The Albino Bowler is in the Dominican Republic

      In part one of this trip, the Albino Bowler found himself hanging out in Vegas and then heading out to Rachel, Nevada to see how close he could get to the famed ‘Area 51’.  After spending a little bit of time in the Rachel area, we took off again.  The next stop on our trip, was Zion National Park.

    If you’re a fan of canyons and big red rocks, this is the place for you.  Holly and I had a great time here and it ranked as Holly’s favorite destination of the vacation.  We

decided to go hiking while in the park (of course) and chose the trail to ‘Observation Point’.  The hike itself was 8 miles round trip, and had some pretty sketchy spots where the trail had literally been carved out of the cliffs.  The views all along the trail, and at the point itself, made the trip worth every second though.  Beautiful place!

    Next stop on the trip; Page, Arizona.  Page is home to a pretty popular canyon named “Antelope Canyon”, which may not ring a bell until you see the pictures.  Antelope Canyon is a “slot canyon”, and was very much other worldly.  The walls themselves were, at times, as narrow as a few feet apart and reach close to a hundred feet in the air.  Holly and I spent several hours here, and to be honest, could have spent all day here.  It was absolutely fascinating and a blast to take pictures of (if you’re interested in going yourself, you can find my full review of the upper and lower canyons here on TripAdvisor.com).  As the sun moves across the sky, it completely changes the look inside the canyon and offers the chance for some truly unique photography.  I would highly recommend stopping by and checking this place out.  VERY cool.
    After a short stay in Page, our next destination was Moab, Utah and Arches National Park.  Arches is also a stop that has been on my list for a while (Are you seeing a pattern here?  Lots of life list things on this trip) and did not disappoint.   The only thing slightly disappointing about the park is that there were just so many people there.  The land is beautiful there, but everyone is obviously there to see the arches… so finding one without people in, around, and on, gets to be a bit of a challenge.  I’d recommend planning a trip here during the winter when the crowds are minimal.  Regardless of when
you go though, you’ll be rewarded with some of nature’s beautiful wonders… you might just have to share them with a hundred or so of your closest fellow travelers.  :)

    Leaving Moab and heading South again, you come across a classic American West landscape recognizable by anyone.  Conjuring images of John Wayne and old Western movies with cowboys and Indians, Monument Valley is an American icon for sure.  Holly and I decided to
splurge a little here and stayed at The View in Monument Valley, which is built on the Indian reservation and quite literally just a stone’s throw away from some of the monuments.  Stunning location, and as the name implies, the view doesn’t get any better.  Very relaxing spot.

    The final destination before heading back to Las Vegas was the Grand Canyon… but we managed to stumble upon something VERY interesting on the way just outside of Tuba City, Arizona; dinosaur footprints!   This place was CRAZY.  There had to have been hundreds of prints all over the place, permanently petrified in the rock.  It was as if someone had poured out concrete on the ground and let the guys just have at it.  This was definitely one of those little stops you make, not expecting much, and then you getting blown away by what you find.
    Picking back up on our journey, we soon arrived at the Grand Canyon National Park.  Here we met some friends of ours, Jay and Jennifer Norris.  Jay and I had been discussing a trip out west one day in the office, and as it turned out had been planning to go around the same time.  Our itineraries were slightly different, but both included the Grand Canyon… so we booked it up!

    Hiking is a must here.  We learned while in the park that only 1% of the visitors actually take the time to go below the rim of the canyon, so the Albino Bowler is a member of an elite group.  We chose the South Kaibab trail as it offers excellent views within a relatively short distance.  Holly and I made it as far as Skeleton Point, which is 3 miles down into the canyon, and offers a view of
the Colorado river, as well as an awesome perspective of the rest of the canyon.  The problem though is this… if you walk 3 miles down into the canyon… you have to walk 3 miles back UP.  And it’s straight up, or at least it sure feels that way.  Whew… EPIC.  I will say that the effort is greatly rewarded.  More people should get out of their cars and do this, but as you’ve probably gathered by now, I’m glad there were no crowds.  ;)     Two days at the canyon and it was time to head back
to big city lights and all the craziness of Vegas.  We did happen to randomly stumble upon another American icon on the way back though… Route 66.  I happened to notice a lot of Route 66 memorabilia in a gas station we stopped at and asked the attendant if it was near by… he pointed out the window and pointed to the street outside, “Yeah, it’s just right there”.  It wouldn’t have been right to have not taken a picture!

