New low!

It was getting late on the way to Lockhart, so we ended up car camping in Walmart car park! [We did check with them before staying!]

Here we are sleeping in the back of our minivan. It's quite roomy for two, but a bit tight for the three of us!

The next day we had the best food so far, in a really cool place called Smittys in Lockhart. The BBQ meat was AMAZING! It didn't look at all appealing from the outside! 

But there was a constant flow of customers, you buy your BBQ meat by the pound and use brown paper as plates. 

We then carried on to McKinney's State Park near Austin. We went into town in the evening to see the 1.5 million bats leaving the big bridge where they live right in downtown.

Fiesta like there's no mañana!

We stopped in Del Rio to break the journey up and had delicious breakfast tacos sat at the counter in an authentic American diner.

Then on to fiesta time in San Antonio. We arrived, checked in, then immediately went into downtown to enjoy festivities, lots of live Mexican music and tasty local food. 

The next day we enjoyed a guided tour round the riverwalk. 

We went to learn about the famous Alamo. 

On the way out of San Antonio, we hit Pearl Brewery district with ace shops and tasty French cuisine in the brewery.

We also stopped in Gruene to see the oldest dance hall in Texas, we haven't managed to go to a honky-tonk yet!

Howdy y'all!

After T or C, we did a really long day of driving through West Texas to a small arty town called Marfa. We saw a mock Prada shop on the way, in the middle of nowhere!

We really liked Marfa, there were lots of galleries, people were really friendly and welcoming and the food we had was great. We went to a star party at McDonald observatory, the host gave us a tour of the constellations using a massive laser and we used telescopes to look at stars, including Orion's Belt and Jupiter with its rings. 

We drove through Big Bend National Park via Route 170 (top 10 drives in USA) which was scenic, but the river going through the middle of the park is the border with Mexico, so we weren't quite sure how Trump's wall would work!

Olive was practising her sitting-up skills in big bend in front of Balancing Rocks 

We had our first Texan BBQ in big bend and found these amusing stools in a ghost town, Telingua, near the park. 

Tobogganing!

We went tobogganing on the super fine, bright white sand dunes of white sands national park. It was bloody hard work climbing to the top, and maybe we were a bit big, but we were hoping to go a bit faster!

We stayed and watched sunset. 

And slept in the car for free in a lay-by off the main road. There were lots of biting bugs, so we made our beds in record time!

City of Rocks and Truth or Consequences

We left Arizona and drove into New Mexico, there were fewer people and drivers started waving hello to each other. We saw our first roadrunner bird and went to "City of Rocks" state park near Silver City. It was a beautiful spot with nothing nearby and fabulous clear skies and loads of stars.

Unfortunately we were totally ill-prepared as usual, and we turned up with no food, so supper was a combination of everything we had left-over in the car. Cold water pot noodle was the low-light!

We took a wrong turn on the way to city of rocks and ended up literally at the Mexican border. There were border patrol cars everywhere and we were stopped at checkpoints regularly and asked for our passports. One officer even tested us on our dates of birth! Luckily we both got it right!

After a pretty drive the next day, we checked into a lovely motel in Truth or Consequences and enjoyed their hot springs. We had a private hot springs bathtub which was great fun. The water was really hot, but me, Pete and Olive had a good soak with some cold beers (I had a massage first which was lovely). Livvi swam on her front for the first time which was cool. For breakfast Pete had a 'Fat Elvis' - a waffle with peanut butter, whipped cream and bacon! Yum!

The town too tough to die!

Phoenix and Tuscon were too hot and too big; we much preferred Tombstone and Bisbee.

Silver was discovered in Tombstone in the 1880s and it boomed overnight attracting miners, gamblers, con-men and prostitutes. It was famous for its lawlessness and gunfights and the main road still looks as it would've back then, in the days of the Wild Wild West!

We went on a trolley tour:

And we went to Big Nose Kate's:

We slept in the car and counted 8 mule deer one evening in front of our car!

