Leg 3 Rob and Cheryl's NARVO - Grand Canyon 

to San Francisco

Day 14 – 16, April 27^th – 29^th , Trailer Village, Grand Canyon, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada ( 282/2950 miles) – Canyons to Casinos

We left Grand Canyon around 9am and headed back on the road. We stopped along the way to pick up maps and propane and then hit the road proper, heading west on the I-40 after a short way. The scenery was most un-Arizona like – quite forested and a little hilly. The I–40 was full of trucks, the road not great and the wind was blowing in hard gusts, so the drive wasn’t that pleasant. It seems we had inadvertently stumbled onto the much fabled Route 66 as we kept uncovering reference to it.

 We knew we’d be passing Hoover Dam but really had no idea what we’d find. When we did get there, we were surprised at the number of people visiting the dam wall, overlook viewing sites and information centre. Unfortunately the only parking that worked for the RV was way up the hill on the far side, so we couldn’t face the thought of a long walk down and then back up the steep hill back to the RV. We did though go halfway down to a lookout and enjoyed the view and then had some lunch when we got back to the RV.

After Hoover Dam we stopped in at a Visitor Welcome Center where they gave us the low down on what to do in Vegas if we were not drinking, gambling or cavorting. No doubt they had dealt with weirdos like us before, because they were actually very helpful, right down to a bus schedule to get to and from our RV campsite.

On the approach to Las Vegas we very impressed with the way the City had clearly made a big effort to build everything in earth colours and in keeping with the area being in “one of the harshest deserts in the world”, supposedly. There was not a blade of grass or litter to be found anywhere near the freeways. 



We pulled into the Oasis RV Campsite late afternoon and were blown away by the grandeur of the place. We felt like we were checking into a five star hotel. We’ve never seen anything like it and it has been the RV equivalent of staying in one of those grand hotels downtown on the Las Vegas Strip. What a treat – thank you Lord.

The next day we navigated the bus system to the “Strip” to begin our LV adventure. It’s hard to describe how we felt as we approached the area. The sheer size, glamour and glitz of it all was quite overwhelming, but in a good way.

Each hotel/casino had a different theme. The creativity and dollars that have been poured into these places is on a grand scale. I love it when things are done really well and this exceeded my expectations. We were expecting to be having to fend off a variety of snake oil salesman of various shapes and sizes but fortunately this was not the case. About the most unpleasant thing was that smoking indoors is clearly allowed, which wasn’t great, but we survived.

On the second day, yesterday. we were doing a show in the evening so took it easy in the morning at the RV park and then made our way down to the big smoke and did more of the same. We had a wonderful day, wrapping it up with a trip to The Venetian, which depicts Venice, Italy. Having just visited Venice, 9 months ago we marvelled at what a good job they had done of recreating the atmosphere. Wonderful. We ended our day with a Cirque Du Soleil show called “Love” which was based on the Beatles music. It had been highly recommended. It was very different, but the music was outstanding and the performers exceptional.

People along the Way – I was on a photo mission, while Cher was picking up a couple of souvenirs. I saw a young couple approaching me over a traffic light and they stopped right beside me. Both were carrying beers in their hands and were looking and sounding merry. The guy made a comment to the girl, saying “one day when we get married…..”. The girl suddenly went quiet and then said to him “Did you say that we’re going to get married one day?”. He sort of chuckled and dodged and weaved a bit. I turned to her and said “It sounded like a proposal to me, you’d better get him to sign off on it now” At that they both packed up with laughter and they continued on their way and I on my photo mission.

So we are now turning our sights on moving towards San Francisco to meet our friends Dave and Delia Russel from South Africa at the end of the week. They will be joining us for 4 – 5 weeks. En route we will be visiting Death Valley and Yosemite National Parks, so it’s back to the wilds for us for a few days.

Day 17 – 18, April 30^th –  May 1^st , Las Vegas, Nevada  to Furnace Creek Ranch, Death Valley, California (160/3112 miles) – Glitz to Gates of Death

We had a lazy start to our day, leaving Las Vegas. It was raining hard – go figure, it hardly ever rains in Las Vegas, and we had a few chores to get done before we left. So after a trip to the grocery store we left around midday and had an easy drive en route to Death Valley NP which straddles the border between Nevada and California.

The scenery became increasingly bleak and desolate, giving way to a dry and vegetation-less mountain range made up varied hues, colours and types of rock. We were on back roads, so we crossed the State line into California without any fanfare and before long arrived at our campsite, a little oasis in the desert. When Cher had done our research on campsites in this area the NP ones just looked like gravel parking lots, not a tree or building in site – as it turns out that is exactly what they are. So for a little extra money we booked into the Furnace Creek campsite which only has 12 sites on offer, but we lucked out, as it happens we had checked into a resort, complete with golf course, swimming pool, tennis courts, three restaurants and enough hotel accommodation set amongst beautiful green lawns, to sink a battleship. Out here in this bleak wilderness we felt we had died and gone to heaven.

