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!

Yosemite National Park

The massive granite blocks on both sides of Yosemite Valley were amazing:

We had a brilliant day, we drove through the park and stopped and admired the scenery regularly!

But we spent so long making sure we had everything in the car that baby Olive could possibly need that we both forgot all our warm and waterproof clothes, Pete didn't even have a coat! We tried to hike to a waterfall viewpoint, but the mist was like torrential rain, so we didn't get very far!

We knew it wasn't very promising when it started hailing on us in the car park, but we walked to the bottom of Yosemite falls, there was snow on the ground and we were freezing! 

By the time we got to the bottom of the falls, we were both cold and wet!

We caught the bus around the valley and Yosemite Village, but there was an accident with a cyclist and we ended having to change buses and it took forever. When we finally got back to our car we found we had accidentally left the boot wide open in our rush to get out of the hail. It had been left open in the car park with all our luggage and valuables inside, for about 2 hours but luckily nothing had been touched!

Arriving in US

Despite Pete setting his alarm for 2 50am, and us having spent all week planning, it was still a mad dash for us to catch our flight. We panicked when uber wouldn't work and wondered if we were mad sat in Bristol coach station in the early hours of the morning with more luggage than we could carry. 

But the flight was awesome, it was the first British Airways service to ever fly to Oakland, the flight was empty, the staff were great and the baby slept for most of the journey. There was a welcoming committee, complete with Union Jack and a film crew!

We were delighted when our last piece of luggage arrived onto the carousel. It didn't arrive with the other luggage, someone had already been to check the hold and we were sat discussing what paperwork needed to be filled out and how long it was likely to take!

We picked up our hire car and gave ourselves one night in Oakland to recover. Chicken and waffles was our first taste of America and noisy Amtrak trains running down the main road outside the hotel!