Diary

I woke up at 8am and started on the beginning of the Bright Angle trail at 9am. I was walking alone. My mom went too early for me and my sister and her boyfriend wanted to walk alone. I passed them before the three mile point. My mother was already coming back. I was in a hurry to make my hike. We’d leave at 1:30pm with the car. So only 3.5h to hike. ...

We left the cozy Hotel in Mexican Hat and headed west out of the desert to the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is vast. I thought the Grand Canyon was one big canyon with only one trench in the middle. I was wrong, there are really big mountains in the middle. Grand Canyon Here an embedded YouTube Video on how the Grand Canyon formed. https://www.youtube.com/embed/t6IBg4Srb6E How did the Grand Canyon form? ...

We went east. First stop was Gooseneck bend. It was super hot. Gooseneck bend You might know the film Forrest Gump film. Here is a scene they used in the film. Forrest Gump background What you can see in the picture above is the Monument Valley. It is very beautiful and there are huge “Mesas” in the middle of the desert It rained heavily when we got there. ...

We started out in Penguish (Henries Hideout) and on this day we would go southeast to Bryce Canyon. We drove only 1h to Bryce Canyon. The entrance fee for all national parks is 80$ per car. I was hyped for the day when I first saw the canyon. There are some walking tracks in the Bryce Canyon. We went down the canyon tho my father was really terrified of heights and thus could not walk down with us. He walked down a shallower path. Eventually we met him at a junction. ...

The hotel we stayed in was magnificent and had a nice pool as shown below. We went shopping. I think there are more products available here than there are in Germany. The user has so many options. international supermarket The end user can get anything in the US. I think it is harder to get all the variety shown here in Germany than it is here. We drove through the Las Vegas strip on broad daylight. ...

Today we flew to Las Vegas. There were some troubles with the luggage. We had to pay extra for all our luggage. It was in expensive flight for flying from STL to LAS. Shaun drove us to the airport. He was so kind to drive two times because we wouldn’t have fit into the car all at once. Se being cute Arrival at the LAS airport The airport is huge. We drove with the airport-train to the shuttle station from which we took a free bus to the car renting center. This experience was seamless and we didn’t wait or pay anything for transportation. We waited a little at the at the car rental center. ...

View form the front porch. looking onto the street I helped Berette (Shaun’s partner) moving out her stuff from her office. She retired one week ago. She booked a truck to move her stuff from the office to her home. Under her office the was a shop for fancy carpets. hand knotted carpet for 15.000$ 50$ After helping her she insisted to give me money. I declined the 100$ and got 50$. She is so funny and young spirited. ...

The day began slow. We went to the mall to fix something regarding the sim card. After that we went shopping. Schnucks supermarket The houses really look good and all have some ornament. In Germany the buildings of a supermarket would be boring and square. There are so many options to choose from in the supermarket no matter what category. We went to the Broadway Oyster Bar and listened to music. There was no entrance fee. ...

After having a lazy day yesterday it was time to do some activities. We went kayaking in the Meramec park. We went down the Meramec river with aluminum Kayaks in the Meramec State Park. Before that we went to a gas station. Everything that is bigger is better. Gas station sausage and drink section going downstream break on a riverbank lots of turtles The temperature was very hot and it was humid. ...

I woke up at 1pm and thus slept for 13h. This day would be a lazy day to regenerate strength. Our host Shaun has some extraordinary stuff. He owns lots of historical objects and nice handmade everyday objects. He is a deformable body dynamics and thermodynamic professor at Washington University. Here are some of the many interesting objects he has scattered in his home. Butter with fermented milk ...