 Death Valley NP is an interesting place. Outside of Alaska it is the largest National Park in the USA. It has magnificent topography, but it’s two main claims to fame are the fact that it has the highest recorded temperature on the planet at 57 degrees in 1913. Added to that where we were staying, down in the valley, it is about 150 to 200 feet below sea level. There is a clever geological reason why that is the case, but my eyes glaze over with understanding some of that stuff.

Today we were a bit limited in the sightseeing we could do in the park as many of the roads are limited to vehicles 25 feet and under and we are about 35 feet when we factor in the bikes on the back. We were fine with that as we had no desire to be stuck halfway up a mountain pass not being able to make a turn. So this morning we visited a couple of lookouts, walked down a canyon and then did a trip to a salt lake and walked out onto to it. Quite impressive. By midday the temperature was up in the mid 30’s so we went and sat on the verandah of the Furnace Creek Inn and enjoyed a cold drink. After lunch we did a bit more sightseeing and ended back at our campsite, chilling in the aircon, reading our books and having a snooze. We ended our day reading our books around the pool and then watched the sun go down while we enjoyed a BBQ.

Tomorrow is a lot of driving as we make our way over to Yosemite NP, so we’ll be early to bed and early to rise.

Day 19 - 21 May 2^nd  to 4th, Death Valley, California to Yosemite National Park (614/3726 miles) – Contrasts in Extremes

Day 19 - We set off from Death Valley (Day 19) at around 6am to get a head start on the day and had the road mainly to ourselves for a while. We hadn’t realised that we would have to do a big climb out of the valley to get back to more normalised altitudes. We had a choice of short and beautiful, but very steep, or longer and straighter. We stopped at a roadside café where the owner was serving breakfast to about 50 bikers who had just rolled in. He assured us that steep and beautiful was the way to go and so up we went. I have actually been quite impressed at how handily my Beautiful Baby manages the uphills, so it was no problem. We had breakfast at “Father Crowley’s Lookout”. He was a well-respected Catholic clergyman in the 1930s and he had chosen this spot as his favorite viewing point for Death Valley.

We emerged at the top to find desert and more desert for miles and miles. We had to skirt around the Sierra Nevada mountains on the south side. This entailed going up some modest mountains. As we did the desert turned to oasis and we passed through rolling green hills and the beginnings of farmland. At the top we were back into semi arid area but from there on it was mile after mile of citrus crops, vineyards and potatoes. We had a random lunch stop at a stop off of the freeway and found we had stumbled into Mexico by mistake right down down to the El Toro Supermardo where we did some top up grocery shopping.

As we approached Yosemite the scenery became a lot softer with gentle rolling hills and lots of lush grassland. Once into Yosemite the drive was steep and precipitous but very pretty. The one scar on the landscape was the proliferation of mainly Ponderosa Pines which had died as a result of the two year drought which has just broken. We pulled into our campsite around 5pm and very quickly had to adjust to the fact that we had no hookups and we were limited from using our generator to a couple of times a day. Whew, what an adjustment – we were taken back to the days of our youth when we thought doing without those things was great. We were however perched right on the banks of the river and the ranger had told us to help ourselves to whatever firewood we could find in the woods around, so of course a campfire was in order.

People along the way – we noticed that our neighbor was a young single guy who had just had what had to have been a freezing swim in the river – no showers in the campsite. He was eating Coke and chips for dinner before heading to bed in his minute one man tent, so Cher went over and invited him to join us for supper. Turns out he was French and had been doing a co-op placement with a California vineyard as he is studying wine making and marketing in France. He was at the end of his time and doing a last look at the USA before heading back home. He confided in us that his parents had split up while he was away and have both since found themselves extra partners in that short space of time. He was really cut up about this and we told him we would pray for him, for which he was very appreciative. 

Day 20 - As we were considering our options for Yosemite NP our other camping neighbor suggested we visit Glacier Point before we visited the main Yosemite Valley where the crowds flock to. This is a lookout perched up high above the Valley and gives a bird’s eye view of the big picture. My goodness are we glad we took his advice. We set out for a long uphill drag but about 10 miles short of our destination we had to stop as the road could only handle vehicles of 30 feet or less. We had met a group of three women from the Czech Republic on the way up. They were doing a five week camping trip in the USA in a converted Chrysler van called a Jucy. It is the size of a regular van, has a pop up lid, sleeps four and has a kitchen and fridge - go figure.

