Antelope Canyon situated on Navajo land near Page, Arizona is a slot canyon formed by erosion of sandstone. It consists of Upper Antelope Canyon (at ground level) and Lower Antelope Canyon (below ground).
Various private companies offer tours of either of the two canyons. We went with Ken’s Guided Tour into the Lower, since it’s supposedly less crowded due to its more difficult access. (Well, it’s just a ladder.) Also, the light beams which the Upper is famous for are gone by mid October anyway.
Photography in Antelope Canyon is difficult due to the wide-ranging light conditions (and overambitious fellow photographers). But we still got some nice shots.
Close to Page is also Horseshoe Bend, a gorgeous meander of the Colorado River, surrounded by 300-meter high rock walls.
Leaving San Diego and our small bungalow in Pacific Beach, we headed East, towards Arizona and the Grand Canyon.
Next exit, Mexico.
We got pretty close to the Mexican border, without never actually seeing it. But by the nothingness around us and the thousands of stones in a very sparse and inhospitable landscape, you could tell that this was, if not no man’s land, then border land. For dozens of miles, we saw no sign of civilization. It also seemed to us as if Arizona was home to more RVs than humans.
If we were sure about one thing concerning our trip, it was that we would not have to deal with winter and cold temperature this year. Well… we were wrong. When we woke up in Tusayan, the gateway to the South Rim of Grand Canyon, and looked out of the window, we believed for a brief instant that we were dislocated to Chicago again. Snow? Gray sky? Strong wind? Classic Chicago winter weather. Still, we were able to get a few good views of the Grand Canyon. And we already knew that it wouldn’t be the last time to see the Grand Canyon…
Snowy Grand Canyon.
We decided to get the $80 Interagency Annual Pass that gives you access to all national parks for a year (not the calendar year but twelve consecutive months). Since we planned on visiting Bryce Canyon, Death Valley, Zion and Sequoia National Park besides the Grand Canyon, the pass really paid off. The entrance fee for a passenger car to the national parks typically ranges between $20 and $30. You can also get an individual park pass first and upgrade to the annual pass within one week, only paying the difference (at any park entrance).
Dinner was a Navajo Taco, which is hot beef, cheese and vegetables on a “frybread” (similar to Hungary’s lángos).
Pacific Beach just north of San Diego was a place to charge batteries and relax a little after almost (only? already?) two weeks of traveling. We stayed there for four nights and enjoyed the good life with morning runs on the ocean front, breakfasts in the sun and with views of the Pacific, a couple of work hours at coffee shop terraces, and after-work beers.
We celebrated Jan’s special birthday in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, a historic neighborhood packed with bars, restaurants and clubs.
We’re not so much into zoos and aquariums, so we skipped the famous San Diego Zoo and Sea World. Instead, we saw the new James Bond movie Spectre in a drive-in cinema. On another afternoon, we visited La Jolla (sea lions are a little less ugly than sea elephants) and Torrey Pines State Park.
Some like it hot. And some really like Marilyn Monroe. So we visited Coronado Island, a small affluent city across San Diego Bay. (You really need to know How To Marry a Millionaire to live there!) Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but as for Simone, it’s rather “Blondes prefer Gentlemen”, since Jan took her to the famous Hotel Del Coronado on Corona Island, where the majority of Billy Wilder’s 1959 brilliant comedy “Some Like It Hot” was shot.
Actually, this was also the first movie the two of us saw together (Simone’s pick, obviously). Even without Marilyn, the hotel is a real jewel, right at the beach, decorated with hundreds of lamps along the roof, multiple terraces and all in all mundane, but in a charming way. Simone couldn’t have been happier.
Driving down Highway 1 on the Pacific coast was incredible! Curvy roads, ups and downs, a fascinating landscape. We peaked sea elephants wrestling on the beach and making funny noises, took in the scenery at many vista points and made a quick stop in Santa Barbara.
The architectural highlight of the day was the Getty Villa in Malibu, a marble villa that the world’s richest man in the 1950s had himself built as an exact reproduction of a Roman Villa that was destroyed during the eruption of mount Vesuvius. Mr. Getty actually never got to live in the villa on a rock overlooking the Pacific, but it now houses his collection of Antique sculptures and furniture. It was really beautiful. A couple of Hollywood stars live probably next door in Malibu.
