USA Road Trip - Day 1

My road trip from Las Vegas to Denver came at the end of my 8 week trip to North America, and I'll be honest, it was the part I was looking forward to the most since arriving in Vancouver back in August.

I'm going to do this photo blog in two parts - the first being with snapshots taken on my Blackberry 8900 phone, and then again with the real photographs from the trip. As much as I like the photos taken with my proper camera, I find the snapshots taken with the Blackberry contain more of the essence of how the trip progressed.

The Blackberry photos are almost direct from the camera. I may have cropped some a little, but essentially they are what came out of the phone.

So let's begin.

Wednesday 30th September 2009.

After a false start the previous day I was finally on my way out of Las Vegas and the Stratosphere Hotel.

I was travelling alone in a large 4x4 vehicle, large enough to sleep in the back, and that's just what I intended to do. Why had I decided to sleep in the car? Two reasons, firstly because I wanted a bit more of an adventure without the need or worry about where I might find a hotel, and secondly because I was on a rather tight budget.

After a brief stop at Walmart to buy an airbed and sleeping bag I was on my way to my first destination, "The Valley of Fire". Captain James T Kirk died here don't you know?

From the Valley of Fire I headed north on the I-15, stopped at the last In-N-Out Burger I'd see on this trip, and then headed into Zion National Park at dusk, and to where I'd spend my first night.

A couple of beers and a self lighting log later and it was time to try out my accommodation for the first time.  There was only about 50 centimetres of headroom but once I laid down it was surprisingly comfortable.



It was a rather warm start to the trip.

My last look of my home for the previous 10 days.

On the road out of Las Vegas and towards Lake Mead.

The Valley of Fire - it's really rather impressive.

I had to stop and have my last In-N-Out burger of the trip.

Bad photo of the sleeping quarters of my 4x4.

Beer and a fake log fire.