Category: Trips

So West we went, all the way to the coast to spend some time in Los Angeles. We decided to visit Venice, where Lothar has a friend.

It’s very touristy there, and everything you’d expect from a beach town, including a full workout gym right on the beach! But what surprised us the most is how cold it was. There’s a weather effect that causes the coast to be overcast for a lot of May and June aparently!

For lunch, we found a Chinese place called Mao’s Kitchen. The food was good, and the menu was hilarious, with items like “People’s potstickers”, and “Eggplant pamphlet – eggplant bound volumes filled with shrimp or tofu propaganda”. Cute!

Later, we saw some of the harbour and sights with Lothar’s friend, and they also took us out for dinner at a wonderful Italian place called Barrique.

The next morning, we visited his company, where they make sim racers! We even got to try it out! We drove essentially Formula 1 cars in there!! I struggled with some motion sickness feeling with the 3 big screens in front, and it was really hard to get the hang of driving, but there’s also an option with a VR headset and Lothar said that felt much better.

So after Grand Canyon, we headed West toward the California coast. The intention is to hit Los Angeles, and then head North, and enjoy the drive up the coastal Highway 1.

It was really fun to watch the terrain change from desert to taller some-what greener hills, even one that’s snow-capped!

We passed a bit of an oasis along the way when crossing a river.

And for a long while there was really nothing to see, except a passing train!

We knew we weren’t going to make it all the way to LA that day, so we found a cool-sounding place on the map to stay for the night “Desert Hot Springs”. And Wow, was it ever!

From the middle of nowhere, we pull into the town, and it’s just beautiful! Palm trees and flowers everywhere.

And at the hotel, these may look like pools, but they are all various temeratures between warm and hot, and they are all fed directly from the hot springs! In fact for the hot tubs, they have to cool the water first, down from 106 F before it’s ready to go in. The hot tubs were my faviourite part.

We ended up visiting the West end of the Grand Canyon. Going to the South access was 4 more hours of driving if I recall, and given that we’d be heading back West after, we decided not to add that much more driving to just 2 days of the trip. Our visit spanned 2 days. The first day, we took a bus tour that took us to a number of great lookout points.

As always, photos just don’t do justice to the grandeur you actually experience when you’re there.

The West side where we were is on Hualapai land, and they also run the Skywalk. The next morning we went out on the Skywalk, and got some pictures taken. Everyone had to wear special shoe protectors out on the walkway. Parts of the floor were actually glass!

On the way to the Grand Canyon, we stayed at this really cool ranch!

We got this really cute cabin to ourselves. In addition to the cabins they also had tents for “glamping”!

They served a really excellent dinner. After dinner there was a really funny guy singing country songs and requests, then we all went out to the fire pit and roasted marshmallows! What a cool evening.

In the morning, I went for a run, then we went for a walk to the top of the hill and saw the buffalos there. There were several little calves too!

And this is why we do road trips. To stumble apon amazing experiences like this unexpected ranch stay! 🙂

Once we left Las Vegas, our first stop was the Hoover Dam. We walked out on a bridge near the dam from which you get some of the best views of the dam and the road winding down to it.

Coming off the bridge is the Nevada signpost, since we were right on the border at this point. And right after, we drove out on the dam itself!

We’re heading East into Arizona, and toward the Grand Canyon. Here’s us driving, and a variety of dessert terrains.

That was really one of the hilights of the whole trip, just driving through so many different terrains and even climates.

And I found out what Joshua Trees are! They are so different.

Pulling over at one of the lookout spots by the road.