Now about our dwellings in the LA area; Venice Beach, to be precise. It was no Roman villa, but we slept in a room that was certainly no less original—the Robot Room, which locals Joe and Lisa rent out as an AirBnB in their home. Joe works in animation (he has an IMDb entry!) and the Robot Room was like a space devoted to robots, animation film and comics. He shared his fascinating insider knowledge about Hollywood and the area with us.
Venice, in fact, started out as the playground for a visionary with money (or a millionaire with visions) as well. As you can already guess by the name, it was in the early 20th century envisioned as a reproduction of Italy’s lagoon city, including a replica of San Marco, the arcades of the Palazzo Ducale, bridges and gondolas!
If you asked Simone prior to the trip to California what she was looking forward to in particular, you’d get one answer straight away: Rollerskating on the Venice Beach Boardwalk with disco music on headphones! Well, unfortunately, she didn’t get to do it (booo!) due to “strong” winds, so nobody would rent out rollerskates. But after a few moments of gnashing teeth, bikes were also deemed acceptable. We biked to the Santa Monica Pier, where we witnessed a beautiful sunset.
Instead of spending much time on the touristy Hollywood Boulevard, we took the scenic Mulholland Drive and enjoyed the views from Hollywood Bowl Overlook and Griffith Observatory. Downtown LA with its modern architecture is certainly also worth a visit.
All 110 rooms of the Madonna Inn are themed and have unique designs. You can rest your head in the Matterhorn room, the Austrian Suite, the Caveman, the Floral Fancy, the Just Heaven or the Marguerite room (which we picked).
You can buy postcards of all rooms in the Madonna Inn.
When making a reservation, you can pick three room preferences and find out which room you get upon check-in.
Some of the rooms’ bathrooms feature a rock shower.
Other rooms have a waterfall!
Gentlemen urinate into a waterfall… in the restroom, where else?
The exterior looks like a building relocated straight from Disneyland.
The Madonna Inn’s Restaurant—a Steakhouse—is all pink.
The toilet seats are heated.
Speaking of toilet seats, they also offer the options “Rear Cleansing”, “Front Cleansing” and “Dryer”.
In Seattle, we stayed with our friends Andrea and Utsav and their adorable German shepherd Titan. Jan had met Titan on the very day Andrea and Utsav picked him up as a tiny, 8-week old, very shy puppy. Now, two years later, he is a fully grown man, not scared at all, and very, very active. “Hyper” is actually the word that Utsav prefers. And we have to admit, we can’t remember having ever been welcomed this enthusiastically—including jumps, kisses, heavy tail-swinging and running around.
Andrea and Utsav were also happy to see us, although they showed it differently. ;) Being the perfect hosts, they gave us recommendations for Seattle and showed us around the city. Utsav works at Microsoft, so we even got a tour across the Microsoft campus that houses the offices for 50,000 employees, including shuttle buses, shopping-mall-sized common areas, a soccer field and a Microsoft gift store.
Utsav also took us to the Pike Place Market, an indoors and open-air market and a must-see when you’re in Seattle. In nearby downtown, the Monorail reminded of what the future looked like to people in the 1960s: For the Century 21 Exposition, the “World Fair” that Seattle hosted in 1962, an elevated train was built (#WhereWeGoWeDontNeedRoads) that connected dowtown Seattle to the the Seattle Center, the area where the Space Needle, the EMP (Experience Music Project, a museum for music, sci-fi and pop culture) and other sights and museums are located.
Seattle is blessed with an abundance of water and nearby forests and mountains. At the time of our visit, there was also an abundance of cranes sticking out from the cityscape: In recent years, many office and apartment buildings have been constructed to accommodate the thousands of people moving to Seattle attracted by Amazon, Microsoft and other firms.
There was, in fact, also a bit of Sleepless in Seattle to our 2-day stay there: After warming up with mini golf at Flatstick Pub, we continued playing beer pong and flip bup in a garage with Andrea’s and Utsav’s friends late into the night.
Before heading to Seattle, there was one place we had to pay a visit to. Hint no. 1: It involves a cherry pie that will kill you and—excuse me—a damn fine cup of coffee. Hint no. 2: It is set in the fictitious city of Twin Peaks.
We had started watching the early 90s cult show “Twin Peaks” because it stars our beloved mayor of Portland in the show “Portlandia” (see our previous post), Kyle McLachlan, also known as The Captain in “How I Met Your Mother”. And because it was conviniently available on Netflix. From episode 1, we were hooked. Just as much as the main character FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) was hooked to the delicious cherry pie at the RR Diner in Twin Peaks (though, admittedly, he had a somewhat serious coffee addiction).
