Southwestern USA, February 10. - 19. 2019

The decision to go to the USA came quite randomly. We were thinking about a cruise first, but staying closed in a ship for several days and having only limited time in each destination, did not really appeal to us. We needed more adventure, being able to take a detour whenever we felt like it, having more freedom... Our initial plan was San Francisco - Los Angeles - Las Vegas - Grand Canyon, but it would have been too busy. We always have to consider that the French school holidays last two weeks and the children need a couple of days to get over the jet lag before going back to school. Skipping school for travelling is very much frowned upon at my children's school. So we dropped San Francisco and bought return tickets to Los Angeles with Air France/KLM. We also needed an ESTA for the USA. I thought it might take some time and applied for ours in November, but already in 10 days we received the approval for our ESTAs valid for two years.

Los Angeles

The flight from Nice to Amsterdam was a little late and we initially only had 1h 10 mins between flights, now reduced to 45 minutes, so we seriously raced through Amsterdam Schiphol and were the last ones to get on the plane for the 11-hour flight to LA.

 

The flight route passed over a corner of Greenland

On our arrival to Los Angeles, we were greeted by a long line of passport control. It would have been a couple of hours wait, but we managed to skip some of it. We were not so lucky at the luggage pick up - Johnny's luggage had been left behind in Amsterdam and was arriving the next day.

We chose to rent a car for the whole period of our stay and took a shuttle bus just outside the airport exit to pick up our car from Hertz. Car rental was not expensive in USA and we got a Ford Escape SUV with full insurance for around 300 euros.

For the first three nights we had rented an apartment in Los Angeles, just off the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The owner of the apartment sent me an email with a code of a locker box in a bar close to the apartment, that was where we picked up the keys. The apartment was spacious, with an open kitchen/living room area and a bedroom with two double beds. It also included a parking spot in the underground garage. Although we were tired and jetlagged, we wanted to see the amazing city we had just arrived to and went for a stroll around.

Dolby Theatre, the Oscars venue 

Oscars for everyone

 Hollywood Walk of Fame

The next morning we were up early (around 4 am, in fact), because the time difference with France is 8 hours, and at around 5 in the morning we decided to go for a walk and look for some coffee. In these early hours the Walk of Fame had a different crowd - some people were very likely high on something and there were lots of homeless sleeping on the street. It didn't feel dangerous though. We learned that the nearest Starbucks opened at 6, got our coffees and made plans for the coming day. The sun was rising and it was looking like a nice day so our first spot was the Hollywood sign in Griffith park. The rush hour traffic in LA is crazy and by starting early, we just managed to avoid it. The Hollywood sign is situated in Griffith park, in the Hollywood Hills area. There were hiking trails going up to the sign, we took a trail and walked a bit higher up and watched the skyline of the city in the rising sun and crisp morning air.

We continued to Beverly Hills, where we went a little walk around and had some breakfast (that felt like lunch to us). We also recorgnized several places we had only seen in the movies before.

Our day carried on with a visit to Santa Monica beach and pier. The weather had gotten warm and we left our jackets in the car. In the car park near the beach the kids noticed hummingbirds - a first time seeing them for all of us. At the end of the Santa Monica pier was a young man playing guitar and singing a country music song. We listened, sitting in the warm sunshine, enjoying the beautiful day and fresh ocean air - a perfect day. We also drove a bit towards Malibu, to see the beach there and the villas, one crazier and bigger than the other, on the hills facing the ocean.

Although it was not too late, our body clock was still in a different time zone and it was best to take it easy for the rest of the day. We decided to get the best use of the full kitchen in our apartment and were looking for a supermarket to get some groceries for dinner and for breakfast the next mornings. After visiting a supermarket called Target we might have gotten an idea why fast food is so popular in the USA. We usually try to eat fresh and organic at home and we realized doing so in America could be quite costly. Our supermarket bill of food for dinner - raviolis and tomato sauce, sandwich bread and stuff to prepare sandwiches (all organic), some fruit, breakfast stuff, juice and snacks like cereal bars and nuts) came close to 90 dollars, while the night before our takeaway from Panda Express costed around 20. 

We spent the whole next day in Universal Studios Hollywood film studio and theme park. It is one of the oldest and most famous Hollywood film studios still in use, together with the oldest Universal Studios theme park of all the ones existing in the world. It was easy to get there from our apartment - it was only a couple of subway stops away and like this we managed to avoid the parking fees of the theme park. We also chose to visit during the week (Wednesday) and found the park pretty empty, maximum queues were maybe 15-20 minutes long. At the park it was possible to take an hour long tram ride through the back of the theme park to the studios, where the actual filming of many shows and movies takes place, at the same time visiting the sets of already made movies - the crashed plane set from War of the Worlds, Whisteria lane of the Desperate Housewives, sets of Jurassic Park... We could also see how the special effects like floods or earthquakes were created.

