During the tour we meet countless interesting people and stories, sometimes we talk to interesting people, but most of the time they find us. It is always good to have a few words with the locals, and it is a great experience to be inspired! This is what happened while I was writing the last blog post. A guy came over to us and asked what we were doing, he liked my pictures, and then I asked him, what is he doing. It turned out that he had stopped his engineering work to design and manufacture his own products, which he would launch on Kickstarter. He makes very good stuff, not only do they look good, but they are also very practical. What really caught me was that it was so cool, loose and precise that he did it alone. Amazing performance! Plus, he was very nice, and the end of the conversation was that we got a carabiner gift. Anyone interested in demanding outdoor products should take a look here, he has just launched his latest Kickstarter campaign with an otherwise new type of carabiner prototype.
Just a few miles from the Antelope Canyon is the Horseshoe Bend, a huge bend made by the Colorado River. Parking is not free, but in return you have easy access to the place with a view of the whole bend. Very upscale, but there is another place like this, just not as easily accessible. After watching the bend (where it is forbidden to drone), I flew over a very similar untouched bend before the entrance to the Grand Canyon National Park, but it seemed from above that it could be approached on foot if we had a day.
The flight itself was very risky, I flew more than two kilometers at 50 km / h to the bend, took a few minutes of video, took photos, and then came back with max speed and 4% battery charge, but Lassie could not fully come back to me, I had to run on the rocky slope to catch it because it wanted to land automatically every now and then. So it was stressful, but worth the shots. It is forbidden in the parks to drone you have to get used to such tricks if you want to take valuable pictures…
The Grand Canyon itself was no extra for us, the other national parks offer a lot more hiking and fun, though the scenery is really amazing. We did a medium hike to the inside of the canyon, saw the Colorado River meandering, watched the sunset and continued on our way to Las Vegas. We spent the night not far from the National Park, where we first encountered a conflict over wild camping during the tour. We were sleeping in a legal place, on a dispersed campsite. A guy thought that when we arrived in the middle of the night, we were too close to his place, so in the morning when he woke up he screamed and swore a lot of not really nice things. Although the place was absolutely ok, where we parked, we drove away to an other place 500 m away for a quiet sleep. I’m not saying anything to these people, it’s not worth it, but I don’t know how he behaves in a Walmart car park, where you go to a parking space and on both sides are people asleep in their cars.
Before Las Vegas, we hit the Hoover Dam, which is a must see, amazing scenery and engineering! But I don’t have such a good opinion of Las Vegas, because we haven’t ever been to such a disgusting city like this. It is also difficult to call this “city” something that was not created for the comfortable cohabitation of people, but for something quite different. Those who have brought this together are even more understandable, but who maintain it all with their orbital stupidity, they have no excuse. The non-Las Vegas part of the city shows the average American cityscape, but of course, everyones Las Vegas is the Strip, the street of glamor and luxury.
Well, not really. Rather, plastic, scrape, a spiritual misery. The fact that this is the brightest city in the world is true maximum in terms of illumination, but this is not even a positive factor because of the environmental impact. Hotel, on the back of a hotel, downstairs “game” rooms, casinos, no one will explain to me why is it called a game, when someone loses a hundred dollars in a seat. There is applause, next to the roulette table, big boys and big girls can finally live out their dreams until they run out of money, which soon happens. Decadence? Rather, a level of human stupidity and emptiness for which there are no words. But this is a party, and when you get out of that limo on the go, your account is empty because you didn’t spend 3,000 Forints for a party in Budapest, but 3000 Dollars in Las Vegas for the same. So enough for Las Vegas, I guess we won’t come back again.
