Spring Break 2008...part 2 (Yosemite, CA --> Grand Canyon, AZ : 02/24/2008 - 02/26/2008)

Part 2:

Day 3 (02/24/2008)
So, after another complimentary Continental breakfast, we left Oakhurst, CA for Las Vegas, NV via the Death Valley National Park. Because the famous CA-120 is closed for winter (one of the most scenic driveways in the US), we had to take a rather long detour in order to go to Las Vegas via the Death Valley National Park. According to both Microsoft MapPoint's and Google Map's directions, it was a 10-hour journey. The drive to the Death Valley National Park was rather uneventful, the sceneries were not bad at all. We saw a bunch of wind-turbines (modern windmills) along the way.

For lunch, we stopped at somewhere-I-forgot when we found a Denny's at about 1pm. Breakfast food for lunch is always good. :)Long drive, but this is what we see for most of the drive.

Death Valley National Park is famous for its well below sea level elevation, in fact, it is the lowest elevation in North America at -282 ft. Also, it features the Mojave desert and stuff. We saw some great sand dunes, and drove through dips and stuff. (Sorry, not really that well converse in geology.) Also, Death Valley is also famous for being hot. Really hot in the summer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley

Also, while driving to/along Death Valley, our GeoSci major friend Keng Yang spotted a horseshoe-vortices cloud formation.
I tagged this photo because it's a rare thing and don't want others to steal it... :P http://www.weatherscapes.com/album.php?cat=clouds&subcat=horseshoe_vortices
Keng Yang couldn't find a pole, so needed to look for a hole to settle his business instead. On his way back after his small business.
Cam-whoring while waiting for Keng Yang dealing is small business.

We continued our journey and reached the Death Valley National Park and found a designated scenic spot. So, we took some pictures, some rather interesting ones. It was rather windy, so I decided to put on my sport jacket.

I suggested (I think I did) people to leap/jump and I'll snap their pictures while they were in mid-air, a much better pose than the usual say-cheese-toothpaste-commercials-smile. So, it was all good when I was taking the pictures, perfect timing for most of them. :P
First, Pei Ying...
Then, who else...
Then, Siew Gee...aka Atsuki
Then, Ren Jie...

Then, when it was my turn to jump, oh my, Keng Yang and Ren Jie really wanted me to have some workout, had me jumping umpteen times, until Pei Ying finally got it on her second try.
Here are the evidences:
Too late...Another one...
Yet another too late...
And another...
And another again...
And another...

FINALLY!!!
Then, the harder group-jump photo. Other tourists must be thinking that we were crazy and all.
Pretty neat huh?

After about 20-minute of admiring the beautiful view of the basin lake, and enjoying strong wind breezing through our hair, we decided to continue our journey.
Because of unclear printed directions, we sorta overshot but managed to claw our way back when we saw a kinda 'unofficial' road sign pointing us to Las Vegas - 86 miles.

~"Country road, take me home, to the place I belong..."

Ren Jie and I decided that it was 'safe' to follow the unmarked, but paved road, as it was leading us to the right directions. It took us to a town, Pahrump, NV, where the highest building of the town is 2-storey tall, and it was ghetto-looking and stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pahrump,_Nevada
Love this picture. Ren Jie!!!
We stopped for gas, and Keng Yang, Pei Ying and Siew Gee almost wandered into a bad-looking bar while looking for the bathroom unknowingly. Luckily we spotted the sign of the bar and Ren Jie warned them just in time. After refueling, we continued our way, and hit the major road of Pahrump and it was much better.

So, after a rest stop, where I got more coffee, the sky was getting darker, and we had about 60 more miles to cover before reaching Las Vegas. As we had to go up and down the mountainous terrain all these while, often going up to elevations of more than 5000ft, it took more than an hour to cover the 60 miles.Elevation 4000 ft...
Sun is setting...

We reached our hotel at almost half-past eight. It's the Monte Carlo Hotel, on the Souther part of Las Vegas Boulevard! Checked in and ka-ching. We were set for the night.
We went to Luxor for dinner buffet. It was not as good as we expected. So, Luxor buffet, a NO-NO. But, we still do pretty well. At least I did, 3 full plates of meat and stuff, a plate with 5 different desserts and some fruits. Not to mention ice-cream and a cup of coffee.