Anyway we hitched a ride with these three crazy ladies, Verna, Zena and Zena, who took us to the top, where we did a whistle-stop photo tour in about half an hour. The views were absolutely outstanding. This is their sixth or seventh year they have done a trip like this. I asked them if they missed their husbands while on these trips. The answer was an emphatic and unapologetic “No” – didn’t even elicit a chuckle and they didn’t bat an eyelid. I dropped the subject.

Day 21 - Today,, our last day in Yosemite, we had saved the best to last and took the one hour winding drive up and then down into the Yosemite Valley proper. All I can say is that the views were truly magnificent and awe inspiring. Our first view overlooking the Bridal Falls and Yosemite Valley literally took our breath away. The combination of waterfall, forest, huge cliffs and massive granite outcrops was stunning. Enough said – God has done a wonderful thing in this place. We spent the day visiting a number of waterfalls, doing a couple of fairly strenuous hikes and then left the park and began the trip towards San Francisco.

The drive was beautiful as we came up and then out of the Yosemite Valley eventually emerging into miles of lovely green grassland with cattle grazing peacefully. We were looking for a Wal Mart parking lot to sleep in, with no success and have eventually settled for a Save Mart parking lot in Oakdale, about 100 miles short of San Francisco. Here’s hoping the police don’t come knocking in the middle of the night.

Tomorrow we will make our way into the SF area and will do some exploring before stopping for a three day stopover with Cher’s niece Deanne and husband Lach. Lach works for Facebook – a non techie, he writes speeches for Cheryl Sandberg who is the COO for the company. 

Day 22 and 23 May 5^th to 6th, Oakdale, CA to San Francisco CA  (149/3875 miles) – The Big Smoke

Day 22 – To thank them for letting us sleep in their parking lot, we did some groceries at the Save Mart before getting on our way around 10.30am. The pace of traffic picked up considerably as we got closer in to SF, but were still on country roads, with lots of agriculture around us and stopped at a farm stall to pick up some cherries which looked good. The roads, including freeways that we drove on, in and around SF were bumpy, patched and potholed. So far California wins the prize for the worst cared for roads we’ve driven on. Up until now Michigan has held that title.

We had a couple of hours in hand, before we needed to check in with Deanne and so decided to go and find the Pacific Ocean. We couldn’t believe how hilly it was getting there – like a roller coaster ride. When we got to our chosen beach, the nice man at booth wanted to charge us $20 to park for an hour and have our lunch. We declined and went to the next beach down where we parked for $2. Our lunch digested better that way. The beach was long, with quite high cliffs and wouldn’t you know it, but a posse of horses and riders came by, so it felt a bit like we’d arrived on a movie set. 

People along the way - While we were having our lunch at the RV a group of 7 or 8 young Chinese couples came roaring in, each driving a bright red, yellow or black sports car. Each car had a label attached to the side - “Roadster Touring Team, Beijing”.  They reversed their vehicles into the parking lot side by side in a long line. Almost immediately some of the girls got out and began posing on the hoods of the cars while the guys took photos. They all just hung around taking a smoke break. The one guy got into his car and started doing donuts in the parking lot, stopping his spin a couple of feet from our RV. At that Cheryl leaped out of the RV and blasted them to kingdom come and halfway back, at which point the one guy came up and apologised.   was cowering in the corner. One doesn't mess with any potential Triad types. They then all piled back into their cars and took off with guns blazing and throttles roaring. Once again we felt like we’d stumbled into a movie set – it was a bit surreal. We suspect they are probably the kids of wealthy Chinese folks, over here blowing off a bit of steam – they seemed harmless enough. I guess in California, such things are to be expected.

After that excitement we headed out to Deanne and Lach’s house where we were warmly greeted by Deanne, Jake and Dylan. We had seen them all just a couple of months ago in South Africa for Cher’s Mom’s birthday, so the kids remembered us which was nice. They were thrilled to see our RV and there is talk of a “sleepover” with us tonight – we’ll see if that materializes. They live in a beautiful house with a lush and gorgeous garden. We spent the evening settling in and catching up with each other’s news.

Day 23 – today is our catch up day before we connect with Dave and Delia. It’s a do laundry, clear emails and clean the RV kind of a day. We have had to re-arrange the interior storage a bit to make sure Dave and Delia have somewhere to put all of their stuff when they join us on Sunday.

Dave and Delia are long-time friends of ours from South Africa. We ran Sunday School together 35 years ago, did Holiday Clubs (VBS) for a number of years, and Delia and I have both worked for Scripture Union for a number of years. We have kept in touch ever since. We have been talking to them about doing a trip like this for a number of years and now it is upon us. They will be with us for the next month or so, including our Alaskan cruise and the Canadian Rockies.