Lake Powell/Capitol Reef

The journey west continued with a ferry across Lake Powell,


a huge artificial lake in the middle of the desert created by

a dam on the Colorado river. It's quite surreal driving for hours through

the desert without seeing any sign of civilisation, and suddenly arriving at a perfectly blue

lake between the sandstone cliffs, with thousands of people zooming across

the water in their powerboats and jetskis (and not a single sailing boat on the whole lake).



After the ferry we drove to a camping in the Capitol Reef national park, after a slight navigational

error on my part (missing the only turning in 100 km...) Luckily, because of my error, I got to drive

what has to be one of the best roads in the trip (route 12), which winds up and down through the canyonlands.

At one point it takes you up among the eagles along the top of a ridge with 100+ m cliff drops on either side.

Fortunately we made it to Bryce Canyon NP by the afternoon.

Allan

Mesa Verde (green table)

We arrived in Mesa Verde and visited the impressive cliff-side citadels, where the excavated houses look onto a 150m drop...ok, I'm just making up a number, but who's counting? Although they were very impressive, it was funny to think these 'ancient' civilisations were living in caves over 1000 years AFTER the Roman Empire, take that Americans! anyway, after our guide explained that people back then also needed food and clothing (you heard it here first) and lived in harmony (though if I was going to dig a house into the rock it'd be for more than a view...I'm no archeologist but defense bells are ringing!), we were back on the road.... and what a road, as far as I'm concerned, I was driving through Mars, and it's no stretch of the imagination. Ale

Santa Fe

On tuesday, we drove to santa fe. We stayer in THE Black canyon, americas youngest national park. Theres still plenty of wildlife, we almost hit à deer on the way up. Santa fe itself is a nice looking town, although most of its famous adobe buildings are not original. As ale called it, it was a bit like a Mexican Disneyland. We checked out a few modern art galleries before heading to Mesa verde.
Allan

The deep south (Dallas, TX)

Coming from Memphis and heading to Dallas, TX we hit our first 100 fahrenheit (ca. 40 celcius)and for TX it's one of the longest periods of above 100 since 20 years. So we used to 20 celcius are swetting like pigs in the heat. Once hit Dallas we went to the JFK memorial of the assasination. It's was quite intrigued but there is nothing much to see. At night we went to the campsite but found out that it was the same price to pay a motel, so we went for the good old airconditioned place :)
Now we are heading to Mesa verda to see some nature after spending all the time in big sities.

Philip

Elvis here we come

After Chicago, we headed for a long drive south to get to Memphis, TN, famous for being the birthplace of rock 'n' roll and Elvis. We stayed in a State Park shared with mosquitosn and assorted other bugs, and decided, because of the mosquitos and the heat, to head out to Beale Street, the city's famous blues themed nightlife area.n The next day we saw the civil rights museum, the motel where Martin Luther King got shot, and some music places. We ended up missing most of the Elvis related attractions, because Graceland was the opposite direction from Dallas, the next stop on our trip.
A.

The City of Wind

Welcome to the city of wind, today we entered chicago! It's a very nice city like new York but just a bit more smaller (which is nice). Lake Michigan is HUGE! it feels like the ocean.  In the morning we got "raped" by moscitos, Gregg got the worst out of us :) We are now chilling in the center and drinking water to recover from the long walk. Because Chicago is so nice we decided to stay a day longer befor we got to Memphis!

Philip

Ps: tonight back to the moscitos!

Lake Erie, Canada

Since our last post we've headed north toward buffalo and the niagra falls. We camped nearby and after setting camp worked our way through a bottle of dutyfree gin with a couple of colombians, which was nice until ale (myself) and the guy began on politics (at length); all good hearted though :-). We went to the site in the morning(ish)...well, that was the idea. in truth the lovely saphire took care of us not leaving till about 12:00. Anyway, site does not fail to live up to expectations. Trully a force of nature of the kind that inspires poems and all that jazz. In any case, sporting some niagra chic consisting of a blue condom-like poncho we boarded the boat and esentially got soaked...definitively a must once in a lifetime, not that you can see through all the watermyst, but you can say you've done it I guess; like skydiving, but completely different. We've now crossed the border to Canada and are camping around lake erie, after a long drive through the rain with a leaking car, and a 1 hour d-tour to find the "scenic view", except of course we couldn't see a thing... A small miscalculation by the navigator... Not to name anyone but it was Allan. Dinner at an authentic diner on road 3, motel and waitor that appeared as though he stepped out of the hotel California song.. whole shabang. Anyway., i'll Finish this epic Poem As Typung on à Phonetik is One step ahead of me in Evolution. Over and out.

Alejandro

Hamilton, NY

So now we arrived at ales aunt and stocked up for the camping tomorrow! Although we still don't know where to go to :)
yesterday we went to the original dinosaur BBQ and had a proper live preformance (surrounded by bikers).

Philip

Washington DC

Today we visited Washington DC as tourists, where we visited the Smithsonian Air and Space museum.
some of the rockets and planes are huge, is was amazing. Then we had lunch at the world bank, which up to now is the best food we have eaten so far. Then we went to visit the White House and saw the federal reserve and the FBI headquarters as we drove by. The weather was relentlessly hot, until the heavens opened, we luckily just got back in the car and it began to rain very very hard. So hard local tour buses were allowing people to get on the buses to shelter from the storm. We also visited the war cemetery just outside of Washington DC, which is here countless War dead/honored men are buried alongside the Kennedy family.  So overall our time here has been a lot of fun.

Gregg

Start of the Trip

We arived in New York safly. Flight was ok no major problems at all :)

Today we went through all of manhattan and saw alot of things. We saw the Empire State building and many other famous building but now we are so knackered from the walk! Dam I wish we had the car and did it the ameran way!

Lol

Philip

Booking

UPDATE!
The money for the car rental has been payed off completely. Meaning that the flight and car renting has been all payed and now we just need to look were to go etc.

for more information see Booking

Booking

UPDATE:

I got to calculate our expenditures on the trip and came to the conclusion that we whent ca. 110 euros over budge (budget 1000 euros)

for more information see Booking

Booking

UPDATE:

Flight and Car have been booked, now we just need to get the other stuff sorted

Booking

UPDATE:

2 solutions for renting a car (see Booking)!!!!!!

• 1st: rent it in NY Manhatten but pay €310 extra
• 2nd rent it in Phili or bosten and safe €310 but we need to get there

CAUTION:
there is a € 40 total difference between Full-size and intermediat

Booking

UPDATE:

• Car and Flight cost came expected high! € 1225! (see Booking)
• Problems with the rest budget! (€775)

Booking

UPDATE

Flight have been booked for Allan, Ale and Gregg (cost 639,27 pounds)

Philip will book flights later!

for more detail please go to the page Booking

Booking

UPDATE

got confirmation back from 1A-Auto.de,

the renting will be  €486,25 (p.p.) for 29 days!
  - this is for a fullsized car, intermidiet would be ca. €420

for more detail visit blog page Booking (u can also go there with the above navigator)

The Road Trip

OK now there are some Pages u can see for infromation and if u have something to add just comment!

Booking

UPDATE:

@flight: mannaged to get my parants to pay but need to transfere the money first (will take 4 working days)

@car: just send of the email for confirmation of booking -> waiting for reaction

Here is the timeline for our trip!

and gues what, we are behind (flights and all)

The New Blogg

Well im now just trying to modify it, so maby some changes could happen

Opening of the Blog USA Roadtrip

Hey peoples i just opened this blog so we can follow some info etc.

Also i was thinking that we can use this blog once we are on the trip as a information platform for other peoples