When we found out that the diner that served as the RR Diner in the show really existed (and still does!) and is located in a town called North Bend 30 minutes east of Seattle, we knew we had to go there. In reality, it is called Twede’s Café and, damn, its cherrie and boysenberry pies are good! And Agent Cooper didn’t lie about the coffee, either.
To us, Astoria sounded like a mundane turn-of-the-century summer resort. With the city located on the mouth of the Columbia River at the Pacific Coast of Oregon, we pictured Grand Hotels, wide cobble-stone riverwalks, maybe a Casino or two, and steamboat-ambience. So when we arrived there, planning to stay for the night in this small city on our way to Seattle, the only thing that caught our eyes was the impressive, incredibly long bridge that spans the 6.6 km broad Columbia River between the states of Oregon and Washington.
Besides the bridge, Astoria is known for being the end of the Oregon Trail, a 3,500 km historic east–west large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail laid by American pioneers and fur traders who went West starting in Missouri (in our beloved Midwest). Nowadays, Astoria is primarily a fishing and fish processing hub and port of entry for goods.
Indeed, we had excellent seafood at Clemente’s restaurant. Highly recommended! (Careful: it moved to a new location.)
Of course, we took the bridge to continue our way North to Seattle, where we will stay at our friends Andrea and Utsav’s place.
And so begins our journey on Highway 101, which runs on the West Coast from Olympia, Washington, to Los Angeles, California.
A short drive from Portland are the gorgeous Multnomah Falls. Its two steps combined result in a drop of 189 m (620 ft), making it the second tallest year-round waterfall in the United States.
Footbridge over the lower cascade.
We hiked up to the top of the upper falls. Well, it wasn’t really hiking: The path was paved and it didn’t even take 30 minutes to get up.
The manual controls on our Panasonic Lumix LX100 came in really handy for taking these soft water pictures.
All we knew so far about Portland, Oregon, we knew from the satirical TV show Portlandia. According to the show, Portland is every hipster’s dream, a place where you can ask for the last name of the chicken you’re about to order in an all-organic restaurant (probably with a side of massaged kale, fair-trade quinoa or turnip from a local farm), a heaven for pedestrians and cyclists.
It wasn’t that bad, though. Quite on the contrary, we experienced Portland as a refreshingly relaxed, unpretentious yet quirky, creative, environmentally conscious city. Where else do you find a mayor who had his private parking space in front of the city hall transformed into a garden and now takes public transport like everyone else?
Microbreweries, Voodoo Doughnuts and Food Carts
Portland was indeed a great city to begin our 5-month-adventure on the road. Especially because the roads we encountered there were pedestrian-, bike- and skateboard-friendly (skateboards used to have their designated lanes on the streets!), covered in red bricks.
Portland was also a great starting point not just because of the city’s 50+ microbreweries that take advantage of the great water and the excellent hops production, but also because one of Portland’s top attractions is, in fact, a donut store. Voodoo Doughnuts has donut variations that blow up your imagination: donuts with fruit loops, cookie dough balls, oreos or strips of bacon on top; an “Oh Captain! My Captain!” donut, an Old Dirty Bastard donut, the options are endless… Our clear favorite was the Portland Cream one, basically a regular donut filled with vanilla cream and chocolate glaze on top.
Of course, we didn’t miss out on the microbreweries either: We enjoyed a beer flight at Deschutes Brewery.
All parts of Portland are dotted with food carts, typically tiny trailers with one or two windows and a fully equipped kitchen inside, where tacos, thai food, gyros, ramen bowls, waffles and other delights are prepared.
Now you think all we did was eating and drinking. You’re right. But in addition to that, we also spent hours and hours walking (for example during Portland’s award-winning Walking Tour) and strolling through the City of Books, a gigantic bookstore that takes up a whole block. We’ve never seen so many people in a bookstore, let alone such a large bookstore. It has a color-guidance system, just as in hospitals, so you don’t get lost and kind of keep a sense of where you are. This helped a lot when we tried to find our way out after buying Jan a Spanish Grammar and a Latinamerican Spanish Vocabulary book. ¡Dios mío!
We stayed at the Evermore Guesthouse, an incredibly beautiful historic building from 1909, where we had breakfast every morning at the community table in the living room of the house, together with other guests who stayed there.
