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Photos of our USA road trip, part 1

Bavarian Bunny

Wise Old Thumper
We have seen so many things on our trip through the southwestern USA that it is difficult to choose only a few of the many photos I took. I posted about 200 of them on Facebook. But I won't do that here, don't worry.

On our way there, our onward flight in the US got cancelled due to a snow storm, so we were stranded in Denver for a night. But we could fly to a little place called Durango and pick up our rental car the next morning.

Our first stop was Mesa Verde National Park, a place with several ruins of cliff dwellings built by the Pueblo Indians about 1000 years ago.

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From there we drove to Monument Valley, which is inside the Navajo Nation and the hotel and shops are all run by native Indians.

This was the view from our hotel room at sunset:

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And at sunrise:

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Our next stop was Grand Canyon National Park, very impressive:

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Then we drove to southern Arizona to see the saguaro cactus forests and some desert wildlife:

View across the Sonora Desert:

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Cottontail rabbit:

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Hummingbird:

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Some kind of squirrel or chipmunk:

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Hummingbirds at a feeder:

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A cactus with lovely orange flowers:

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Another wild bunny:

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A big lizard:

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This is Theodore Roosevelt Lake, a man made lake with lovely desert vegetation around it:

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Sunset Crater is one of many craters in central Arizona, the last eruption was only 1000 years ago:

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The road to Marble Canyon in northern Arizona:

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Horseshoe Bend, carved by the Colorado River:

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Some funny rock formations on the Paria Plateau:

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Fabulous pics Gisela, and thses sunrise and sunset ones are just magical. Thanks for sharing. Oh, and welcome back..even if it does mean that I'll not be winning any word games in the near future!!:lol:
 
Fabulous pics Gisela, and thses sunrise and sunset ones are just magical. Thanks for sharing. Oh, and welcome back..even if it does mean that I'll not be winning any word games in the near future!!:lol:

Thanks! Have I done all my word game duties yet? :lol: I had to think of you on our flight back, as we flew over Cheshire. :)
 
Those are fantastic pics ! You should try and sell them on Istock :wave:

What is Istock?

I was too lazy to carry a tripod with me, so a lot of the photos that I took with my telephoto lens are a bit fuzzy. It was a real challenge to get photos of hummingbirds, they are so fast! :lol: I know why I like plants, they don't move quite as much, unless it is windy.
 
Methinks that no-one else will stand a hope in hell of winning any up and coming photo comps entitled 'wildlife' 'sunset' 'water' 'rock' 'ancient dwelling' etc etc..

Beautiful photos Gisela and welcome home too!
 
Methinks that no-one else will stand a hope in hell of winning any up and coming photo comps entitled 'wildlife' 'sunset' 'water' 'rock' 'ancient dwelling' etc etc..

Beautiful photos Gisela and welcome home too!

:lol::lol: That's exactly what I was thinking!! :lol:
 
they are amazing picatures kudos to u! did u just hire a car and just drive and then book into hotels on the spot? i wanna do something like that :)
 
they are amazing picatures kudos to u! did u just hire a car and just drive and then book into hotels on the spot? i wanna do something like that :)

I had booked all the hotels in advance, after checking reviews on Tripadvisor. I also searched for a while to get the best possible deal for a rental car. Most places were not booked out at this time of year, but in some areas there are not many hotels, and I did not want to risk having to drive another 100 miles if one of them was full. Luckily all hotels were really nice, and I slept quite well, as I booked twin rooms for most nights. I can't get used to sharing a duvet, I need my own and wrap myself into it.
Other things I noticed in the hotels and in restaurants and airports: the public "restrooms" are not very private. There are gaps along the edges of the doors, and there is enough room between the walls and the floor to crawl in and out of the cubicle. The showers in hotels never have a hose bit, so you have to stand under it and can't just wash your hair without getting the rest of yourself wet. The toilets are very low, elderly people and people with knee problems might have trouble getting up from them. The beds are quite high, though. They don't have normal radiators, but some type of electric air conditioning units, which can be really noisy.
One thing that always amazes me is the amount of rubbish that people collect. You see so many "backyards" full of old rusty cars and other machines. There is so much old metal that could be recycled.
 
I had booked all the hotels in advance, after checking reviews on Tripadvisor. I also searched for a while to get the best possible deal for a rental car. Most places were not booked out at this time of year, but in some areas there are not many hotels, and I did not want to risk having to drive another 100 miles if one of them was full. Luckily all hotels were really nice, and I slept quite well, as I booked twin rooms for most nights. I can't get used to sharing a duvet, I need my own and wrap myself into it.
Other things I noticed in the hotels and in restaurants and airports: the public "restrooms" are not very private. There are gaps along the edges of the doors, and there is enough room between the walls and the floor to crawl in and out of the cubicle. The showers in hotels never have a hose bit, so you have to stand under it and can't just wash your hair without getting the rest of yourself wet. The toilets are very low, elderly people and people with knee problems might have trouble getting up from them. The beds are quite high, though. They don't have normal radiators, but some type of electric air conditioning units, which can be really noisy.
One thing that always amazes me is the amount of rubbish that people collect. You see so many "backyards" full of old rusty cars and other machines. There is so much old metal that could be recycled.


Ok I am jealous!! I want to go there, hehe but seriously. What sort of cost is a holiday like that? Flights and car hire etc? And is it wise to travel with kids?
 
The flights were about 500 Pounds per person, and the car, a Nissan Murano (medium sized SUV), was 475 Pounds for 2 weeks. You can get a cheaper car, if you don't plan to drive bumpy dirt roads, but with kids you'd want a fairly comfortable car, which isn't too small.
There are lots of motels and hotels, the prices are in the range from about 40 to 120 Pounds per night, if you stay within a touristy area or park, then you are likely to pay more than 60 Pounds a night. Most places have family rooms with two or three beds, and most restaurants seemed to be kid friendly, too. It depends on how old your kids are, I guess. The flight to Denver took about 9 hours, and the onward flight was another hour. Passport control into the US took more than an hour, there was a long queue. On the way back there was a baby on the plane, she was probably about 4 to 6 months old, and she screamed for the first 40 minutes of the flight. I don't think it is fair on very young children to make them go through the stress of a flight, but older kids should be fine.
Most of the parks have good hiking paths, in some places you need to be careful, though, as there are cliff edges without fences and a few hundred foot of nothing underneath them. The sun is very strong, and the air is very dry, and some parks are on a much higher altitude than we are, so walking can be exhausting. You have to drink a lot of water. I would not go there in the summer, it gets too hot, and there are far too many people, it will be difficult to find hotels or parking.
I saw a lot of motorhomes, there seem to be several rental companies, and many camping grounds for them, so that would be an alternative to car and hotel. But again, you would not be able to drive on some of the "wilder" roads.
 
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