We walked around and stuff, and called it a night, of course. The 3 lightbulbs gave Keng Yang and Pei Ying their own time and space, but asking them to go on their own. The 3 of us pretty much back-track to our hotel room and called it a night after everyone of us had a long shower. Really need to point out that the water pressure was really strong and I really enjoyed the shower. Best shower in a long long time.

We dozed off at about midnight, and the two lovebirds only came back later. Ehem...

Day 4 (02/25/2008):

We woke up slightly later today, at about 7.30am I think, after packing and all, and Siew Gee and I got our Starbucks coffee, we hit the road at about 9am. Next stop, Grand Canyon, AZ!!! Initially, according to our directions, one says it's gonna be 4.5 hours, while the other claims approximately 6 hours.
Crossing Hoover Dam... into the state of Arizona
Also, the weather was great... Some interesting cloud formations.

We did it in about 5 hours. Including a little bit of stopping for informations (maps) and gas. Of course, along the way, the lovebirds were busy dozing off, while the other three of us sang our hearts out to some old tunes we can remember. Fun fun fun! ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........



So, we were able to check into our hotel early, at about 1+pm (different time zone, it's Mountain time here). We had a late lunch at a Wendy's nearby, and then, went back to our hotel room for some rest. Before we headed out again for the Grand Canyon National Park for the sunset.We saw snow on our way to Grand Canyon.

So, some pictures of the beautiful Grand Canyon and of course, the sunset.While waiting for the sunset... we took pictures of what else at Grand Canyon....
Magnificent...


Can't believe wherever we went, there were snow.
Group picture...
Staring at ... well, just turning away from the camera man... Keng Yang
How cute...
Quick... guess a professor... You know it, you know it... come on...
Sun setting...
Sun really setting...
Sun really really setting...
Told you so...

How cute... over the shoulder...
On the way back to our car, we saw a couple of rabbits.
Snow at Yosemite and now snow at Grand Canyon. At night, we did nothing much, other than watching tv and playing Big-2. Dominating the game of Big-2 was fun. :P

We went to bed rather early again because we were planning to catch the sunrise the next day.

Day 5(02/26/2008):
So, we woke up at about 6am and left for Grand Canyon National Park at 6.30am. As we checked from weather.com, the sun rise will be at 7.09am. While driving there, just a short 5-mile drive, the sky was kinda bright, and we thought we were gonna miss the sun rise, but apparently not.
Love the color...
This one looks even better... The shading, the color...
And, love the leng chai...
First glimpse of the sun rise...
A couple minutes later...
And later...
And even later...
And by popular demand...
Love the light shone on the lens and created the ray and the refraction.
It was freaking cold, well, relatively. It was still below freezing and the wind was really gusting. But, the sun rise was absolutely amazing, and thanks Siew Gee for sparing me your extra pair of gloves.
Mother nature at her grandness...
Yup... no doubt about that...

After the sun rise, we went back to our hotel for the breakfast. It was rather good breakfast. Bacon, cereals, biscuits and sausage gravy, yogurt, coffee, toast, eggs and stuff. I pretty much stuffed myself with it. Then, after a couple of hours of resting, we went back to Grand Canyon National Park again.
The weather was great, but the temperature was still not warm at all...
There, we did more sight-seeing, drove along the scenic driveway, stopping along the way. Snapping pictures of deers and elks.
~"Doe a deer, a female deer....
A GIANT ELK doing its business... That's our car hood...it's only like 10 ft away from us. And our friend Keng Yang suggested me to honk it. You crazy ar?!?!


And all those stuff. We even had our cute little picnic at the very tip of the South Rim of Grand Canyon.Our picnic spot...
I mean, having a snack while enjoying such breathtaking view... Can't be that...

We did some 'hiking' too. Nothing serious, just about half a mile, until we saw a sign that says where the trail leads to and warnings to people that are unprepared. It was a 9-mile trail that will take us all the way to the Colorado River. Maybe next time, as we said it so many times during the trip, we will come back in the summer. Right, guys?

So, we head back to our room at about 3pm, I think. Bored! I went to check out the swimming pool. Damn, the swimming pool was tiny. One kick off the side and I'm at the other end of the pool. Spent about 30 minutes floating on my back, just relaxing. Then, went back to join others and dominated the game of Big-2 again. Went out for dinner, and then, called it a night even earlier as we will be hitting the road at unearthly hour tomorrow. All for the sake of our friend Keng Yang.

So, that's part III.