Sunday May 29th

We woke up with heavy hearts today, as it was the last day of our Trek America trip. It was also going to be the longest, and we had arranged to be on the road at 7:30am to ensure we made all our planned stops. It was roughly a 5 hour drive to Las Vegas, where we had lunch booked at the Luxor, and along the way we were stopping in at a town along Route 66.


After the van was packed one last time, we were locked and loaded and on our way out of the Grand Canyon. We all exchanged photos in the car and played a hysterical game. We all had to write down a phrase (i.e., ‘A face only a mother could love’), and then pass it to the person beside us, who would have to draw it. They then passed it to the next person, who had to guess the phrase based on the drawing … and so on, until everyone in the car had had a go at each set of cards. This lead to some extremely funny drawings and guesses which deviated wildly from the original phrase (and was especially funny when there were devious Aussies in the car who wrote phrases like ‘Dryer than a nun’s nasty’, which then had to be drawn by a non-Aussie!) We also continued our licence plate game, trying to find licence plates from each state of the USA (we ended up being 7 short).


Several hours into the drive we arrived at our Route 66 stop. The town was a throwback to the 50s, full of kitsch souvenir shops and Route 66 displays. I loved it!! I scored a number of souvenirs and snapped a heap of photos, even snapping one with the King himself, Elvis.


Just before we entered Las Vegas, we drove ‘near’ the Hoover Dam. I say ‘near’ because commercial vehicles aren’t allowed to cross the bridge over the Dam, so we had to go on a nearby road. None of us were too fussed about not seeing it though, because we had finally made it to ‘Viva Las Vegas!’

Thanks to some leftover money in our food kitty, we were lunching at the Luxor buffet. Everyone was starving as it was 3pm, but surprisingly we didn’t end up eating much (the vegetarian options were particularly poor). As we ate, we all wrote farewell messages on plaques that Cassie had put together with our group photos, and Lucy and Tamsyn started getting upset at the thought of saying good-bye. We still had our party bus that evening though, and first we had to drop everyone off at their hotel.

I was staying at Alexis Park for the first night, as were Lucy, Tamsyn, Sharyn and Cassie, and due to the madness of Las Vegas traffic on the Strip it took us 2 hours before we arrived. Of course, my room was literally the furthest away from the lobby. I stole a bellman’s trolley to take all my crap up to my room (and when I say all my crap, I mean it – I had so many assorted piles of random things to sort through it was ridiculous!)

First order of call in the room was to call Mark and say good-bye, as he was heading to Afghanistan the next day. The internet connection was terrible at first, but it finally fixed up so I could have a proper conversation with him. I then jumped in the shower and started beautifying myself, intermittently checking Perez Hilton to catch up on all the gossip I’d missed whilst I’d been out bush.


At 8pm, I walked over to Tamsyn and Lucy’s room to collect them, and we then walked to the bar to meet Sharyn. As it was BYO alcohol on the party bus, I asked the bartender if he had any bottles I could take with me on the road (i.e. Cruisers, Breezers). He said he didn`t have anything like that, but he could mix-up anything I wanted to take with me. `I`m going out in public with them though – across the road and onto a bus` I said. `No problems! This is Las Vegas!` So out of the hotel and onto the public street I walked holding two plastic cups of vodka and coke. I kept thinking I was going to get pulled over by the police for drinking in public, but it really is legal here!


The group met at 8:30pm in front of the Hard Rock Hotel, which was adjacent to our hotel, and when we`d all assembled Cassie called for our party bus. When it pulled up, we were all dismayed – it looked like one of the local buses for the disabled. But once we walked inside – hello Playboy Mansion! It was blinged out like a limo, and even had ice bars for our drinks and poles for pole dancing! (I might have told the others that I was a bit keen on pole dancing …. )


For the next hour and a half, as the latest hits blasted through the stereo system and we drank, laughed, and danced, our party bus took us around the sights of Las Vegas. We had a couple of stops along the way – the first, at the `Welcome to Las Vegas` sign, and the second at the Fremont Experience downtown to watch the light show. Whilst downtown, Sharyn and I bought ourselves a drink each. For $12, it came in one of those massive flute like cups that you see college students drinking beer out of – we really fit in here with those! Paula and David emerged out of a casino with necklaces; whilst Lucy queued for food, coming out with deep fried oreos! (I tried one – they were delicious!)


