Touring holiday to Nevada, California & Arizona

wdyw

MOLLYBRUSH wrote: »

Do they have bears out there?

oh yeah, along with mountain lions and snakes. The chances of encountering any of them in a dangerous situation though are next to nil.

The only place in the SW that we felt anyway uneasy was in Chinle, when visiting Canyon De Chelly.

wdyw

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

on both counts

wow !

Unless you can lose a day at Cottonwood I think both are too far away for this trip. As Blindman said, Dead horse State Park is fantastic and along with Canyonlands, the Arches National Park, the slick rock, and rafting the Moab area is an absolutely fantastic area to spend a lot of time.

Horseshoe Bend scares me stupid! Only a few miles from Antelope Canyon for an easy two site day trip though.

Murphy_The_Cat

wdyw wrote: »

Unless you can lose a day at Cottonwood .

I can't.

Mrs Cat was adamant that she wouldn't stay anywhere for less than two nights, with a minimum 3 night stop being preferred. Plus, Cottonwood is very handy for the two excursions that we would like to do

The nice thing is, the things that we miss out on this time, will give us something to look forward to for next time --- because after this trip, 3 of us have enough AA miles for a free flight over.

I'm dead chuffed --- I've just booked the final nights accomodation, so Bish Bosh, I can now start planning on what to do in each place (& where to get the money from to pay for the trip :rotfl::eek:)

bafty_crastard

Murphy the cat

We're planning a similar trip during the first 2 weeks in July. My children are older though - 15 and 12 when we travel so we'll be doing a few 1 night stops.

Our planned trip is
San Francisco - 3 nights
Yosemite - 1 night
Mammoth/Bishop area - 2 nights
Death Valley - 1 night
Page - 2 nights
Monument Valley - 1 night
Grand Canyon - 1 night
Las Vegas - 4 nights

We fly into San Francisco then home from Las Vegas so only need to drive 1 way. We have booked 10 nights accommodation so far. Still need to book Yosemite, Mammoth and Page.
We will be in the Mammoth area on July 4th which could be good. My OH has found a small town called Independence about 40 miles from Mammoth and likes the idea of Independence Day in Independence! It looks like a typical small town with parades, a bbq and fireworks at night. Still looking at options for these nights though. Looking forward to getting it all booked so we can start planning what to see/do while away.
We're missing out San Diego, Santa Barbara, Palm Springs and LA. We'll save it for another trip!
Been watching your posts with interest. Have a great trip :beer:

wdyw

bafty_crastard wrote: »

We will be in the Mammoth area on July 4th which could be good. My OH has found a small town called Independence about 40 miles from Mammoth and likes the idea of Independence Day in Independence!

Mammoth is quite expensive to stay at even in the middle of summer so I'd recommend keeping an eye out for a bargain. In cheapskate mode we drove on to Bishop for a cheapo motel. Wished we had paid the money and spent a day at Mammoth.

Independence day in Independence sounds cool though!

Are you driving from Death Valley to Page via Mesquite/ St George/ Hurricane? Zion National Park and Bryce are going to tempt you....

tingtong

For those who are not already aware, this is a great website to use when planning your USA roadtrips:

https://www.roadtripamerica.com

The people on the forum are very knowledgable and helpful.

Hope this helps.

Murphy_The_Cat

bafty_crastard wrote: »

Murphy the cat

We're planning a similar trip during the first 2 weeks in July. My children are older though - 15 and 12 when we travel so we'll be doing a few 1 night stops.

Our planned trip is
San Francisco - 3 nights
Yosemite - 1 night
Mammoth/Bishop area - 2 nights
Death Valley - 1 night
Page - 2 nights
Monument Valley - 1 night
Grand Canyon - 1 night
Las Vegas - 4 nights

We fly into San Francisco then home from Las Vegas so only need to drive 1 way. We have booked 10 nights accommodation so far. Still need to book Yosemite, Mammoth and Page.
We're missing out San Diego, Santa Barbara, Palm Springs and LA. We'll save it for another trip!
Been watching your posts with interest. Have a great trip :beer:

that sounds like a great trip and one that I'd love to do as well - once the children are about the age of your two. One of the reasons that Mrs Cat didn't want any one nighters is that on a few of the legs, the mileage is fairly heavy - 300 miles Vegas to Cottonwood, 400 miles Tucson to San Diego, 210 miles Palm Desert to Santa Barbara.

tingtong wrote:

For those who are not already aware, this is a great website to use when planning your USA roadtrips:
www.roadtripamerica.com
The people on the forum are very knowledgable and helpful.
Hope this helps.

