We rise at six, we have a long drive ahead of us. We check our maps to discuss the route. We try to avoid highways.

check the route

Dirk-jan and Joris will drive the Land Rover, Petra and Inge are in the back of the Model T.

Inge&Petra

We drive a beautiful route with very nice views.

view1

view2

We have to climb high mountains up to 9600 ft! And what comes up, must go down…

10 procent

Dirk-jan and Joris take some nice pictures and shoot some shots of the Model T in the mountains.

steep mountain

filming

Clouds come up and and we get a shower.

raining

We have lunch at a small creek, very nice to play in. Boys will be boys…

lunch

At 16.45 we can choose to drive another 32 miles, or drive 8 miles off road to the nearest campground. We choose the last option. The Land Rover has got a hard job, the Model T keeps up with the Land Rover quite well.

off road

We end up at a campsite at an elevation of 9800 ft! We are the only visitors on this nice campground. There are a lot of mosquitoes flying around, so we wrap ourselves up. A smoky campfire also helps. We have some time to select photos and write reports for the website.

Dirk on campsite

campsite

Today is a real holiday for us, we don’t have to wake up early. Without a hurry we take a shower, have breakfast and skype with the people in Holland.

breakfast

When Trudy wants to hang up the laundry, she finds somebody who wants to help her…

snake

At 11 o’clock we go to the Bryce Canyon, Dirk and Trudy stay at the campsite. We take the shuttlebus to several viewpoints, and go for a short walk. The Bryce Canyon is very impressive, and so different than the Grand Canyon! The Grand Canyon is caused by the Colorado River, while the Bryce Canyon is caused by rain and ice.

Bryce Canyon

group photo

In the afternoon we go buy some souvenirs in western style shops.

shops

We had to take a picture of Dirk-jan and Joris…

Dirk-jan & Joris

For tonight we found a night opportunity to do over the dinner for Dirk and Trudy again. But first we go play tourists together. We go on a picture dressed in Utah western style. We have a lot of fun dressing up already. First the ladies get to pick out a dress. After that the guys also get an outfit, including pistols, backs of money and bottles of whiskey.

dresses

backsite

We got to choose the best picture, this is it:

western photo

Back at the campsite we have a drink and take the train to a Western dinner show. The Bar G Wranglers provide a nice evening for us. Dirk and Trudy really enjoyed the present for their anniversary.

dinner show

After the show we have a drink at our campfire, after that we get in our tipi. Tomorrow we will drive further towards Jackson.

Today we drive towards the Bryce Canyon. We prepare to leave in the very nice morning sun. Dirk changes the front tires of the model T.

01 campsite

We are somewhat behind writing reports for the website, so we do our best to catch up.

02 writing reports

We are ready to leave now. It again seems to become very warm today.

We drive along some old cars. On the first sight one of those seems to be a Ford, but a closer look tells us that this is not the case. Trudy tries to make the engine run.

03 Trudy and car

We find a nice spot to drink coffee and eat a sandwich. We enjoy the shade of a tree and the sight of the mountains around us.

04a lunch

Trudy and Inge prepare a delicious lunch and Dirk takes care of the music.

07 making lunch

08 music at lunch

Joris finds a can under some branches under the tree. What’s in there? Is this a treasure?

04 treasure

Using a tissue we carefully open the can. We find lots of different things in it. Candies, toys and a notebook with a pencil. We find out that this treasure is part of geocaching, where people find coordinates on the internet and look for it using a GPS tool.

We put some business cards and a wooden shoe in the can, write in the notebook that we were here and hide the treasure again.

05 geo treasure

If you also want to find this treasure, these are the coordinates:

06 geo location

After 7200 km of driving, Dirk is a bit nervous but also proud to give the key of the Model T to Dirk-jan. A historical moment! Try to get the key back Dirk.

09 new driver

A few clouds appear in front of the sun. This makes driving more comfortable. We even see some raindrops falling from the sky.

12 rain

The rain doesn’t bother Dirk-jan, he drives us safely into Utah.

10 Utah

We enter the Bryce Canyon. Such a beautiful route!

11 nice route

At 17.00h (Utah time, we drove through a time zone) we arrive at the campground, Ruby’s Inn. Here we can rent a tipi instead of building a tent. One of the available tipi’s happens to be on the most beautiful spot of the campground. At the lake with our own lane of at least 100 meters.

13 campsite 1

Dirk-jan prepares wood for the campfire.