Sadly at 10:30 our time on the bus came to an end, as did our time with Cassie. A group of us were still keen to continue though, and so we entered the Bellagio for some gambling and drinking (not Lucy and Tamsyn though – as they were only 18, they could only watch us!). Drinks are free in Las Vegas whilst gambling – you just need to tip the waitress. We must have been tipping badly as she didn`t want a bar of us (probably something to do with the fact that we were on 1c machines and barely gambling!)


We walked outside to see the magical performance by the Bellagio fountains, as seen in Oceans` Eleven, illuminated by the neon lights of the Strip. Lucy and Tamsyn headed back to the hotel whilst Sharyn and I got some food to line our stomachs – we hadn`t eaten since the brunch at the Luxor – although I`m not sure the mess we got really counted as food.

As the time ticked on to 1am (which isn`t late in Vegas, I know!), we decided to head back to our hotels, making sad good-byes to one another. I would be seeing Sharyn, Lucy and Tamsyn tomorrow though, and we had an early-ish start to make the most of our time tomorrow. I fell into my bed, in the first hotel room I`ve had by myself in 7 months, and was instantly asleep …. Bliss!

Saturday May 28th

Despite saying we were going to sleep in, the normal group were up early. It didn’t help that I’d ‘roomed’ with Lucy, who had left before sunrise – she actually woke up at 3am, having not adjusted her clock to the new timezone!


At 8:30, 7 of us were shuttled into the Grand Canyon. Cassie dropped us off at the visitor’s centre, where we all caught the free shuttle down to Angel’s Trailhead, the most popular walking track at the Canyon. Leaving Tamsyn and Sharyn to walk at their own pace, the rest of us took off down the path.


The thing with the Grand Canyon is that you down first, then up. The heat at the bottom of the canyon is 25 degrees higher than at the top as well. There are heaps of signs along the track warning hikers to ensure they have plenty of water and food, and not to overdo it. Whilst we were on our way down, we felt fine – it was cool, it was downhill, no problem! As we got to the first resthouse, we decided to continue onto the second, another mile and a half done. Once there, we rested for about 20 minutes, and ran into Dave, who had woken to see sunrise and then trek to the bottom of the canyon. He told us it was ‘bloody hot’ at the bottom and he’d had to take a swim in the river to cool off.


Re-filling our drink bottles, Paula, Dave and I started for the top, whilst Amy and Brett decided to keep going to the bottom of the canyon. That’s when it started to get rough. It was hot – I’m guessing 35 degrees , in the middle of the day – and we were going uphill, nothing but step after step. There were a surprising variation in people still going down – even people with strollers (can you say stupid!) or overweight and unfit people who you knew were going to struggle to get back up. With my cold, I was having difficulty breathing anyway, so we were taking small short rests every 100m or so to recover.


Close to the top, we came across a tremendously stupid sight. A young girl (late teens) had gone off the trail, obviously to fetch something which had blown away. Consider this: next to the trail edge was a sheer cliff face, straight down to the canyon, and this girl was walking along this edge like it was no big deal. We couldn’t believe the stupidity!

Finally back at the top, we were sweating, exhausted, and hot, and demolished a Powerade each to put some salt and fluid back in us. Paula and I headed to the visitor’s centre and souvenir store to have a look whilst Dave headed back to camp, and then I separated from Paula to head back to the town as well. My first stop was McDonalds to get some junk into me – I was starving!!

After a quick rest in the tent, I headed to the laundry. Just about everything in my bag was dirty, and 2 hours later I emerged with some fresh clean clothes (2 washing machines and 3 dryers does not really work, especially when dryers take twice as long).

