Week Monday 19 March to 25 March
It was a relief to finally arrive in San Antonio around 10 at night after over 30 hours on Greyhound. We were greeted by a friendly receptionist, fresh hot coffee, and given the key to a large comfortable room. Although the motel was right next to the motorway, we slept soundly. Next day we made contact with a relative we hadn’t met – Celyne and her 2 young sons Owen(5) and Jaydon(3).
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| Celyne, with Owen (underneath) and Jaydon (on top) |
Her husband had suffered a brain injury from explosives when on service in Iraq. It brought home again to us something of the price many Americans pay due to their nation’s involvement in their efforts to keep peace in the Middle East. We had a lovely time over a meal with Celyne while the 2 boys slept, then Rod played lego with the boys at our motel.
We didn’t see the sights (this time?) but have heard that San Antonio is very beautiful, and has some interesting historical places such as the Alamo (of Davy Crockett fame)
One more night in San Antonio, then back onto our Greyhound again. The trip from San Antonio to Las Vegas was a 33.5 hour trip. We are finding that these longer trips are tolerable due to the many even short stops when we can stretch our legs. We have also found that we can have reasonable and short sleeps and on arrival don’t feel overly exhausted. If we leave midday/afternoon, then spend the night on the bus, it seems to be better than early starts. Having smaller bags has helped, and we have often been able to secure reasonably low cost motels within walking distance of the bus stations.
Contrast in the landscape was notable. Travelling from Florida to San Antonio, most of the way was over wetlands. There were massive bridges over waterways. It was very flat, with a significant portion of the ground beside the road clearly wet, so as we passed through New Orleans we could see why there was a significant amount of damage from Katrina a few years ago. A lot of the land is very low lying, so any small changes in sea level would mean heaps of water coming in. We saw some of the damaged homes close to the motorway as we passed by.
From San Antonio to Las Vegas, the bus took us many miles through countryside. The scenery was in sharp contrast to the miles and miles of concrete that we had seen in most of our earlier travels. We are becoming really aware of how vast this nation is, and how much flat land that they actually have. Not only are the coastal areas flat, but much of what we saw of the interior was flat.
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| Flat land in Texas as far as the eye could see |
Much of Texas we saw was green, although very little in the way of grass. There were massive wind farms where there must have been literally hundreds and hundreds of windmills, and we saw the odd oil pump at work.
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| Windmills, Windmills, Windmills |
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| Oil Well at work |
On this leg of the journey our bus was held up at Amarillo while a plain clothes police officer quietly searched nearly everyone’s bags – but not ours- initially we became aware that something was up when we overheard him ask a man right behind us if he was carrying any guns. When he continued to go from person to person, we thought oh no! we are on a bus with a whole lot of criminals! But then it became apparent that this was just a spot check.
Entering Arizona and Nevada we saw more of the real desert lands.
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| Town in the middle of nowhere! |
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| Not quite sure what they are eating |
Amazingly, only a short distance out of the desert and we were introduced to snow again at the Flagstaff busstop where we stopped for lunch.
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| Karen and a young Mexican we met |
We arrived in downtown Las Vegas at 8.20 pm, amongst all the glitz and glamour, with the nightlife just beginning to kick in. The shortest way to our motel was through the Fremont Street area (mall), the centre of the activities in downtown Las Vegas – this was quite an experience, making our way through the crowd with our bags.
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| Fremont St Experience Las Vegas |
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| The dome over Fremont St |
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| 4x4 Stretch Limo |
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| Rod with Donald Trump |
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| Karen outside the Excalibur |
We had specifically come to Las Vegas to visit some friends, so on Friday, we set out with a bus pass to visit Mrs Childers, with whom Karen had stayed some 30 years ago. She was delighted to see us, and to meet Rod and give her approval of him! and to show us photos of all her family – we had a lovely time reminiscing and catching up with one another.
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| Mrs Childers and Karen |
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| Karen and Philip |
The bus passes were a great way to get around, so we were able to do some exploring besides connect with several other dear friends over a buffet in one of the casinos, then later over the most wickedly fattening but delicious desserts in another.
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Philip and Megan
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| Not dieting today! |
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