in a 4x4. Our little hire car wasn't going to manage it so we parked up and walked over 30 mins just to get to the start of the trail. Then it was a steep climb up to see the rock bridge. I got pretty high up before my fear of heights stopped me from going any further but Chris climbed to the top. He wasn't crazy enough to walk out on to the bridge like some people!

Scottsdale

From Tucson we drove up to Scottsdale. We stayed in a resort hotel called The Phoenician. I managed to get us a ridiculously cheap rate and when we arrived they told us we'd been upgraded to a villa. It was almost as big as our apartment and really luxurious. The resort was huge, I think it had 9 swimming pools!


Here was the view from our balcony on Monday evening.


On Tuesday we decided to take it easy. We drove into Scottsdale for breakfast and then had a quick look around the huge shopping mall. When we got back to our hotel we sat by the pool for a couple of hours before having posh afternoon tea.


On Wednesday morning we treated ourselves again to a breakfast on our balcony then trekked up Camelback Mountain which was just behind our hotel. The views from the top were great.

You can see our hotel complex at the bottom of this photo...


On Wednesday afternoon we visited Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's Architecture School. We had a really interesting tour and I took loads of photos of the amazing buildings.




Next we drove North towards Sedona. On the way we stopped at Montezuma Castle which were caves built into the rock by Sinagua people in about 700AD.

Tucson

We started our Arizona road trip in Tucson. We arrived really late on the Friday evening so spent our first night in an airport hotel. The holiday got off to a bad start on Saturday morning. I felt fine when we first woke up but suddenly I was felt really sick and threw up in the hotel room bathroom. Not a good start! I kept thinking I was going to be ok but in the end I just had to lie in bed while Chris went to pick up the hire car. After a few hours I finally forced myself to get up and I thought I felt ok.

We decided to go to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum which was great. The area is renowned for the Saguaro Cactus plants and they were everywhere. It was a really hot day but we walked around the trails and saw a coyote and mountain lions. Chris' favourite part was going in a cave full of bats.


After the the museum we decided to visit Tucson Old Studios which is where a lot of the old Westerns were filmed. When we arrived a gun fight show was about to start so we walked along the dusty street and sat down in the shade to watch the show. About 5 minutes into it I suddenly felt really unwell again and just managed to get up and take a few steps away from the other people watching before I was sick in the street! Nice! It was such a shame because the place looked really good but we decided we'd better get to our bed and breakfast so I could get to bed.


We stayed at the Rancho Merlita Ranch House which was brilliant. Unfortunately I had to go straight to bed when we arrived but Chris made the most of it by using the pool and hot tub and eating the freshly made cookies!



On the Sunday I felt a bit better so we drove South towards the Mexico border to an old mining town called Bisbee. It was a strange little place and we managed to walk into the weirdest cafe ever! We were the only people in there but it still took about 30 mins just to get a drink.


After Bisbee we drove to Tombstone. We'd both been really looking forward to this and had built up these pictures in our mind of feeling like we were in a Western film but we were so disappointed! We thought we'd come to the wrong place at first, the dusty street we were expecting was a tarmacked road and it just all looked really naff.

We decided to see the gunfight at the OK Corral and were expecting something similar to what we'd seen at Tucson the day before but after buying our tickets we were herded into a little outdoor theatre. I was worried after being so ill the day before so we took seats right at the entrance in case I needed to get out quickly again and I am so glad that we did. Not because I was ill, but because it was so bad! We gave it 10 minutes before deciding we'd seen enough bad amateur dramatics and made a quick exit.


The most exciting part of the day came on the journey back when we got flagged down by the border patrol and asked to show our passports. We had been warned at the Embassy that as 'aliens' in Arizona you should always carry your passport on you as if you are asked to show it and can't you'll end up in jail!

We made one more stop on the way back to the B&B at the Mission San Xavier del Bac which is just South of Tucson. We arrived just before it closed for the evening so had a quick look inside then took some photos outside.


On Monday morning we visited the Sabino Canyon. We decided to be lazy and took the shuttle bus the 3 miles up to the top of the canyon then walked down again. I think this was the right decision because it was really hot. There are usually waterfalls to see but it was really dry and there was no flowing water to see but there were a lot of cactus!



In the afternoon we visited a Titan Missile Silo which Chris had been desperate to see. It was actually really interesting. It is the only silo in the country that still actually has the missile in it. We had a tour of the site and Chris went down into the underground operating centre to watch a simulated launch.


Our last stop in Tucson was at Gus Balons Pie Shop. They had so many different flavours and types of pie it was hard to choose. I went for cherry in the end and Chris has raspberry. It was amazing!

Halloween Cupcakes

Yum yum!

Official Race Stats

Chris has now had his race time confirmed - he completed it in 52.40 which is great. He placed 949th out of 7365 which I think is brilliant, he was in the top 1000!

He also met his fundraising target and raised 155.00GBP for the Hop Skip and Jump Foundation. They are only a small charity so we're sure they'll be really grateful. If anyone still wants to donate money the website is http://www.justgiving.com/Chris-Daddow