Another trip, another desert! This time we will cross the Mojave, as Cedric has two events in Las Vegas: CinemaCon, the conference for cinema people, and NAB, the biggest tradeshow in the world for everything regarding media. They are only 2 days apart so we want to make the most of it and have a great adventure!

Day 1

First we move all of our gear into the storage and pack only what we need into the car. We found a Hyundai Ioniq on Turo, it’s a hybrid car like a Prius.

The ride is beautiful, we have a stop to walk around a landscape that just looks like Moon craters.

Next stop is in Shoshone, which is still in California. It’s a small town, but they have an Opear House, a Museum, a General Store and a café, the famous Crowbar.

On the way out, we stop for another walk, the rocks look very special, we’re getting closer to the Death Valley.

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We arrive in Pahrump, Nevada later in the afternoon, we stay in a hotel/casino. Olivine and Basile go to the pool and we end up for another Mexican restaurant.

Day 2

It wasn’t even 7 o’clock when the four of us were in the bed and all excited about getting to the Death Valley. We’d start with a good American Breakfast in the local favorite, Mom’s Diner. Here there’s no such thing as veggie omelette or gluten-free anything, but we find our way and have our bellies filled for a good start.

Our first stop on the way is to climb a hill made of rocks and sand; surrealistic landscapes

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The drive in the park is long but we can’t really feel it, so many different colours. We stop some times to walk and look around us. There are evaporated lakes that leave a crust of salt.

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Next stop in the Devil’s Corn field, called like that because the plants look like bundle of corn stalks. There are sand dunes that are really hot, even at that time of the year, it’s already almost burning our feet, that place must feel like hell during summer time, hence the name.

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On the way to Badwater on the other side of the park, we stop to see the Artist’s Palette, a place where the metal oxydes in the rocks show crazy colours.

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Last point here is Badwater, the lowest point in North America, at 85.5 meters below sea level. On the way to the hotel we have a stop for picnic. There are some nice caterpillars and ants around, as well as beautiful flowers. There’s a lot of life in the desert.

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Day 3

After another night in Parhump, we are leaving to Las Vegas. The road is crossing the desert, with small towns here and there, that must be something to be a teenager in that part of the country. We stop in Red Canyon, a beautiful set of mountains right by Las Vegas. That makes me realise that there’s many thing you can do around Las Vegas even if you don’t like night life and casinos, many people hike and cycle around.

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We then arrived in Vegas, going down the Strip and having a first look at the crazy hotels and casinos. We dropped our gear in the BnB before grabbing some food and going for groceries, then going for a first night in the crazy city.

Day 4

First day of CinemaCon for Cedric, first trip across the city for Olivine, Basile and Corinne on their scooters. The hotels are very different, it feels like a giant theme park made with real concrete. Olivine is taking pictures of all the details, she loves the Roman statues at the Caesars Palace and the Egyptian hieroglyphs at the Luxor. Once they’re done with their visits, they go at the BnB’s pool that is really cold, but they love it!

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Day 8

After 3 days we’re going back on the road to go East; we have a stop at Hoover Dam before going to to Meadview. It’s impressive to see how many variations of desert landscapes we have along the road. Also interesting to see local recreational activities, from shooting machine guns to driving buggies in the desert. We see a lot of RVs and huge camper vans behind pickup trucks on the road.

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We have a stop in Dolan Springs for some drinks and visiting local shops.

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The trip to Meadview is really interesting, we see mailboxes of the places around grouped together for the postman. Once arrived, we do the hotel check-in before getting to the lake. There are some boats but the place is very quiet. As the sun is going down, the sky is getting more colourful, the way back to the hotel is just magic.

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Day 9

Meadview is quite close to the South West entrance of the Grand Canyon. The Hualapai, the Native American tribe that manages the site, is expanding that side of the Grand Canyon with brand new roads and infrastructures. There’s an airport, and I guess we’ll see hotels and casinos pretty soon. There are shops selling products mostly made in China. Previously that part of the Canyon was accessible by car, but now the cars stay at the entrance and busses drive us from spot to spot. There are also helicopters tours that sell well, there are always about 10 of them taking of or landing around. The view over the canyon is very impressive, the place is very unique. There’s so much a camera can capture, the challenge there being the immensity.

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On the way out we stop at a ranch where there’s a restaurant, cabins and horseback rides. No much chance for us at the very burger centric restaurant, so we just say hi to the horses and take a couple of pictures before going back to Dolan Springs to get an idea of the local cuisine (don’t get there just for that…)

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Back in Las Vegas, we go to the old part of town where there are nicer cafés and restaurant while they made an attraction out of old hotels, in Fremont street. We eat at a vegan restaurant, VegeNation, before getting to our new AirBnB.

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Day 10

Another week-end in Vegas as Cedric is attending the NAB show, the biggest convention for TV and Cinema in the world. Some more hotel visits, Corinne, Olivine and Basile trying all kid compatible activities around. We take a night out to go see Ka by Cirque du Soleil, a beautiful show.

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Day 13

We were supposed to go to Zion National Park, but it’s very cold over there, so we decide to stay another couple of days in Vegas, at the Circus Circus, and old hotel that has a recreation park inside and a nice pool, they also have free circus shows every hour…

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There are also funny things to do around, like a museum of military vehicules and some antique shops.

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Time to go back to civilisation, we stop on the way at Sloan Canyon for a beautiful hike, looking at petroglyphs left by Native Americans tribes. At the end Olivine and Basile were proposed to become junior rangers and made an oath to protect nature.

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We had a stop in a freeway rest area before reaching Primm, Nevada, at the Buffalo Bill Casino. There’s the SNORE Battle, a big desert racing event happening and we can see dozens of buggies and trucks jumping and sliding. It’s another perspective on Nevada and life in the desert…

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Last leg to Pasadena, we have a stop in Palmdale to see the legendary SR71, a plane that was the fastest of its time. They have great other planes on display.

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Before crossing the Los Angeles Forest mountain, we stop to look at the flowers, the exceptional rains over last couple of months have made some parts of the mountain extra colourful, this is called the super bloom. Beautiful.

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That was a great adventure, we saw a lot of things we’ll never forget. Now back in Pasadena, getting everything out of storage and coming back to our SoCal life!