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People are always thrilled to visit foreign countries when they’re on vacation, but there are always special sparks in their eyes and butterflies in their stomach when that destination happens to be the United States of America and I assuredly am no stranger to that exciting feeling! 🙂

To me, the States are the closest thing to the promised land, as I thoroughly associate this country to the place where everything is possible and all dreams can turn into reality. But there’s another factor that contributes to the fascination I (and many people, I’m sure) harbor about the U.S. I mean, we’re talking about a country that has such a strong cultural influence globally, that its music is listened to everywhere (or almost) in the world, that its movies are watched internationally, that its authors are read in countless places around the globe, that its TV shows enlivens the lives of millions of people, young and old; and, since we are products of our environment, everything we see, listen to, read, and watch inevitably affects, to a certain extent of course, the way we think, speak and behave. Even American slang and expressions are used worldwide!
So naturally, when we get to visit a country whose culture is so present in our everyday lives, whether in the form of arts, books, sports, media, entertainment, or business, we feel impressed, in awe, thrilled, and that’s why there’s a magic about the States that simply can’t be found anywhere else in the world.

Sixteen thousand kilometers. That’s the distance we drove from Montreal to San Diego and back last July, as part of our epic month-long summer road trip.
I can honestly say I had no idea what to expect from this trip and truthfully, I felt completely overwhelmed even before leaving home: there were going to be so much to see, feel, grasp, remember, which had me hoping I’d be present enough to live every single moment to the fullest.

My husband, who had already completed this road trip several times a couple years ago, kept raving about it but he also warned me about the extreme heat in certain places, which I was slightly anxious about: we were going to camp in many of these extremely hot destinations and I was secretly praying this beautiful trip wouldn’t turn into a complete nightmare because, quite simply put, the only way I can handle extreme heat is poolside, at the beach, or by a river; no sightseeing that involves walking under 47 degrees Celsius and certainly no hiking! So as much as I was excited about this trip, I was also very apprehensive.

ESTES PARK

The day we left Montreal, we slept at Kitchener (Ontario), before making it to Iowa City (Iowa) the next day and Sidney (Nebraska) the night after. The fourth day of our journey marked the beginning of the interesting stops of our trip, as we arrived at Estes Park. The unbelievable scenic road at the entrance of the park left my jaw and eyes wide open in wonder. I didn’t say a word, I couldn’t even move; I had never seen anything like this narrow and sinuous road which asphalt was so shiny it looked like it had just been built, surrounded by immense rocks.
As we arrived at Hermit Park Open Space, our home for the ensuing three days, we were warned about active bears on the campground. You should have seen my face. I obviously didn’t sleep at all the first night and would hear sounds of dead leaves being crushed all night. I was terrified! But I managed to calm myself for the next days. After all, there were families with kids camping, so if a five year old can manage to sleep peacefully without worrying about black bears taking walks by their tent, I should be able to do the same, right? Well, that’s what I told myself to woman up anyways, ha!

What I loved about Estes Park:
– It is a great starting point to explore Rocky Mountain National Park.
– Beautiful, small, but touristic town.
– Trail Ridge Road, also known as the Highway To The Sky, is a scenic, steep and sinuous drive that winds passed 12,000-foot peaks.
– Rocky Mountain National Park is basically hiking paradise. We only had time to complete one trail, an easy but beautiful one: the Ouzel Falls Trail.
– The gorgeous roads everywhere.

OURAY

 

It’s hard to believe that the urban and natural landscapes in which old Western movies were filmed are still intact to this day. Ouray is one of these beautiful Western places. I was madly impressed and charmed by this former mining town. We only stayed there one night and hit the road to Santa Fe the next morning, following the marvelous Million Dollar Highway which links Ouray to Silverton, another typically Western mining town where we stopped to wander for an hour before heading to our next destination.
Here are a couple pictures from Silverton. If you decide to visit (which I would highly recommend), don’t forget to stop by the Grand Restaurant & Saloon for a drink, meal, or snack! The decor is out of this world and the fantastic barmaid had us taste her homemade mix for Bloody Caesars (without alcohol) that was so good I would have drank two liters of it. See a couple photos from Silverton below.

