Thanksgiving is a big holiday here in the US. Since we Europeans with reinforcements from Canada and Australia didn't had anything that special going on with it, we decided to do a road trip. The plan was following: At first head to Grand Canyon National Park, AZ and then continue to Hoover Dam at the border of Arizona and Nevada. Finally arrive to Las Vegas, NV and spend three days there.
So we got our cars from Hertz and started our trip. It took 12 hours to get from Hayward to Grand Canyon National Park. Don't know how much the elevation was during the trip, but it had to be pretty much. Our Chevy Malibu was drinking gas like a maniac. We had to refuel like four times.
Even though the drive was long, it didn't felt that bad. We had three to four drivers on each car so we could easily split it. I think Nik in the other car took the driving challenge pretty seriously, since he drove their Camry total of 750 miles in a row. Roads here are basically interstates or highways, which means that the traffic is one-way only. But as far as I'm concerned, the traffic here is crazy. You have to be causious all the time. This one guy in front of us had his Infinity SUV sideways on the highway and at the same time other Chrysler was goin sideways 60 mph on the grass. I actually wonder that no one crashed. We made up rules in our car that the backseat can do whatever they want, but the one on the front seat has to keep company to the driver so that he would not start to sleep while driving.
When we finally arrived and the sun started to rise it was obvious to see that the terrain in Arizona is totally different compared to California. It's pretty flat, dry and the growth is totally different. The views on the Canyon were amazing. We got there just in the break of dawn so it was all different shades of orange and red. We were all pretty tired so we decided to continue to the Hoover Dam. The place was huge! We didn't stay there for too long as all of us started be ready for Vegas.
Finally, Las Vegas, Nevada. As we started to see the tops of the hotels such as The Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand and Caesar's Palace we were super excited. Vegas is something you have to see and experince yourself. Out of 25 biggest hotels in the world, 19 of them are located in Vegas. Gambling, Bars, Restaurants... The Las Vegas Strip is the place to be. And if you didn't knew yet, the Strip is the main street of Las Vegas. That is the place where all the biggest hotels are located. And it is crazy. Everything is so exaggerated! Our hotel Hard Rock Hotel & Casino wasn't located on the strip, but it was new and cheaper compared to other hotels. And it only took like five minutes to go to the Srip with a cab.
We stayed in Vegas for three days and we had a great time. Like I told you guys earlier, the traffic is rancid. There isn't that many railroads or public transportations, so basically everybody has their own cars. And we got pretty "nice" experience of it. When we left Las Vegas, the first 30 miles took as long as two and a half hours. It's a crazy feeling to drive a four-line highway 15 mph... The Highway looks like a chain of pearl. It's like several miles only car lights 'til horizon. Luckily the traffic started to decrease after few hours of drive. This was the time to get another bully - dense fog. Like a lightning from the sky it all went grey and foggy. You could hardly see 10 meters in front of you. And this kept going for like 300 miles, sometimes better sometimes worse. The tactic was to tailgate the car in front of you. It was pretty weird to see only two red dots in front of you and just keep your fingers crossed. Luckily the higways here are ruler made, so there is not any big turns or something like that. And we didn't saw a single animal on the road.
Finally we arrived to Hayward at 04:45 am. So far this was one of the coolest experiences in my life.
