08/11/01 Grand Canyon (AZ) - Las Vegas (NV) / 584 km

I got up when Josune was rushing off the tent in order not to miss the sun rise. I thought to myself that I was going to be there only once in my life, so there I went out of the tent at six o’ clock. The truth is that it is a very impressive experience, the light at sunrise is very special, it is the light that gives the red colour to the canyon.

Going back to the tent, we came across some French guys that had some Route 66 stickers in their bicycles. We chatted with them and they told us they were doing the Route by bicycle and that they were doing an average of 120 Km. per day. It is another option.

We packed and we left the Grand Canyon very early. To recover Route 66 we went down to Williams and therefore we missed the section of the Route that goes from Grants to Williams. Maybe next time… Williams is a nice town. We needed some chain lube and they told us we would not find a shop till Kingman. We took a section of the old road and this time, even it is not very busy part, it was in good condition. Half way we found the Grand Canyon Caverns and we stopped in the restaurant for breakfast. We were talking for a while with the man responsible of the postcard shop and he gave us instructions to find the shop in Kingman and all. Just when we were leaving we saw the hour in a clock, and we saw it was not the same time we had. We asked the man about it and he told us in Arizona they did not change the hour in summer or winter, they always kept the same hour (but this only happens in Arizona!). Nevertheless, in the Navajo Nation, a land that belongs to four States, they do change the hour. As we first arrived to the Navajo Nation, even if we have spent days in Arizona, we had the wrong hour. We had to adjust the time to the same hour as in California …but careful, only in the summer. It is confusing since in the winter Arizona has the same hour as New Mexico.

When we arrived to Kingman we found the Bike Store quite easily. There was a Harley Davidson Open Door event or something like that and we could try them, but I did not feel like trying any. There were a lot of member of the HOG (Harley Owners Club) and we were chatting with them. We told them we were driving along Route 66 and they invited us to hot dogs and soft drinks. In this area they always reach the maximum temperatures of the US and when they saw us with the jackets and the helmets I think they took pity on us. We wanted to arrive in Las Vegas soon, so we left.

The way to Las Vegas was a pain in the neck. We found heavy wind gusts and we got some rain as well. For a moment I was not able to control the motorbike due to the wind. We finally arrived in Las Vegas after going through Hoover Damn. It was very hot, and as it was Saturday, it was not easy to find cheap accommodation. And it was 40ºC outside. When we were about to die dehydrated, we decided to stay in a dodgy hotel. We slept for an hour and went out to know the city. I had already been there before, so I took Josune to The Strip, the main street. I wanted to go to a buffet, but it was already 10:00 PM and they were closed. We went into some arcades and had dinner in the first fast-food place that we saw it was open, and then we went to a bar in front of it, to have a beer. Josune ordered a 7 up and they asked her for an ID. We could not understand why they asked us for an ID to serve us a non alcoholic drink. The guy in the bar would not serve us anything without an ID, he said that in order to enter a slot machine arcade it was necessary to have an ID. I had an ID so I ordered a beer, and Josune went to the fast-food place where we had had dinner, ordered a 7 up, and came back next to me to drink it in the bar. Very funny thing… In the street it was extremely hot, and we went to sleep after getting lost going back to the hotel. One of the worst things of riding the bike in Las Vegas is that you are stopping all the time in the traffic lights, and you get all the additional heat from the exhaust pipes of the cars…terrible.