Then, of course, there were all the rides and characters to meet and high quality shows, the main attraction to my kids being the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It was not just the rides in the Universal Sudios Park that were cool, but the whole park with its attention to the smallest details (houses, shops, costumes...), interactive characters, every "world" that was different (Simpsons, Jurassic, Harry Potter, Transformers etc), the shows with crazy special effects and stunts.  All-in-all, it was an interesting and fun filled day.

 

 

We were leaving the LA the next morning, taking a four-hour drive through the Mojave desert to Las Vegas.

Las Vegas

We started the drive towards Las Vegas early, around 7am. Once leaving the city of Los Angeles behind us, the houses and urban landscape were giving way to big open spaces and after about an hour's drive there was only desert around us. The road was not busy at all, sometimes we did not see other cars for several kilometers and when we were about an hour from Las Vegas, we took a smaller side route to wander around a bit in the Mojave desert and see the joshua trees.

We arrived Las Vegas a bit too early to check in to our hotel, so we decided to go and check out the famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop featured in the show the Pawn Stars. The kids had watched it quite a lot and it was cool for them to check out the real place. Just by chance we also met Chumlee, one of the main persons of the show. 

We wanted to stay right on the Las Vegas Strip, in the middle of it all and so we had opted for the Palazzo at the Venetian Resort (after finding a good deal for it on Priceline). It is one of the grand palaces of Las Vegas and staying there was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We were staying in a two queen bed suite, a spacious room with two double beds and a separate sunken living room area.The beds were super comfortable and the bathroom was nice and large. The resort has been made to look like Venice - the architecture, canals with gondolas, bridges, cobblestone streets... The whole Venetian/Palazzo complex was just grand (being the second largest hotel complex in the world), it was possible to walk around hours without stepping outside and we did get lost in there several times. The specific characteristic of Las Vegas is that most of the life is going on indoors, probably for the extreme heat outdoors for the summer - there are the casinos, of course, but every big resort also has huge indoor spaces with shops, restaurants, squares with the sky painted in the ceiling to make it look like outdoors. Many of the big resorts copy the famous destinations in the world -Venice, ancient Rome, Paris, New York, Egypt...  It is possible to walk around in the hotels without being a guest there, the casinos are always open for everyone over 21 anyway, just the guests-only areas where the rooms are, have a keycard only access. At the Palazzo we had to walk through the casino to reach the lifts taking to the rooms. There was a wider walkway through that the kids could also take, they could just not go between the tables or slot machines.

 Our room at the Palazzo and the corridor leading to it

 

Lobby at the Palazzo

 

One of the squares inside the Venetian

 

The Venetian from outside

 

The Las Vegas main street (actually the 6.8 km stretch of South Las Vegas Boulevard), is called the Las Vegas Strip. Many of the largest hotel, casino, and resort properties in the world are on the Strip, known for its contemporary architecture, lights, and wide variety of attractions. Its hotels, casinos, restaurants, residential high-rises, entertainment offerings, and skyline have established the Strip as one of the most popular and iconic tourist destinations in the world and is one of the driving forces for Las Vegas' economy (source: Wikipedia). We loved the famous musical fountain show in front of Bellagio Hotel and watched it several times, because the music and the show were different every time we saw it.

 

Bellagio

 

  

Inside the Cesar's Palace

When in Las Vegas, we had to try our luck in the famous casinos while the kids stayed in the hotel room watching TV. We did try, had fun, but were left only with cool memories and empty pockets... Actually it was crazy seeing people already sitting in front of the slot machines pushing the buttons at 7am while I was going to get my coffee. Some of them had probably been there the whole night. One thing we understood in Las Vegas was that you either lose money or you spend the money, but with so much to see and do, the money stays in Las Vegas.

The two days of the crazy bling-bling of Las Vegas passed quickly. The only regret we have is that we did not have enough time to go to watch a show. While in Las Vegas we did not use the car at all and walked everywhere, it was time to get in the car again and to take off towards Arizona.

Sedona, the Grand Canyon and around

The drive from Las Vegas to Sedona takes approximately 4 and a half hours. We had chosen a small town Sedona as our next destination, because it is famous for its beautiful landscape and it is a bit under two hours away from the Grand Canyon.

The first stop on the way, just about an hour from Las Vegas, was the Hoover Dam, a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border of Nevada and Arizona. It offered beautiful views on the river, the canyon and the nature around. We also entered a state of Arizona and it meant a different time zone - we gained an hour.

 

Feeling adventurous, we decided to take another detour and follow the Route 66 for some time instead of the regular highway. It made our journey about an hour longer, but it was really worth it. The road was mostly empty and we also had a "pit stop" at the small petrol station for a bite to eat. The Route 66 also passed Peach Springs, probably the prototype for the town of Radiator Springs of the Cars cartoon.