SANTA FE

 

Definitely one of the highlights of our trip, as it is culturally one of the richest towns we’ve visited during this road trip. I talk about all the things I found interesting about Santa Fe on this post.
A few other notable points I’d like to mention about “The City Different”:
– The amazing weather.
– Whole Foods Market. Listen, people, don’t judge me; I have an obsession with grocery shopping whenever I’m in foreign countries and Whole Foods Market quite possibly is my favorite grocery shop in the world. So many healthy options, so many choices for vegetarians! Although I’m not technically a vegetarian, I am easily disgusted by meat so I will happily eat vegetarian whenever possible.
– I absolutely loved the pueblos architecture.
– The influence of Mexican culture in the food and architecture.
– The Margaritas! Some of the best margaritas I’ve had in my life at the Thunderbird Bar & Grill.
– Nambé Falls
– We drove along the High Road To Taos, which was supposed to be a scenic route that passed by eight pueblos, El Santuario de Chimayo (a important pilgrimage site that attracts over 300,000 visitors per year. The sanctuary was built on a land that was believed to have miraculous healing properties. To this day, people come to this church in the hopes to heal illnesses and injuries) and great natural wonders but turned out not being so great, as we drove along Route 66 and the landscapes for the majority of the way, comprised abandoned homes, shops and restaurants. Fortunately when we arrived to Taos, we were happy to notice it was and absolutely charming pueblo. If you’re staying two to three days in Santa Fe, I wouldn’t recommend taking the High Road To Taos all the way to the end though. It is a day-long drive and only the beginning (Nambé Falls) and the end of it (Taos) are worth seeing and Taos looks a little like Santa Fe, so I’d advise only visiting Nambé Falls and then going back to Santa Fe.

TUCSON

 
Tombstone:

Downtown Tucson:

In-n-Out Burger:

Loews Ventana Canyon Resort

 

I had never heard about Tucson being a must-visit town in the U.S, but my husband really loved it when he visited during his previous trips and absolutely wanted to return… Wow! What a beautiful town surrounded by mountains, palm trees and punctuated by saguaros. I absolutely adored it.
What I most loved about Tucson:
– Saguaro National Park was absolutely magical. Hands down the highlight of the entire road trip for me. Giant cactuses as far as the eye could see, during the sunset. I found it romantic. We were alone, absolutely no tourists in sight, except for a few locals, young couples for the most part that had stopped to watch the sky turn pink and orange before nightfall.
– Loews Ventana Canyon Resort – Our dreamy hotel that looked like a postcard. We didn’t want to leave.
– The charming town centre that we unfortunately didn’t get to explore much.
– Tucson is a great starting point to visit Tombstone, which is not your average Western town, as you get to see and experience exactly where and how cowboys lived. The buildings are identical to what they looked like back when Tombstone was a mining town that attracted all the outlaws who wanted a piece of the pie. It was, as you can imagine if you’ve ever watched Western movies, an extremely violent town.

SAN DIEGO

 

 

The sight of the palm trees aligned along the highway as we arrived in San Diego, brought back so many fond memories of my childhood and had me smiling from ear to ear. I remember having mental flashes of Baywatch, the OC, and all the other teenage Californian TV shows I used to watch when I was younger. I could not believe I was in California. I felt like a little girl all over again, was bursting with excitement and secretly vowed never to stop traveling as it really is the most rewarding gift in life.

We stayed at a super cute hotel in Ocean Beach. Our room had a balcony with a view on the beach and there was a long lane leading to the water that passed right next to our terrasse. I loved watching the surfers coming from or going to the beach and people jogging early in the morning, while I’d have my coffee on our terrasse; All the Californian clichés you could possibly think of were unfolding right before my eyes and I simply couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to experience this. I felt so grateful. It’s strange, but I felt like I had achieved something in my life. Something huge! I’d realized a dream I never even knew I had. I was deeply marked by San Diego also because it reminded me of my childhood in Senegal. Firstly, and this may sound silly, but the trees and the flowers all around town were identical to those we had in the house I grew up in in Africa. I had not seen bougainvilleas and hibiscus flowers in over ten years! Secondly, my older brothers were surfers and their whole lives basically revolved around surfing when they (we) were younger. So seeing all these surfers really warmed my heart. And lastly, I grew up in a beach town, but had not been to a real salty beach with waves and all in ten years, so I just felt at home.