Bisbee was a tiny hippie town with friendly people. We stayed on an RV park in town and had vegetarian Mexican lunch which was delicious, then we tried to go for a nice dinner, but Livvi was crying and the food was rubbish, so we gave it up as a bad job - we did manage 4 courses mind! 

Phoenix and Tuscon

After the Grand Canyon we suffered a terrible small town Saturday night karaoke then had a healthy vegetarian breakfast in Flagstaff with great coffee. We took a scenic drive through Sedona and Jerome:

And stopped in Prescott for a walk around the interesting buildings on the main square and Greek souvlaki!

We arrived into Phoenix late, it was really hot so we stayed in a motel and enjoyed the air con. We relaxed, did some laundry and enjoyed the jacuzzi. We went to a Wells Fargo museum which was surprisingly interesting! We learnt about the old stagecoaches from the Wild West. 

It took us all day to do the 2 hour drive to Tucson and get checked into a hotel. The campgrounds were full and the RV park wouldn't let us stay as we weren't strictly a recreational vehicle! We stayed in a really grim Howard Johnson in a rough area with lots of homeless people. 

We went to see the massive cartoon-like cactuses at the desert museum. 

And we went to Saguaro National Park.

These cactuses are about 250 years old and lots of them have birds nesting in them. 

The grandest canyon of all!

On the way to the Grand Canyon National Park, we stopped off to see the impressive Hoover Dam:

And we had a quick look at the old Route 66, before arriving in the park after dark. Three big elk ran in front of the car as we approached the campsite which was the first wildlife we had really seen apart from the enormous condors!

We slept really badly, we were cold and squashed and Livvi woke up lots! But when we got our first glimpse of the canyon the next day, we forgot how tired we were! 

We drove out to desert view, it was a fab view but Pete thought Olive had a dirty nappy, so wasn't cuddling her and we didn't linger at the lookout! We rushed back to the car and then the heavens opened!

It brightened back up later and we took the shuttle bus to more amazing views:

Viva Las Vegas!

We arrived in Vegas in time to get dressed up and head down "the Strip" as the lights were coming on. We could take the baby into the casinos, but couldn't gamble (might've been a blessing in disguise!). We went into casinos we'd heard of like Caesars Palace and Bellagio's and went into ones we hadn't like Paris and Cosmopolitan.

We were surprised at the scale of everything, every casino was absolutely massive, with so many bright lights and so much to see, we spent the whole time walking around and still didn't see half of what was going on. In one month, one casino was advertising that it paid out $18 million in jackpots alone, so the amount of money in Las Vegas is just staggering.

We had eat all you can brunch at the Wicked Spoon which was fabulous, we saw the volcano at Mirage, the fountains at Bellagio's and went up and down the walkways all day long. We stayed at Circus Circus which was the cheapest hotel on the strip, it was very busy, and not at all fancy! We had to queue for the elevators, there were loads of children and super-wide wheelchairs!

Look who had her own double bed!

We took loads of photos, but I forgot to put my memory card into my camera, so none of them saved! All we have is this (we'll have to go again to retake the photos!)

Olive in front of Bellagio's fountains!

Olive in front of Trump tower!

First nights car camping

We took the plunge in Sequoia and camped for the first time at Three Rivers just outside the National Park. We had spent the day looking round Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks with the biggest trees in the world. 

We were nervous about sleeping in our beloved Dodge Grand Caravan minivan when we saw all the snow!

Giant General Sherman tree, the largest tree on earth:

Sleeping in the car was a bit cold and cramped (unsurprisingly!) but after a pit stop in a dingy Motel 6 in Ridgecrest, we carried on to Death Valley and camped for a couple of nights in Death Valley. It was much warmer and the sky on the first night was just so clear, wow!!

The first full day in Death Valley was our favourite so far. We saw Badwaters which is the lowest, hottest and driest place in North America. It also gave us a chance to road test Livvys new hat:

We also went on a scenic drive to see Artists Palette and enjoyed the sunset from our Sunset Campsite, clues in the name!!

Next stop Las Vegas, baby!