Back at the tents, the wind was gusting ridiculously strong – we heard reports it was 90-100km an hour. Cassie and the other Trek America leaders who were also at the ground decided it was unsafe for us to sleep in the tents, some of which had fallen and the tent poles had bent. The decision was that everyone would have to sleep underneath the concrete eating shelter – all 40 of us! (Luckily, before bed, a few of us were given permission to sleep in our tents as they’d weathered the storm – including mine – whilst the others slept in either the van or the trailer).


After an early dinner, we headed back into the National Park, taking pictures in front of the ‘Welcome to the Grand Canyon’ sign and watching the sun set. Halfway through sun set though, we all got bored. ‘Maybe if we start to walk back to the van, Cassie will follow us’ someone suggested. So that’s what we did, and Cassie did actually follow us!


Everyone was exhausted from a long day of hiking, but we still had to do a camp close-out – cleaning out eskies; counting cutlery and crockery; cleaning the tents etc. It was 10pm by the time we got to bed, and we had an early start, as we wanted to be on the road at 7:30am in order to get to Las Vegas by 2pm tomorrow.

Friday May 27th

I really wanted to sleep in this morning – after 6.5 hours’ sleep I awoke feeling terrible, thanks to this cold I just can’t shake. As the showers didn’t open until 7am, I first used the toilet block to put on my make-up before having breakfast. By this time, the showers were open and all 10 of us girls trotted down (thankfully, there were lots of showers – most campgrounds had only 1 or 2, if any at all!)


After our normal pack-up routine and morning briefing, Cassie drove us to a famous highway stop. From here, you could see miles of highway, and the mesas and buttes of the valley in the background. The area is recognisable from Forrest Gump (the scene where Forrest Gump gives up running), so of course everyone wanted to replicate the scene, running down (well, up) the road. We also had group shots of us jumping and planking (although not simultaneously!) in the middle of the highway.


There was a group of middle aged French bikies there, one of who ran into Sharyn’s photo. I said to Sharyn, ‘Let’s go over and get photos with their bikes!”, as the group was very friendly. They loved the idea, and had us up on the bikes, posing on them – even giving the digits of one of the younger bikers! It’s so random the people you meet and experiences you can share ….

After lunch in the car park, we were on the move again – this time, working on a craft project. Cassie had us all make a tinfoil crown, decorated in whatever fashion we desired. We then pulled into a carpark, and Cassie told us to put our tinfoil crowns over our heads, and proceeded to lead us down a rough, earthly path. I’m sure everyone was looking at us thinking, ‘what on earth?’

We had no idea where we were going – was it area 51? What aliens were there in this area? Finally, Cassie stopped us and told us to take off our masks. In front of us was – the Grand Canyon! What a magnificent view, made so much better by the grand reveal, as opposed to bit by bit. It felt like we’d just arrived onto the surface of another planet – the size of it was just amazing, as were the colours and the contours.

After a few minutes of being awe-struck, we started to take photos – planking, jumping, normal (although what’s the fun in that?) We didn’t have long though – we had a full day tomorrow to explore – as we had more important things to do. Like a helicopter ride!!


After quickly setting up our tents at the campground, the 7 of us that had signed-up for the chopper ride were ferried out to the airport. After signing in, being weighed, and reading the safety guidelines, our pilot called us out to the chopper. After a quick safety briefing, he positioned us all around the chopper according to weight (I scored the best seat – front right!). We were all miked up so we could hear the pilot give a running commentary of the canyon as we soared through the air.


It was definitely a completely different experience than flying in a plane; and you really got a ‘bird’s eye view’ of the Canyon, which is 16km in length as the crow flies but would take 5 hours to drive around. The flight was over way too quickly, and we were back on the ground in half an hour.


As we waited for the others to return from their flight, I purchased a couple of laminated maps – I’ll have to make a pit stop at the post office in Vegas now, as they definitely can’t continue on with me!

Lucy and I walked back to the campground via McDonalds, grabbing a shake to soothe our throats and some fries to quench our hunger pains. Whilst we were waiting for dinner to cook, I went down to the lobby to use the wi-fi, calling home and checking the news of the world.

After dinner of burgers, Cassie gave us a run-down of options for the next day. A few were keen on sunrise the next morning followed by a massive long hike (not me!), whilst the rest of us decided to head in at 8:30am.

