These pics are from me crossing the desert between Califoria (L.A.) and Nevada (Vegas).

The last two pictures where, I believe, of the Mojave Desert, wich include, amoungst the other wonder full things it has to offer, a road named (I kid you not) "ZZYZX". Yup, that's the name of a road. If you do a map search for the town "Harmony Acres" in California and zoom in, you'll see it. I bet someone's cat steped on the keyboard for that one, and the clerk thought "what the hell, who cares about these desert roads anyway..."

Sigh...

next I have my pictures of the Hoover Damn. The first few are of the low sid, the last one is of the high side. Obviously, a damn has an area where the water is high (usually looks like a lake) and an area where he waters are low (looks more like a river). It is just more dramatic here than in most damns...

A few words: we are high up in the mountains here. The road to reach this place is through arid rock cliffs lined with high voltage lines (which, not surprisingly, come from the damn itself). After the last sharp corner (and if you remember from my last post, a pathetic security check), you get to the damn.

Of course you can pay to park your car, or just find one of the free parkings just a few minutes walk from the damn itself. I personally just parked my bike illegally at one end of the damn, oogled the place a bit and took some pictures. If you want a tour of the place (which I'm told are available), I'd advise finding legal parking.

Next I got to cross the Rockies again. I was now in Arizona (the border being the Hoover Damn). These are arid lands to be sure, but I do find a certain apeal to that. The depth of the views I had overlooking some of the valleys was breathtaking. You can see layer upon layer of mountain ranges.

Once I passed these mountains, we are in Arizona high desrert. Mountain ranges are visible at all times, but the road is flat with minimal, shriveled trees. I almost ran out of gas on one of these streches. I have no pictures, but it looks similar to the first pictures I posted today.

Now the next set of pictures I have are the rest of the Grand Canyon set. I posted a couple last time, and I will once again give my disclamer: these pictures do little justice to the place. They cannot capture the size of this place. It really is surreal looking at it. It looks like you're looking at an pastel painting. I would love to spend a weekend hiking across this place...

Catching up with where I am

After the Grand Canyon, I rode down to Tuscon where I spend the night at Kristie's house and met her great husband who made me want to get back into Paintball.

After that, I took a rathe scenic route through south west New Mexico until I reached a town near Albuquerque. I stayed with Pyro's uncle, a really laid back guy with a wife and two kids. I don't have any pictures of New Mexico. It's too bad, as it is quite a pretty place, though as far as I can tell it has relatively few kinds of terain: they have moutains, with forests and seemingly decent amounts of water, and deserts (high and low).

I was originally planing on skiping out on Texas entirely, but to save time, I did cut across the northern part along I-40, paralleling the Oklahoma Panhandle. I spend the night in Amarillo, then zoomed off towards Oklahoma City. Since I hit Washington State, that was the first day I had rain. Tropical storm Matthiew cought up with me, and I got rightly soaked.

While northern Texas is one of the flattest, most boring places I've come accross, Oklahoma has nice rolling hills with a fair amount of trees and fields. But it still takes hours to get from town to town, with vast amounts of mostly empty land between places. (and, at least for me, lots and lots of rain).

My last day of riding I covered the distance from Oklahoma City to New Orleans. It's is quite a ride... I ended up briefly going accross Texas again, but this time the easter edge. This side is more like Oklahoma, with hills and trees (and lots and lots of rain).

I finally made it to Louisiana, and, after about an hour, the rain finally gave up. By that time, it was dark, but relatively warm. By the time I reached New Orleans, around midnight, I was mostly dry. Allison's wonderfull mom stayed up to let me in.

I'll give you some more details about New Orleans hopefully before I leave. I spend most of tonight on Burbon street. Quick tip: don't drink at the trourist bars, ask the hot-dog vendors where the bars are that the locals hang out at. While they aren't as "hip" as the tourist spots, a beer that would cost you $6 at the tourist bar will cost you $1.50 at the locals' bar. Plus, they serve good coffey.

I plan on leaving New Orleans on Thursday morning, and heading to South Carolina, where I hope to meet up with Dr. Pastershwaker for about a day, and then it's homewards I head.