It helps enormously -- a lot of the things that people tell you about in there don't appear in any guidebook and would be really hard to find yourself.

Madmel

To the person asking about RVs as a single parent....

...well thankfully I'm not a single parent but it was mightly scary driving it the 300+ miles when I thought I might be. I don't know whether or not you'd be able to hire one as the company we used preferred 2 drivers/adults. They insisted that when we reversed, one person got out of the RV to watch for obstacles to aid the driver. Obviously in an emergency situation I couldn't do that, but I hated reversing the thing and to be honest, was glad to get rid of it. I managed fine in a car and my kids were wonderful, given the situation.

I don't know how you choose an insurer. We used the AA, and the call centre in the UK was excellent. But their North American operation is run by some Canadian outfit (Global Excel?) and my experience was pretty bad. Apparently they thought our policy was underwritten by the Royal Bank of Scotland, and I do have family contact there. It took a whole day of my dad on the phone to them back in the UK to get vague action, and they were still unhappy talking to him. Writing this down has made me realise that I am still traumatised by the whole experience so please bear with me.

If I was going again, I would get contact details for the British Consulates in your nearest cities (possibly LA for the trips on this thread) BEFORE going. The lady I dealt with in LA was wonderful and I'm welling up now thinking about her kindness. Even though it was Labor Day, she gave me her mobile number and kept checking up on me & the kids, not hesitating to kick a$$ with the insurers when needed.

At the end of the day, my 6 & 8 year old DDs were happy to spend time swimming and shopping. The hospital in Tucson has a deal with a nice local hotel for 59USD per night (instead of 124) and they had a swimming pool where the kids spent nearly 2 hours each day. Once DH was out of danger and then on a normal ward, he needed some new clothes that would fit over his wounds so I inducted the kids into the joys of shopping malls. We had a budget of 50USD per day for all meals and entertainment as I wasn't sure how long we'd be there and didn't want to run short. They helped make decisions on food and entertainment, and so they learned some valuable MS lessons too.

I know we need to go back to say thanks to the people who saved DH and those who kept me sane, but not this year. The people of Tucson were simply amazing, so anyone going out there is in for a treat.

torbrex

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

that sounds like a great trip and one that I'd love to do as well - once the children are about the age of your two. One of the reasons that Mrs Cat didn't want any one nighters is that on a few of the legs, the mileage is fairly heavy - 300 miles Vegas to Cottonwood, 400 miles Tucson to San Diego, 210 miles Palm Desert to Santa Barbara.



It helps enormously -- a lot of the things that people tell you about in there don't appear in any guidebook and would be really hard to find yourself.

Big thing to remember about driving in the States is the roads are straight and wide so your average speed will be a lot higher than it is in this country, I have always found that once onto the freeway I could set the cruise control to 60 and not have to touch it for 300 miles and would be at my destination in about 5 hours whereas here it could take 7-9 hours to do the same journey.

Murphy_The_Cat

torbrex wrote: »

Big thing to remember about driving in the States is the roads are straight and wide so your average speed will be a lot higher than it is in this country, I have always found that once onto the freeway I could set the cruise control to 60 and not have to touch it for 300 miles and would be at my destination in about 5 hours whereas here it could take 7-9 hours to do the same journey.

After doing a touch of mooching about, it looks like the Interstate speed limit in California is 70, & for Arizona/Nevada its 75 mph, so we'll be able to mooch along quite nicely.
The usual restriction for me when I'm doing a long distance trip, is the condition of the children !! If they are relaxed & happy (or asleep/watching a DVD), I'm quite happy to keep on rolling -- but on this trip, I'm trying to arrange things in my mind, so that I/we've got something to pass the time for a bit (or eat) about the 100 mile marker, IF we NEED to stop. Although things like the Hoover Dam will be a stop all of their own.
Now all I need to do is find something interesting to do on the Tucson - San Diego stretch. I think that I may be expecting a little bit to much for the children to manage 400odd miles non-stop :rotfl: