Gianni Rondinini
January 18th, 2005, 02:36 PM
hi all.
my wife and me took the last decision: we'll get back to usa this
summer, with a couple of friends.
what follows is our idea and will be our path, if any of you won't
suggest us any changes.
as we did last summer, we'll reserve our motels via the net in advance
because in august there are a lot of tourists in the area we'll visit.
we tried to keep the daily mileage as low as possible to be able to
spend as much time as we can inside the parks. there are just a couple
of days spent in the car, but we weren't able to do better than this,
once decided the parks and monuments we wanted to see.
30/8 we'll leave italy and land in las vegas. we'll rent a car [1] and
move to s. george for the night.
31/7 zion park. there are quite a lot of hiking possibilities in the
park: any suggestion about the most impressive/suggestive ones? we can
spend all the day in the park, but want to leave in the
afternoon/early evening to move in the bryce canyon area.
we don't have a park map because last year we didn't enter the park
because it was raining. we'll sleep next to the bryce canyon entrance.
1/8 bryce canyon. we have a park map we took last year and already
decided the hikes we're going for. i don't have the map with me here
at work, but we should be ok. in late afternoon we'll leave the park
and move to torrey for the night.
2-3-4/8 aug. 2nd will be a driving day: we'll reach moab and in late
afternoon (at 4p.m.) we'll make a tour on a hummer in the area around
moab. the tour is called "[something i don't remember] and hell's
revenge". we did it last year and it was *great*: even taken alone, it
would be *really* worth the flight to usa ;)
aug. 3rd will be for arches park. we looked better at the park map and
saw that the hike to delicate arch is a circular one: last year we
thought it was a straight one and then we got scared by the 2.5 hours
sign we saw --we thought it would have been a 2.5+2.5 hours hike and
we didn't have those many hours to spend there--. we'll also hike to
some more arches, but, again, i don't have the map here with me. any
suggestions are appreciate, however.
during aug. 4th we'll visit the needles and island in the sky. we have
all the day for these and it should be enough. i'd appreciate a
suggestion about which may be better during morning and which one to
keep for the afternoon since we may decide which one to visit first.
5/8 in the morning we'll see canyonlands. after visiting the park,
we'll move to cortez and sleep there.
6/8 today we'd like to visit mesa verde (is it worth it? we can't
understand how nice it is from the website but it seems far better
than canyon de chelly, which didn't impress us that much), drive to
durango, then down to the aztec ruins, move to shiprock, touch the
four state corner and then head to blanding to spend the night there.
if we have enough time, there is hovenweep nat. mon. along the road:
we'll see how the things are going.
if any of these things isn't worth the time spent there then i'd like
you to tell it to me so we can skip it.
7/8 wake up early to be at national bridges very early and have the
best light to shoot few photos. we haven't planned to stay there a lot
and don't think to visit deeply all the park. our idea is to stop
before fry canyon to see the first green marked area on road map. we
had a look at some websites and weren't too excited by this park
--compared to other ones-- but wouldn't want to miss it completely.
in mid-late morning we'll see valley of gods and spend the afternoon
in the monument valley. last year we appreciated a lot valley of gods
and recognized that morning is definitely the wrong moment to see
monument valley, but may probably be ok for valley of gods.
the night will be in kayenta.
8/8 today we won't do anything of special: drive to tusayan --where
we'll sleep-- and have a look at the panoramic points next to the
south rim entrance of grand canyon. we'd like to buy some items from
the indians.
9/8 wake up *very* early --6.30 is our plan--, enter the south rim and
hike somewhere. i'll tell you our choice for hiking in the next days:
i only remember now that our trip should be something around 5/6 hours
--included an indefinite number of stops to take pictures, drink, make
fun of each other, have heartaches, be desperate for the hot and so
on--. i'll carry, as usual, the backpack with cameras and lenses while
my wife will be my sherpa for water, gatorades and food :)
we plan to be something more next to dead than alive when hiking will
be done, then after that we'll "simply" reach page to sleep there.