Thursday 26th May

We were all so grateful for the sleep-in this morning - as we weren’t leaving until 10am, as opposed to our normal 8am, it meant we could sleep past 6:30am for the first time on the trip. The sunlight had us up reasonably early though, and we all enjoyed the hot showers (the bathroom was in a saloon theme).


It was sad to say good-bye to the ranch – the cowboys were all so friendly! – but that’s the way of this life, and I was excited for the afternoon ahead at Monument Valley. First though, we had a stop at Horseshoe Canyon. After a brief hike down some sand dunes, we reached an amazing sight. It’s hard to explain, but it was basically a rock monolith surrounded by a horse-shoe shaped body of water, with red-rock canyons framing each side. We took some more amazing photos, including planking photos, which are the group’s focus! We also took a small detour via Lake Powell again, where Cassie told us the story about a Trek America camper who cliff-jumped here several years ago and died.

After lunch in the carpark (only a yoghurt for me – the heat eliminates hunger), we had another few hours in the van before a pit-stop at Burger King. Not to buy fast-food (although we all indulged a little), but to look at the Navajo Museum which is inside the restaurant. The museum told the story of the Navajo code-breakers – Native Indians who had joined the US military in WWII, whose language proved impossible for the Japanese to decipher.


We pulled up at our campground for the night, which was a bed of red dust. It was supposed to be my night by myself , but as Tamsyn wanted to sleep in the van, Lucy and I bunked in together. It was only a short rest though, and after putting up our tents we were off to the Monument Valley Visitor’s Centre, where we met Richard, our Navajo guide , who was taking us on a 4WD tour of the valley.


Monument Valley was the main reason why I’d signed up for the trip, so I was super excited. The Valley is quite well known thanks to the numerous movies, commercials and music videos shot here. It’s a red desert landscape (complete with cactus!), with large red sandstone formations dispersed across the area. The ‘rocks’ are of various sizes, and with some imagination they can take on various shapes, such as elephants or Indian chiefs.


Over the 2.5 hour jeep trip, we had numerous photo opportunities and, as befits our group, lots of fun. By ‘fun’ I mean planking photos; photos on top of rocks requiring massive run-ups; and sliding down sand dunes, thus depositing red sand in crevices we never knew existed! Whilst in an ‘open’ cave (if that makes sense), Richard sang us several Navajo songs an played a traditional Navajo flute.


At 8:40, and with the sun almost set, it was time to move onto dinner. The campfire set the ambience, and the stars shined brightly in the night sky, not impacted by pollution. Dinner was a large Navajo ‘taco’ (more like a burrito) and soft drink. As we were the last group to eat, as soon as we’d finished the pow-wow began. It was very touristy, starting with a couple of native dances, but then everyone joined in. Each female had to take a male, and the chief had us recite some lines (for the females, ‘I promise not to cook firebread for any other man, as long as I do shall live’). After then saying ‘I do’, he pronounced us husband and wife!! (Of course, just jokingly – if not, I am now married to a 40 year old Japanese guy!)


After some more ceremony, we were taken back to the visitor’s centre carpark and then drove back to our campsite for the night.

Tuesday May 24th

A loud bus made for an extremely rude and early wake-up call at 5:15am, and after another hour of sleep we were up for our normal morning drill. In the car at 8:30, we had a few hours’ drive before a stop at a unique souvenir store, selling lots of Route 66 and Navajo Indians made products. I didn’t buy anything, but the others jostled with the Asian crowd already there to purchase souvenirs. Then it was onto a local market to stock up on supplies. The store was really in the middle of Hicksville, with gun shops and hat wearing cowboys, just like the movies!


We’d planned to get alcohol but the only alcohol store we could find was closed, despite our best efforts. Back on the road, we found a classic little stretch of road that had great items for photos, like a jail cell and those wooden cut-outs that you can stick your face in. That was right next to the ‘Welcome to Bryce Canyon’ sign, where we had a group photo and some flash planking photos (you have no idea what an addiction planking has become).


After lunch in the car park of Bryce Canyon, we had a few hours to walk the trails. Bryce Canyon was another spot none of us had really heard of, and is one of the smallest national parks in the US. It is known for its ‘hoodoo’ formations, which are almost like stalagmites made of red sandstone. Apparently they are formed because of the freezing and then unfreezing of the rocks, which results in cracks (the area has over 200 freezing days per year).There were lots of signs about warning us about rockfalls in the areas, so several paths were off limits, and I heard a ranger telling a couple that suicides were common here!



On the way to the campsite, Cassie took us to an odd-shaped rock, which looks like a man’s private parts. The others had some fun with their photos, but I was a good girl. The campsite tonight was a ‘primitive’ one – it wasn’t a real campsite with showers and electricity available. We had a drop toilet and a campfire pit, and that was it! After dinner of chilli, which my group cooked (I cooked the veggie version) we all tried to warm up (it was freezing!) by sitting around the campfire, telling stories, roasting s’mores and looking at the stars. This is real camping!!

Monday May 23rd

On our second morning in Zion, we awoke at the normal time so we could get an early start on the hike we had planned. After breakfast, 8 of us set out via shuttle to the national park. We alighted at the second last stop to start the Angels Landing hike. It was considered a strenuous hike but was only 5km long, although the last 600 metres was on a five foot wide path with sheer drops on either side!


The hike wasn’t as bad as expected for a ‘strenuous’ hike – we were all puffing, but the switchbacks made the incline relatively gentle. We stopped for photos at numerous times along the path, and then made it to the top of the first cliff, before the sheer terror of the five foot wide path began. Paula and I decided to sit it out – we’d already made it to the top of one cliff, how different could another one be?


The other six all safely made their way up and back in about an hour, showing us pictures of their planking and extreme push-ups (we really need to send them to the Herald Sun!) over lunch. As we made our way down, we found an extremely cool narrow switchback, so we all sat on a different wall and had our photo taken by a stranger (others were also taking photos of us, as it was a really cool look!) I then joined Mike and Lucy in running down the mountain – considering I had a backpack on, it was a decent effort!


It was about midday and we weren’t quite ready to head back into town, so we did decided to do a few of the easy hikes around the waterfalls that the others had done that morning. The waterfalls weren’t really that impressed, and about 2pm we caught the shuttle back to the visitor’s centre. After a quick look in the bookstore and souvenir store (where I bought the coolest ‘sand’ dome), we were too exhausted to hit up the town, only making it to the smoothie store within the park. I scored a chocolate milkshake which was divine (surprisingly, as Americans don’t really do milkshakes), whilst Lucy had a massive ice-cream sundae.


I was asleep on my feet on the way back to the campground, and as soon as I was back in the tent my head was on the pillow and asleep. I didn’t feel too crash hot either, which didn’t help. After a few hours’ sleep, I joined the rest of the gang for dinner, showered, did my laundry, and then returned to bed. (It’s so nice to have my own tent to return to!)

Sunday May 22nd

‘That’s what you get for waking up in Vegas’ … unfortunately we didn’t have any wild stories when we woke up that morning, but Katy Perry’s song still became our anthem for that morning. I woke up and checked the footy results and was instantly depressed - Adelaide had been up by 23 points at ¾ time and ended up losing by 42 to Collingwood! They always lose in the last quarter!

We ate breakfast in the hotel car park (I tried Honey Nut Cheerios for the first time) and then headed to a Vegas grocery store to stock up on supplies, as we would be out in the bush for the next few days. It was so funny the way we shopped – we all lined up, military style, and Amy would read out an item and the quantity for us to find within the store. Upon return, Amy would check the product, quantity, size and price against her check-list, and then place it in either the breakfast, lunch or dinner trolley. Can you believe there were even slot machines here?


We were finally on the road, this time heading to Zion National Park – back on schedule! We went through several states (Nevada and Arizona) before arriving into Utah and Zion National Park. We’d actually lost an hour due to the timezone change, so by the time we’d eaten lunch, put up our tents and unpacked the van it was near 5pm.


We all took the free park shuttle to the visitor’s centre, where Cassie gave us a run-down of the hikes available to do the next day. To be honest, none of us had even heard of Zion, but it was really beautiful – massive red sandstone formations, with different layers showing its creation over thousands of years.


