Day 8 - Death Valley, CA

Spending Christmas in a town like Las Vegas is... unconventional. Fortunately, there was enough distraction to let us forget about the delicious traditional Austrian Christmas dinner, cookies and the massive number of presents waiting for us in January :)
Still, getting out of this noisy place full of life and light day and night was great. The perfect destination: Death Valley National Park.

Dumont sand dunes, CA

The desert, CA

Death Valley from Zabriskie's Point, CA

More Las Vegas

Rialto bridge in front of the "Venetian"

Fountain show in front of the "Bellagio"

The massive Christmas tree on Fremont Street

The old gambling center

"Sin City" is not really the right place for posters like that

The "Treasure Island" in the morning - still nice

The "Luxor" - what a crazy building

Day 6 - Vegas, Baby!

As expected, snow kept us from doing our planned hike in Grand Canyon. So we left in the morning to see what Flagstaff, AZ, and its surroundings have to offer. We found some inactive volcanoes and their craters, some more Indian pueblos... and bad weather. Therefore no pictures of that.
Day 6: we followed Route 66 for a while to get up to Las Vegas. Before, I had to see and walk the Hoover Dam (taming Colorado River) and to adapt my watch to Pacific Time.

Joshua Tree

The Dam

Lake Mead, NV

One of the numerous wedding chapels (even Michael Jordan got married here - believe it or not...)

Stratosphere Tower, the highest building west of the Mississippi

And then from the top: Las Vegas by night

Day 4 - Grand Canyon, AZ

Day 4 - finally! We were about to enter one of the "grandest" natural monuments in the World, the Grand Canyon. Fortunately it had stopped snowing the morning we arrived but bad weather was forecasted for the following day. So would we be able to hike down a little?

I'm no fly, OK? Behind me: little Colorado River

At the park entrance

The first glimpse from the Watchtower


Asian invasion on Grand View point

The Canyon in the evening sun

Day 3 - Zion National Park, UT

Staying over in Page, AZ, at Lake Powell, we were expecting too much from the lake. Since it is December, boat cruises are more or less unavailable and it is freaking cold up there.
So plan B was to drive the 100 miles back into Utah where we wanted to see and hike Zion National Park, recommended by my Norwegian friends. Thanks for the advice, guys! It was really worth the drive!

Lake Powell, what a nice blue...

Myself at the Canyon Overlook trail

I even made it up Angel's Landing trail

Wild life in the park

Evening sun

Bisons at the park entrance

Day 2 - Monument Valley, UT/AZ

After the snow fall on the way down to the South, the sun in Monument Valley was especially enjoyable... And we were entering the large Navajo Nation, an Indian reservation, learning more about Native Americans. See yourself.





Navajo cowboy in Monument Valley, AZ

Navajo National Monument, AZ