10-11-12-13-14/8
10 aug. we'll wake up something later than yesterday, because the
morning will be dedicated to something we can't miss in our american
holidays: we'll drive cottonwood road until we reach escalante, for
lunch. this unpaved road is *too* beautiful and we can't miss it --ok,
unless it's wet and, consequently, impassable as a sign says--.
after lunch we'll go south-west to las vegas, where we'll spend the
rest of our holidays.
during our stay in vegas, if we're lucky and have at least 2 days with
good weather, we'd like to spend one in valley of fire --possibly in
early morning-- and one in the death valley --where we planned to go
in late afternoon--. we're a little scared by the length of a tour to
the death valley, but fortunately my friend can drive a little bit to
let me rest for a while.
we can't reach vegas later than 10th of august because our friends
need to leave to italy the 12th of august. however, we'll get back
home few days later.
while in vegas we'd like to see some shows. we absolutely want to go
to the tournament of kings and are open to any other show for the
other evenings --2 or 3, i'd say--. we'd like to see some "nice"
tipically-vegasian show, with some nude not too... ehm... "hard"? last
summer we've been to the folies bergere and we enjoied it much. any
similar suggestion?
well, i'd love to see crazy girls, but probably my wife could be
disappointed :) what do you think of that?
any help/hint/suggestion is highly appreciated.
i want also to buy some photographic equipment when in vegas and saw
that casey's may be a good shop: they seem to sell most of the biggest
brands, but i could only find their phone number and address --no fax
number or website--: can you please help me with this? i'd like to ask
them if they have what i'm be interested into.
well, this post may have become even too long: i want to thank in
advance any of you still awake for his/her suggestions :)
have a good day!
--and drop me an email if you plan to come to italy :)--
[1] the other times we came to usa we rented a sable gs/taurus gs and
it was next to perfect for us: we do have 2 hard samsonites and they
fit *perfectly* in the luggage trunk and the mileage was great
--something around 26mpg on the whole 3.200 miles trip--. this time
we'll be four and i'm undecided about what to rent, mainly because
we'd need at least as double as sable's trunk.
i can't decide between a ford explorer and a ford expedition because i
don't understand how bigger an expedition is than an explorer. the
difference in price is little and not an issue. will we go for an
expedition? are there any cons with that?
--
Gianni Rondinini
Icem s.r.l. - http://www.icem.it
Tel: +39 0545 78036
Fax: +39 0545 78727
my wife and me took the last decision: we'll get back to usa this
summer, with a couple of friends.
what follows is our idea and will be our path, if any of you won't
suggest us any changes.
as we did last summer, we'll reserve our motels via the net in advance
because in august there are a lot of tourists in the area we'll visit.
we tried to keep the daily mileage as low as possible to be able to
spend as much time as we can inside the parks. there are just a couple
of days spent in the car, but we weren't able to do better than this,
once decided the parks and monuments we wanted to see.
30/8 we'll leave italy and land in las vegas. we'll rent a car [1] and
move to s. george for the night.
31/7 zion park. there are quite a lot of hiking possibilities in the
park: any suggestion about the most impressive/suggestive ones? we can
spend all the day in the park, but want to leave in the
afternoon/early evening to move in the bryce canyon area.
we don't have a park map because last year we didn't enter the park
because it was raining. we'll sleep next to the bryce canyon entrance.
1/8 bryce canyon. we have a park map we took last year and already
decided the hikes we're going for. i don't have the map with me here
at work, but we should be ok. in late afternoon we'll leave the park
and move to torrey for the night.
2-3-4/8 aug. 2nd will be a driving day: we'll reach moab and in late
afternoon (at 4p.m.) we'll make a tour on a hummer in the area around
moab. the tour is called "[something i don't remember] and hell's
revenge". we did it last year and it was *great*: even taken alone, it
would be *really* worth the flight to usa ;)
aug. 3rd will be for arches park. we looked better at the park map and
saw that the hike to delicate arch is a circular one: last year we
thought it was a straight one and then we got scared by the 2.5 hours
sign we saw --we thought it would have been a 2.5+2.5 hours hike and
we didn't have those many hours to spend there--. we'll also hike to
some more arches, but, again, i don't have the map here with me. any
suggestions are appreciate, however.
during aug. 4th we'll visit the needles and island in the sky. we have
all the day for these and it should be enough. i'd appreciate a
suggestion about which may be better during morning and which one to
keep for the afternoon since we may decide which one to visit first.
