Las Vegas – Show – Gambling Stars and Starlets
Grand Canyon – The wind whips through our faces at the Grand Canyon
Las Vegas doesn't have to appeal to everyone, our plan is to spend two nights there. Personally, it's a bit too much hustle and bustle for us, but we're also more outdoorsy types and feel a lot more comfortable in the vastness outside of the cities.
A visit to the casinos is a must. If you don't play, you'll be happy to pay $10 for a beer, but there's also a bit of fun to be had, a pull on the one-armed bandit until you hit the jackpot, that's fine. But to be honest, there's no getting around it, almost every hotel has its own gaming area. If you're prone to gambling, you should really keep your wallet closed until you've left the city.
The last 360° photo shots of the legendary Harley-Davidson Cafe in Las Vegas
Luckily we still have the opportunity to visit the legendary Harley-Davidson Cafe in Las Vegas, unfortunately the cafe will be closed and completely cleared out in October 2016.
We enjoyed our visit to the cafe apart from a few little things, although unfortunately some bikers had different experiences. In any case, they were all friendly to us and the visit was worth it for us.
I took a few more 360° interior shots of the Harley-Davidson Cafe, which are now going into the memoirs. (Link to report)
We're exhausted and totally out of action
The buildings in the city are impressive, but the billboards are the highlight, some of them in 3D LED, which bring out the advertising in a very unusual way.
The whole atmosphere on Las Vegas Blvd is really like a movie. Unfortunately, we both have a bit of a stomachache, so we head back to the hotel first.
That's supposed to be it for us too, we're both hanging over the toilet. Maybe we both have upset stomachs somewhere. I had organized a Las Vegas sightseeing flight for us in advance, but unfortunately we had to cancel it.
The lights go out pretty early in the evening. It's just stupid that we have a group of teenagers next to us who have put their subwoofer in the hallway and a box of ice for their drinks.
We didn't really know whether we should think that was good or bad, normally we would have celebrated, but this boom boom was somehow annoying.
But we were just too exhausted to start stressing out now, and by midnight everything was at least a little quieter.
Today the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon are on the agenda
The second day in Las Vegas is canceled for us, we are both finished and are staying in the hotel. A new morning and Hermann is back in the race, I still have my problems, but for me it also started later, I'm hopeful, but I don't have the choice either.
Now we need breakfast first, which is not that easy to find in the CircusCircus Hotel, the hotel is huge. Freshly fortified with bananas, we collect our things and now look for our machines, which are somewhere on the parking deck.
It's not even easy to find the parking deck, it's often a long walk in these mega hotels to get from A to B, but the view makes up for it.
We've stowed everything away and now we're moving on, we want to drive past the Hoover Dam and on to the Grand Canyon.
I took the thing about driving past too literally, unfortunately I took the wrong turning lane and it's not possible to turn around here, it doesn't matter, we can see something from the Hoover Dam, that's enough.
The weather is mixed but dry, unfortunately it's not really warm, on the contrary. The closer we get to the Grand Canyon the weather worsens and it gets cooler and colder.
Of course we get higher and higher and now the weather changes suddenly, storms and rain, the temperatures settle between 5 and 7 degrees. Now let's go to the Colorado River, the name alone drives you to the river.
Anyone who still knows the Western comics from before will be able to understand that in them the names Grand Canyon and Colorado River in Arizona were always a guarantee for adventure stories.
We're having our own adventure again, a big storm is coming and we're in the middle of it as always. In the USA the weather is often not so much fun, here a storm can quickly become really dangerous and we are once again traveling in a completely deserted area.
We drove the route to Grand Cayon, but before leaving we continued straight towards the Colorado River until we couldn't go any further at South Cove.
There's no getting around it, after a few photos and a live video we were able to make for Facebook, we had to take shelter until the worst was over.
The wind whips our faces along the Colorado River
The wind is whipping through our faces, but we still want to go to the Grand Canyon, we want to fly in the helicopter and definitely also Grand Canyon Skywalk
We have arrived back on the road to the Grand Canyon and are approaching the visitor center. The route is great, we have a wide view and can see the canyons in the distance with their different layers of color.
The mix of black clouds, rain and sun is behind us and we slowly drive up to the parking lot attendant at the Peach Springs Visitor Center .
The Hualapai Indian looks at us with wide eyes and is surprised that we are driving up to the Indian reservation on Harleys in this weather. I mean, it's March, so it wasn't entirely clear to us why he was surprised.
The Hualapai Indian tells us we are like bears
We earn respect from the Indians
He said to us that we were like bears. That was somehow a very special praise that we received from a real Indian. It has to do with the fact that the Americans and probably the Indians have much more respect for the bad weather than we Europeans do.
It's a bit stronger in the States than it is here and it's handled differently here. When bad weather is forecast, they close down everywhere and go home.
And that's exactly what happened to us at the Grand Canyon, except for the Indian parking lot and a few Indians in the center, everything was closed here.
No helicopters were flying anymore, the Skywalk had been closed and the buses were no longer running. We were exhausted, there was nothing to get here except coffee and a sandwich. The dream was now shattered, we are standing a few hundred meters from the Skywalk and can't go there.
It was wet and cold, so we are slowly getting used to the situation and are thinking about driving towards Needles in California. There is a lot to see there related to Route 66 and we also have a hotel room waiting for us there.
Then maybe for once we won't arrive in the middle of the night, that's only 200 kilometers that we can cover in 3 hours, it's already 7 p.m. again, but we're in good spirits.
Here we go again, even if the weather isn't really nice, suddenly the clouds break up and the sun fights its way into the foreground. A rainbow forms right in front of us, we are both completely overwhelmed by the fantastic sight. We'll take a few nice photos before we continue, we'll take our time.
The Grand Canyon National Park is an absolute experience
We continue along the beautiful route and see a motorcyclist coming towards us in his old Honda, but he wasn't driving, he was pushing, he had a flat tire.
We asked him if we could help him, but he didn't need our help, he wants to push his goat home. We were just wondering where he lives now?
We didn't see a house anywhere. Incidentally, most Americans do this, when you're standing somewhere on the route, they stop and ask you if they can help you, we've seen this many times and have experienced it ourselves.
This route from the Grand Canyon to Needles is really great, like everything else here, the weather has calmed down again, the mostly dark clouds have cleared and the temperature has risen again as we slowly continued to lose altitude.
We stop a few times just to look around, it would really be a shame not to enjoy this nature for a few minutes.
These long grades and the wide view of the valleys are amazing. For us it's the first time we've ridden a Harley in this area. Now we understand why many Harley riders are so enthusiastic about the Grand Canyon.
Our destination is Needles, an old town with history on Route 66
Needles before midnight and spend the night at the Best Western Hotel . As always, we have a good and clean hotel to stay in.
We let this eventful day come to a relaxed end. It started off hard for me, I only felt better at the Grand Canyon and by the evening I had actually forgotten all about it, but that's what the moments at the Colorado River and Grand Canyon are for despite the storm was far too beautiful.
We let this eventful day come to a relaxed end. It started off hard for me, I only felt better at the Grand Canyon and by the evening I had actually forgotten all about it, but that's what the moments at the Colorado River and Grand Canyon are for despite the storm was far too beautiful.
External web link
Tips for the Grand Canyon
Hotels:
Las Vegas Circus Circus Hotel, Casino & Theme Park (Free Parking)
Best Western Needles
Part 6
