Road trippin’ in the USA: Say hello to “Rudolf” the RV
/)
Philipp, a few buddies and a rented camper van are traveling across the US this spring – from West to East – and reporting from the road. We’ll bring all the best bits – from mishaps to magical moments – to you right here on the blog. Enjoy.
Day one of our big road trip started at noon with a lot of excitement and fun. Our first destination was Bryce Canyon, which was absolutely magnificent. We arrived just in time to see the sun rise over this spectacle of nature, after driving 12 hours the previous night. It was most definitely worth it, and I’ve never seen something like it. The change in temperature was rough though, because we’d started with 21 degree Celsius in Los Angeles and at Bryce Canyon the thermometer showed –8 degree Celsius. After the first speechless moments we sat down for our first official road trip breakfast.
Our next amazing destination was the famous Grand Canyon. The pictures really don’t do the vastness of it all any justice. They do give you an impression of what it looks like though, and we took thousands of them, of course (and threw in a little photo shoot as well.) In a nearby restaurant we wolfed down a perfectly medium steak for lunch. I think we’ll have a lot of them in the next weeks especially when we stop in Texas. After a good shower and a few hours of sleep, Max and I began our next night ride. We were heading to Monument Valley.
We arrived in Monument Valley very early in the morning, around five. The desert was really scary in the night, so we decided to stop next to the main road to be on the safe side. Our old classmate Elio was supposed to arrive on the same day, so we waited for him and enjoyed a good dinner and some beers on the roof of our “Rudolf”, the name we gave our RV. He finally arrived at eight, the reunion was exciting and we had a really good evening together. All in all Monument Valley was not really what I expected and I was kind of disappointed, but we enjoyed seeing Elio again.
The next day we started our journey to Albuquerque where we spent the night on a camping ground. It was Max’s birthday the next day, so after shopping and buying large blankets, we celebrated his birthday in a very German way – sitting around a bonfire.
After the celebration we missed our check-out time (oops!), and had to convince the friendly park ranger that we shouldn’t have to pay the late check-out fee. Thankfully Sophie’s charming explanation helped convince him. In the evening it was time for Max’s birthday dinner, so we went to a perfect steakhouse and after that to the cinema.
Our little camping family decided to spend the next day at the White Sands Monument, which was perfect because we didn’t have to pay the entrance fee because a missile test (say what?!) was scheduled for that afternoon, and the park was scheduled to close earlier than normal. This left us just enough time to clean out trusty old “Rudolf” and get him ready for the next leg of the journey… See you there!