We started to notice more and more snow at the sides of the road when we got closer to Flagstaff, a town not far from the Grand Canyon. We turned south from Flagstaff, towards Sedona, the road taking us through the Oak Greek Canyon. As we were getting closer to Sedona, the snow disappeared again.

The Oak Creek Canyon at the top part

 

The Oak Creek Canyon at the bottom

"Multi-hued stone formations jut upwards from the high desert floor creating a vivid, mesmerizing setting that changes hourly with the light. When USA Weekend compiled their Most Beautiful Places in America list, Sedona claimed the top spot. Surrounded by nearly 2 million acres of national forest land, visitors have instant access to recreational activities. Trails for hiking and biking, along with bouncy jeep tracks, weave among the bristling forest of pinnacles, spires, buttes and domes. Yet, you’re never far from the indulgences of town. Sedona is equal parts rugged, equal parts resort. Regarded by Native Americans as sacred, Sedona continues to be recognized as a place of healing and spiritual renewal. Many come to experience the vortex energy centers of Sedona" (source: VisitSedona).  Learning all this about Sedona before our visit, and then actually experiencing it, was amazing. Our only regret is that we did not have time to stay longer. We chose to stay in the Poco Diablo resort, a hotel close to town center, with breathtaking views. We stayed in a spacious room with two double beds.

Open air fireplace at the Poco Diablo resort

 

Sedona views

In Sedona we picked out an Italian restaurant from Tripadvisor, thinking of having a nice meal. For us, used to the Italian restaurants in Italy, the experience was...interesting. Chicken parmigiana, Caesar salad, spaghetti meatballs, Alfredo sauce - definitely not found in a typical restaurants in Italy. My Caesar salad was ok, but the kids found their pasta overcooked in their spaghetti and meatballs and so did Johnny in his chicken parmigiana. And the portions were huuuuge...

The next morning we started early to go to visit the Grand Canyon. It was a crisp frosty morning but the sun was shining and it was looking like a nice day. We drove again through the Oak Creek Canyon - it had snowed at night and the scenery looked beautiful. We decided to take the route through Williams and come back via Cameron. The arrival to the Grand Canyon National Park greeted us with the snow. We paid the fee (35 dollars per car) and carried on towards Mather Point, one of the main viewpoints near the Grand Canyon Village. We could only visit the South Rim of the canyon, the North Rim is usually closed in the winter (and it was too far to drive to anyway). The Grand Canyon is absolutely breathtaking - we were also lucky to have a sunny weather but still snow and -1 degrees C temperature. We drove west first through the village, stopping at different viewpoints (the view is not the same from everywhere) until the Hopi Point, then hiked about a kilometer, and started driving back east, still making several stops on the way. The route back to Sedona took us through Kaibab National Forest and we saw deer in several occasions.

When we were checking out of the hotel in Sedona the next morning, the receptionist told us that going north that day was a bad idea - there was a snowstorm coming and several roads, including the one going to the Grand Canyon, would have been closed. We were so lucky to have visited it the day before! We did not want to drive all the way to Los Angeles and decided to stop in Palm Springs for a night, still nearly 6 hours away from Sedona. The route took us through hills, forests and, of course, desert. It was long, but made us realize the vastness and space in the US. We could drive tens of kilometers without seeing any other cars... We also crossed the border from Arizona to California and arrived back to the Pacific Time Zone.  

Desert landscapes

 

Palm Springs is a nice touristy town, famous for its mild climate and numerous resorts. Our hotel for this night was called the Renaissance Palm Springs. The hotel was situated a short walk from the center and we had a nice room with two double beds. We arrived in the evening and just had time to go for a dinner in town before going to bed.

A drink at the hotel lobby before dinner

 

View from our room at the Renaissance Palm Springs

 

Our next day started with a breakfast in a traditional American Diner. The portions were huge again, the coffee refilled as soon as the mug was empty and the kids loved their pancakes and French toast. After a filling meal, too much coffee and a little stroll we were heading to the Desert Hills Premium Outlet, an enormous shopping mall on the way from Palm Springs to Los Angeles. We spent the whole morning and early afternoon browsing the stores there and did not manage to visit even half of it.

At the Diner

Arriving back to the LA. We would have been completely lost without the GPS

 

For our last night in the USA, we stayed at the Westin Los Angeles Airport Hotel. As our flight back to France was leaving late afternoon, we decided to have breakfast and spend the morning at Venice beach. Venice Beach is a lively colourful area of Los Angeles with a beautiful boardwalk along the beach. 

 My veggie breakfast burrito

Venice beach

We loved the USA for the easiness to travel around, being spoiled for choice of things to see and do, the vastness of it, friendly people... This brief but so full trip left us with the feeling of wanting to experience more. We have several other road trips in mind already and we will definitely be back in America.