Till next time, happy travels!

– Dan Thompson

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What happens in Vegas…

June 5, 2009    Category: Albino Bowler   2 Comments »

    What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas as the saying goes… unless of course you’re the Albino Bowler.  In that case it gets plastered all over the internet.  I get the feeling though that this is not the first time that has happened to someone that visited Vegas.  ;)   I don’t think the Albino Bowler minded though.

    My wife Holly and I had been thinking of a vacation out west for a while now, and after doing some looking around at what we wanted to see it seemed that Las Vegas
would be the perfect launching point for the trip.  It also didn’t hurt that neither of us had ever been there before and had always wanted to go… oh, and flights there are relatively cheap.  I’m sold.

    After talking to several people, and doing some thinking about what we wanted out of our Vegas experience, we decided to stay at one of the lesser expensive hotels on the strip, Treasure Island, instead of the big named places across the street.  Turns out TI might not be “Vegas” nice anymore… but it’s still a really nice place, and was convenient to everything.  As you can see from the pictures, we obviously did some gambling, which was a LOT of fun.  Roulette was our game of choice as it seemed to have the lowest learning curve… and wasn’t Black Jack.  Also on the must do list was stopping by In-N-Out Burgers.
According to the wifey, this is a frequent watering hole for celebrities… and while we didn’t see any there (other than the Bowler of course), they did have really good hamburgers and I’m quite certain their fries are laced with crack.  Good stuff!

   I have to say, that while Las Vegas was a neat place, I don’t know that it’s my kind of place.  Big city lights and crowds of people just aren’t my thing, but we definitely had fun while we were there.  I was ready to head out of town after a short stay… and that we did.
 

    Next stop?  Area 51.  Area 51?  Yes… well, as close to it as you can get as a civilian and not go to jail anyway.

   When I was a kid I was fascinated by UFO’s and “the unexplainable”.  Naturally all the talk of Area 51 and the top secret Air Force base at Groom Lake, Nevada caught my attention.   I’ve since given up my fascination with UFO’s (well, mostly… okay I’m just lying now), but I still wanted
to go see what we could see.  A little “town” called Rachel, Nevada is the closest thing to civilization around, so we pointed our car north, and took off up the Extraterrestrial Highway (no kidding).  Rachel sits almost 3 hours outside of Las Vegas, and at least 2 hours away from anything else.  It’s quite literally in the middle of nowhere… and I kind of think it only exists because of geeky tourists like myself, and the transient alien needing a place to stay while their spacecraft gets fixed over at the base.  One of the saucers was in transit while we
were there in fact.  The Albino Bowler posed for a picture.     About 10 miles down a dirt road from Rachel you’ll find what’s known as “the Rachel back gate” and is one of two easily accessible entrances to the base.  The other is off of Groom Lake road… another dirt road that’s 13 miles long, but ends abruptly (for non-service people) at a collection of signs saying things like “Photography of the Areas is Prohibited” and “Lethal Force Authorized”.  The Rachel back gate though actually has a guard building,
gates, and lots of cool cameras that you can see.  Oh… it also has the signs that seem to suggest that you’ll be shot if you take pictures… but we didn’t drive 3 hours out of the way to not at least chance it!  Come on!  It’s hard to tell from this particular picture, but the cameras turned and were facing us while we were there snapping away, so if we all disappear without a trace… you’ll have a good idea why.

    Enough with the geeky stuff, lets check out some parks!

Check back soon for the second installment of the Albino Bowler’s Southwest adventure!

– Dan Thompson

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