5/8 in the morning we'll see canyonlands. after visiting the park,
we'll move to cortez and sleep there.
6/8 today we'd like to visit mesa verde (is it worth it? we can't
understand how nice it is from the website but it seems far better
than canyon de chelly, which didn't impress us that much), drive to
durango, then down to the aztec ruins, move to shiprock, touch the
four state corner and then head to blanding to spend the night there.
if we have enough time, there is hovenweep nat. mon. along the road:
we'll see how the things are going.
if any of these things isn't worth the time spent there then i'd like
you to tell it to me so we can skip it.
7/8 wake up early to be at national bridges very early and have the
best light to shoot few photos. we haven't planned to stay there a lot
and don't think to visit deeply all the park. our idea is to stop
before fry canyon to see the first green marked area on road map. we
had a look at some websites and weren't too excited by this park
--compared to other ones-- but wouldn't want to miss it completely.
in mid-late morning we'll see valley of gods and spend the afternoon
in the monument valley. last year we appreciated a lot valley of gods
and recognized that morning is definitely the wrong moment to see
monument valley, but may probably be ok for valley of gods.
the night will be in kayenta.
8/8 today we won't do anything of special: drive to tusayan --where
we'll sleep-- and have a look at the panoramic points next to the
south rim entrance of grand canyon. we'd like to buy some items from
the indians.
9/8 wake up *very* early --6.30 is our plan--, enter the south rim and
hike somewhere. i'll tell you our choice for hiking in the next days:
i only remember now that our trip should be something around 5/6 hours
--included an indefinite number of stops to take pictures, drink, make
fun of each other, have heartaches, be desperate for the hot and so
on--. i'll carry, as usual, the backpack with cameras and lenses while
my wife will be my sherpa for water, gatorades and food :)
we plan to be something more next to dead than alive when hiking will
be done, then after that we'll "simply" reach page to sleep there.
10-11-12-13-14/8
10 aug. we'll wake up something later than yesterday, because the
morning will be dedicated to something we can't miss in our american
holidays: we'll drive cottonwood road until we reach escalante, for
lunch. this unpaved road is *too* beautiful and we can't miss it --ok,
unless it's wet and, consequently, impassable as a sign says--.
after lunch we'll go south-west to las vegas, where we'll spend the
rest of our holidays.
during our stay in vegas, if we're lucky and have at least 2 days with
good weather, we'd like to spend one in valley of fire --possibly in
early morning-- and one in the death valley --where we planned to go
in late afternoon--. we're a little scared by the length of a tour to
the death valley, but fortunately my friend can drive a little bit to
let me rest for a while.
we can't reach vegas later than 10th of august because our friends
need to leave to italy the 12th of august. however, we'll get back
home few days later.
while in vegas we'd like to see some shows. we absolutely want to go
to the tournament of kings and are open to any other show for the
other evenings --2 or 3, i'd say--. we'd like to see some "nice"
tipically-vegasian show, with some nude not too... ehm... "hard"? last
summer we've been to the folies bergere and we enjoied it much. any
similar suggestion?
well, i'd love to see crazy girls, but probably my wife could be
disappointed :) what do you think of that?
any help/hint/suggestion is highly appreciated.
i want also to buy some photographic equipment when in vegas and saw
that casey's may be a good shop: they seem to sell most of the biggest
brands, but i could only find their phone number and address --no fax
number or website--: can you please help me with this? i'd like to ask
them if they have what i'm be interested into.
well, this post may have become even too long: i want to thank in
advance any of you still awake for his/her suggestions :)
have a good day!
--and drop me an email if you plan to come to italy :)--
[1] the other times we came to usa we rented a sable gs/taurus gs and
it was next to perfect for us: we do have 2 hard samsonites and they
fit *perfectly* in the luggage trunk and the mileage was great
--something around 26mpg on the whole 3.200 miles trip--. this time
we'll be four and i'm undecided about what to rent, mainly because
we'd need at least as double as sable's trunk.
i can't decide between a ford explorer and a ford expedition because i
don't understand how bigger an expedition is than an explorer. the
difference in price is little and not an issue. will we go for an
expedition? are there any cons with that?
--
Gianni Rondinini
Icem s.r.l. - http://www.icem.it
Tel: +39 0545 78036
Fax: +39 0545 78727