You’ve probably figured by now that I fell madly in love with San Diego and though we didn’t have enough time to explore as much as I would have wanted. I’ll try to share with you all the things I loved about this town:
– The Old Town. SO beautiful, SO rich historically, SO colorful, SO lively! There aren’t enough words to express how gorgeous it is. (Don’t forget to have one of these fresh, delicious, handmade tortillas, sold and made by old Mexican women who don’t even speak English, which had me dying from love. 🙂 )
– Ocean beach is a beautiful, hippie-ish, really laid back part of the town, that embodies the famous Californian cool to utmost perfection. I loved having our hotel in this part of the town (vs Downtown). Additionally, there are so many great restaurants and bars there. So much so that it was a struggle  to decide where to have dinner every night because all the restaurants had such great reviews.
– Having breakfast every morning at Temana Café, aka the cutest, sooooo Californian, most amazing little café that offered $5 brunches and great açaï bowls. There were no tourists there, only locals which was even cooler.
– Balboa Park is huge and beautiful beyond measure. The Spanish architecture is mesmerizing.
– The energy in the town centre is totally different from Ocean beach, but just as great. We have not had time to explore too much of it so I couldn’t tell you much more about Downtown San Diego.
– La Jolla, which means the jewel, is such a popular beach, the trafic was insane to get there. So we decided to go to La Jolla Cove instead. Absolutely beautiful, although way, way too crowded for me.
– The fire pits all along Ocean Beach enable you make fires at night, in the sand, which is quite extraordinary; but as you can imagine, they’re quite popular and it’s almost impossible to find a pit at night, unless you’ve spent the entire day at the beach and chose your pit at 4pm. But we were lucky enough to be able to have a fire on our last night in San Diego, as a group of people not far from us left their fire early. Unforgettable night.
– If you can, I would recommend staying in San Diego five days to a week, to fully grasp everything the city has to offer.

Our next destination after San Diego was Sequoia National Park; on our way to get there, we quickly stopped by Venice Beach in Los Angeles for an hour (SO COOL!!!!!!! Incredible energy!) and took the breathtaking Highway 101 that follows the Pacific coast, slept at Monterey before making it to Sequoia National Park the following day, where we spent two nights.

VENICE BEACH, LOS ANGELES

 

MONTERREY – a one-night stop

 

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK

     

 

Did you know that Sequoias were amongst the oldest species on earth? They live up to 3,000 years and can even survive fires. And they’re the world’s largest trees! It was quite impressive to see.
We hiked and swam at the park, which was divine.

LAS VEGAS

      

 

Never in my entire existence, have I ever experienced such intense heat. And by intense, I mean unbearable; by intense, I mean it’s so hot it’s not even funny; by intense, I mean the minute you step out of your air-conditioned hotel you feel like you’re going to suffocate; by intense, I mean you can’t even enjoy walking on the Strip and explore the town by day (not that the weather is cooler and more pleasant at night, but at least the sun doesn’t burn the s*t out of you); by intense, I mean the only thing to do by day, is lying poolside, that. is. all.
My impressions about Vegas are mixed: I’m happy I visited, because it definitely is a legendary city, but if I drew a pros and cons list, I think there would be more cons and, at the risk of sounding like a major conservative grandma, here are my thoughts: If you’re into drinking, partying, wasting your money in casinos and if you can handle unbearable heat, you’ll love spending several days in Vegas. If you are more a laidback person, I’d advise to stay one or two nights in town max.
A couple facts about Vegas:
– The Strip (the main road, with casinos, billboards, restaurants, hotels, shops, etc.) is quite impressive.
– It’s allowed to drink alcohol in the street (only on the Strip though) and pharmacies/liquor stores sell cup-sized wines that you can drink while wandering on the Strip (getting wasted is not my cup of tea, so I didn’t really care much about that. But I honestly expected to see wasted people acting a fool on the street which would have gotten on my last nerve, but it never happened).
– It definitely is a party town.
– I loved our hotel, the Tuscany Suites & Casino, and staying by the pool while enjoying a great Margarita. One of our hotel’s restaurants also offered the best, most balanced and most complete healthy breakfast I have ever had at any restaurants in my life, which I was incredibly impressed about.
– I expected the casinos to be more luxurious than they actually were. (I played like $20, just for the sake of saying I went to Vegas and played at a casino, bla, bla, bla… *rolls eyes*, but I low key find it very, very stupid to waste your money like that).

LAKE POWELL

Lake Powell is a reservoir on the Colorado River. The landscape is sensational. We swam in the lake after a long day driving which felt amazing. The color of the rocks is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. We only spent one night camping there so we haven’t explored much but it’s a gorgeous place you should visit. There are so many tourists though.

ZION NATIONAL PARK

     

One of the highlights of this trip. Zion is so popular that you can’t even book your campsite in advance. You have to make your reservation two weeks prior to your arrival. And even if you think you woke up early enough to book your stay and have a great site, think again: there were only a couple spots left when we made our reservation! Zion was gorgeous but it was really, unbearably hot. I was so happy there was a river near our campsite where we could cool off. Zion is also hiking paradise. It is home to some of the most breathtaking views but fortunately for me, the hiking trail my husband really wanted us to make (Angel’s Landing) was closed that day. Yikes! There was no way I would have done any physical activity under such intense heat.

MOAB

We stayed in Moab just one night, to visit other attractions such as Canyonlands and Arches National Park, which will be the topic of another post, so stay tuned! 😉