14 campsite 2

He did a good job, because the campfire burns very well.

15 campfire

Now it is time to take some rest during our very busy trip.

16 campfire music

Tomorrow we will stay at this campground.

We drove 189 km today.

Today we drive to Jacobs Lake.

Map

We clear our camping spot, which is quite a project.

Camp01

Camp02

When all our stuff is in de Land Rover, we go to the toilet for the last time. The restrooms really stink at this hour!

Smell

When Inge is ready we leave the campground.

Start

We drive along the south end of the Canyon.

Canyonview

At the Desert View point we stop for a coffee. Today is the 41st wedding-anniversary of Dirk and Trudy. We go back in time to their wedding day.

Wedding

The area we drive through is much emptier than before, it is real desert.

OnTheRoad

Our route goes through the Navajoa Indian reservation. We see only one tipi, the rest of the time we see houses, mostly site-caravans.

Tipi

During our trip we are pulled over by old friends of Dirk and Trudy, Russ and Katy Firstnow from Flagstaff.

Russ

When we leave the reservation, we cross the Colorado River. The bridge is very high! We take some nice pictures there.

Bridge01 (panorama)

Bridge02

During a tankstop a real strong storm comes up, which might not be so bad if there wasn’t so much sand in it. This means we have to prepare ourselves!

Sandstorm01

When we are ready we leave, it’s quite something.

SandStorm02

During the trip Trudy has an important job, she has to hold the front window and the roof of the Model T.

Sandstorm03

At 18.00 we arrive at Jacob Lake, build up our tent and take a shower before we go to the only restaurant in this area. This is our present to Dirk and Trudy. After a 45 minute walk we arrive at the restaurant clean and with our best clothes on. It is 20.40 when we arrive. But no luck for us… de kitchen closed 10 minutes earlier and the only thing we can eat is a sandwich. By the grace of God we are allowed to sit at a table. Under the grumpy looks of the waiters we get our sandwich and chips.

wedding meal

We are pushed out of the restaurant by the vacuum cleaner and with an half empty stomach we walk 45 minutes back to the campground.

We will give this present another try…

Soon we go to bed to depart to the Bryce Canyon tomorrow.
Today we drove 292 km.

Today we woke up at 5:30, it’s cold outside. This is so different than the heat during the day. Today we will not be driving but explore the Grand Canyon. Joris, Petra and Dirk-jan are going for a walk. That’s why we woke up so early.

The trail leads down from the edge of the Canyon. Our trail goes 350 m down.

start trail

Canyon01

The views are beautiful.

Canyon02

We are warned by several signs for the extreme heat that is expected to day. We take a lot of water and salt snacks. Along the trail there are a lot of squirrels. As soon as you open a bag of chips, the squirrels appear and almost grab the chips from your hands.

Squirrel

At the end of the trail there is a watertap, it must be more than 40 degrees celcius down here, so the tap gives us a good chance to cool down! We cool our heads with water and refill our bottles.

As soon as we start our way up we are very lucky, some clouds appear in front of the sun. This makes the temperature drop at least 15 degrees.

The climb goes quite fast, sometimes we have to stop to catch our breaths, drink some water and enjoy the view. This is really beautiful with all the layers with different colors.

Canyon03

When we are back at the edge of the Canyon we were pretty exhausted, but that was really worth it!

Top

With this high temperatures we take our shoes off, that feels good!

HotShoes

Wearing cool flipflops, we stop at several viewpoints with magnificent views. Especially the ones with a view on the Colorado River are beautiful.

Canyon04

On our way back to the campground we drive by the National Geopgraphic Store. There we go to see a movie about the Grand Canyon in an Imax cinema, really nice to see.
Especially a flight with a helicopter through the Canyon seems great, this gives a good reason to return to the canyon in the future.

At 18.15 we are back at Inge, Dirk en Trudy. Time to drink a cool beer and tell tall stories. Tomorrow we will drive towards the Bryce Canyon.

Today we leave at 9.30 am at the route 66 towards the Grand Canyon.

Model T on route 66

Along the route we stop at a classic tankstop. A quiet place when we stopped, however it soon became very busy.

Model T at gas station

Outside there is a model A and in the garage there is a model T truck.

Model A at gas station

Model T truck

After the coffee break we continue our route on the 66. Next to the route there is a railway where very large trains pass every 15 minutes.

Train

After the lunch break Joris takes the wheel of the Land Rover. He is doing fine!

Joris behind the wheel

We search for a supermarket and drive through a nice “Cars” village. No supermarket there, however we see some nice cars.

Cars cars

After the 66 we enter the Interstate 40. A highway with many climbs in it. We have to stop frequently to cool down the model T. The trucks also suffer the heat and have to stop now and then. We pass a brave biker who is climbing the highway in this heat. Respect!

Biker

After the 40 we take the 64 North, a straight way through the country.
Petra joins Joris in the Land Rover.

Petra and Joris

Inge and Dirk-jan sit in the back of the model T.

Inge and DJ in Model T

At a tankstop we see some nice hot-rods, but still no supermarket.

Hotrods

After about 50 mile on the 64 we arrive at a campsite in Tusayan. A nice campsite with lots of trees, however still no supermarket…

After a beer we build the tent and because we still don’t bought groceries Inge and Trudy get pizza in the village.

Beer

Tent

Today we drove 300 km. Tomorrow we will explore the Grand Canyon.

It’s time to leave at Frank and Sukhi Ross. We had such a wonderful time there!
But first we have a decent breakfast.

breakfast

Before we leave we have to get all our luggage in the Land Rover. We are with 6 people, so we need some creativity for that!

Of course we take a group picture with the sticker of the new team on the hood.

group photo

new crew

When we leave, Frank leads us out of the city.

Frank & Dirk

departure

It is very hot today. We decide to drive to the Hoover Dam. Before we can go there the Land Rover is checked for weapons. We even have to open the roof tent.

hooverdam

We have a nice route with beautiful views and a warm welcome in Arizona.

View

welcome in Arizona

Kees is watching.

Kees

At 19.00 we arrive at a campsite, however we cannot build the tent there. They guide us to another campsite. A beautiful campsite with trees for enough shadow.

Tomorrow we will drive the route 66 to the Grand Canyon.

Today we’re going to the strip.

First we’re going to the Harley shop just around the corner. There are very special classic racing bikes and a lot of Harley’s. Let’s try one.

Dirk jan op Harley

Harley shop

Dirk and Frank give us a ride to the strip. Of course we first have to take a picture at the welcome sign.

Las Vegas bord

We cruise with the model T over the strip. How bizar is this!

T-Ford op de strip

They drop us at Ceasars Palace a very very big casino and hotel were they copied the streets of Rome inside.

We had a lunch and gambled at the roulette table and the fruit machines.

Fruitautomaten

In the meanwhile it became dark at the strip. Now we see the strip by night and hear the sound of Celine Dion. It’s time to take a taxi now.

Vegas by night

Tomorrow we’re going to make our first road trip in the USA.

The day starts with making reports for the website of the last 3 days.
As you see, we miss our support team

Via Prewar Car we have got an invitation to visit Gary and Marelyn Wales in Los Angeles. They live an hour driving from our hotel. In the afternoon we went to their house.

We have a warmly welcome with champagne.
They live in a beautiful decorated house.

decorated glas

Gary is a cheerful man who loves special things.
His passion is to build races of old American La France fire brigade trucks.

American La France 1

American La France 2

American La France 3

American La France 4

He also collects plaques of auto clubs all over the world. He gives Dirk a beautiful brass plaque of the Automobile Club of Southern California.
Dirk mounted it directly on the Model T.

plague

Gary, when he was younger, he was a good singer and he sing a song for us about a Model T.

Gary and the Model T

In the garage is a Wall of Fame were we may put on our names.

The Wall of Fame 1

The Wall of Fame 2

At least we were invited for a nice diner.
This was again a nice invitation during our trip in the US.

Today the new support team flew in. Joris, Petra, Dirk-jan and Inge departed to fly to Las Vegas.

Schiphol

It is a ten hour flight to Seattle airport. There we have a connection flight to Las Vegas. During waiting for boarding our gate has switched twice.

It was a nice flight with amazing views. Above the clouds we saw some cool mountain tops with snow on it.

Berg boven wolk

During the flight it becomes dark. Suddenly the glowing Las Vegas showed up. Wow! The strip with all the lights was very clear and beautiful.

Las Vegas uit de lucht

After landing and getting the luggage we called Dirk and Trudy and they picked us up with our new American friend Frank Ross. What a nice guy. Time for a beer and a good sleep.

Biertje bij Frank

Tomorrow we are going to the strip.