The group took the free park shuttle to the last stop, then did a short 1.6 mile hike to the river. Along the way, we kept stopping at picturesque spots to plank (it has become an obsession of the group) and do extreme push-ups (I’m trying to start a new craze). By the time we got back to the campsite (which was now overrun by school kids), it was past 8pm. Most of the group stayed up to make s’mores around the campfire (an American tradition of toasted marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate, although we substituted the chocolate for Nutella) and then retired to our tents at 11pm. I had a tent all to myself, which made it the first night in 7 months that I had slept by myself (in a purely innocent sense of course – no bunk bed, no dorm, no shared hotels, no shared tents!)

Saturday May 21st

After a quality (read sarcasm) night’s sleep in the van, we were awake less than six hours later. Everyone straggled out of bed looking like zombies, making their way to the bathrooms. Fortunately, these showers were quality – good pressure and hot water – so we revelled in the luxury!
Breakfast was next, but no one was in a hurry to pack-up. For starters, we didn’t have a plan for the day. Our itinerary had been thrown into disarray after our sudden stop, and Cassie had to work out with the office where our next stop would be, taking into consideration things like how many hours she was legally allowed to drive. As such, everyone hung around the camp, doing their laundry, writing in their diaries, or enjoying the sun. After learning that Lucy also loved High School Musical, we started doing karaoke and acting out the scenes from the movies. This lead to a little girl, who lived in a RV nearby, coming over to me. “I heard you singing”, she said. “I love High School Musical too!” Lucy, the little girl and I all had a sing along, of which I think there is photographic and possibly video evidence – at least we entertained the residents!


At 11am we were back in van #2, which we were christening ‘Officer Petty’, who had now taken on legend status within the group. Our first stop was to pick-up a new windscreen wiper blade, but as we started on the road, the van wouldn’t go more than 20mph. Cassie told us how the van hadn’t start last night when she was at the Ford dealership. Uh oh ….


We made lunch in the Denny’s carpark (yes, the same Denny’s as the night before), whilst Cassie made a few more phone calls to get us a new van. It was then that she revealed this was actually her first tour as a leader … and what a great one it was! (We all tried to tell her it wasn’t her fault, and these mishaps were actually adding to the experience!) Looking at another long wait, she managed to get us into the pool at the nearby America’s Best Value Inn, keeping us cool and out of the soaring heat.

At 4pm, the new van (#3!) had arrived, so we attempted to leave Bakersfield again. Now our plans to visit Cathedral Gorge had been completely wiped, the new plan was to get to Las Vegas about 400km away, where we were being treated to motel rooms!


After a few hours in the van, we stopped off at a random park to have dinner, and then a second pit-stop for gas and snacks at the world’s largest thermometer. We were now officially in Nevada, and the change was dramatic. There were casinos everywhere, with bright lights and themed hotels, and we weren’t even in Las Vegas yet! Lucy had purchased some fun stickers to decorate the van with -> including stickers with phrase like, “Hello, I’m Easy” and “Hello, I’m Desperate” (that was mine!)

It was close on 10pmm when we finally rolled into Las Vegas, and what a spectacular to behold! ‘The Strip’ is amazing, and a lot wider than I expected. We were all so excited as we passed each of the famous hotels – Luxor with its pyramids; the MGM Grand; the Stratosphere etc. The billboards had us just as excited as well - $28.95 for accommodation and buffet? The Blue Man Show, Human Nature, Cirque de Soleil?

We were staying in a cheap hotel (the Best Western) off the strip. None of us were keen to go out, given our lack of sleep and long days – plus we’d be back in a week! (If we had of arrived earlier, Glee’s debut concert of their summer tour had kicked off that night, whilst tomorrow night was the Billboard Music Awards!

We were each handed our hotel keys – I was rooming with Sharon – and headed to the rooms. The rooms were soooo huge – we actually had our own room with a double bed each. I was so exhausted though – after ringing to get the internet code (to watch the Crows match), I took out my contacts for the first time on this trip and fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow!