USA coast to coast
03-28 SEPTEMBER 2018
DAY 1
Zurich - Chicago
We land in Chicago at 7 p.m., already late, and we are greeted by the usual interminable line at the US visa control. Only two hours later, we manage to get out of the airport. We wait for a long time for a crowded train that takes us to the city, where, with the Loop, the raised subway, we arrive at our hotel at 10 p.m.
HOTEL: Field House Jones
Technically a luxury hostel, the hotel is very comfortable and new, although the double room is definitely small. Tired from the trip, and with all the intention of going to bed early, we walk out to go looking for something to eat. The first impression is not the best: the neighborhood is dark, with some degraded buildings and parking lots, poorly lit alleys and not very reassuring people walking in the street. I don't think there was anything to worry about, but the thousands of stories we hear about the American metropolises have certainly created in us this feeling of insecurity in wandering peacefully at night, on foot, as we usually do. Without any unlucky encounters, however, we get to our destination, and enjoy a mediocre Chicago style fast food hot dog, with giant pickled cucumbers, in a picturesque ‘60s little Italy-style restaurant, complete with brick walls and red checkered placemats on the tables.
DINNER: Portillo's Hot Dogs
We go back to the hotel and try to sleep to not give in to jet lag.
DAY 2
Chicago
Ready to explore Chicago at last! We wake up in a good mood, and go for breakfast on the way to the Magnificent Mile. We stop at Le Pain Quotidien, chosen at random for the snack with an avocado toast and pancakes, and continue to Lake Michigan: first stop at Lake Shore Drive Apartments, where we improvise a lesson in modern architecture about Mies Van Der Rohe. From here, we take the Magnificent Mile, the main street of Chicago, where, first things first, we stop to buy a SIM card for our month in the USA.
We walk along the road, stopping to admire the skyscrapers on the river, the Apple Store building, the tall buildings that run along the Mile, up to Millennium Park, with its huge steel bean, the Cloud. We still snoop around the city, walking non-stop, and in the afternoon we take part in the river cruise organized by the association of architects of Chicago. From the river we can admire all the most important and imposing buildings, a forest of very high skyscrapers in glass and steel, as printed on architecture books.
At sunset, I chase Nic in search of strategic points to take pictures of the train that crosses the Loop, the elevated railway that surrounds the city center, and after several photo stops we return to the hotel.
DAY 3
Chicago - Springfield, MO | 850 km
We pack up and go downtown where we have to collect our Mustang, which will escort us on our trip. Obviously, our program is disrupted by a serious problem. Our car is not available, and they offer us an unwanted replacement. After some discussion, we manage to get an equivalent car taken from another city, and so, waiting for the arrival of our car, we take another walk in the center, for a photo in front of the sign that indicates the start of Route 66, our starting point for the journey on the road to the West Coast.
At 10:00 a.m. we jump on our flaming yellow convertible Mustang, and head out of the city. First stop, to visit F.L. Wright's studio house in Oak Park. Extravagant place, a building worthy of the images of my architectural history books, and an American neighborhood with a capital "A", one of those with multi-storey houses, made of wood or brick (many by Wright), pointed turrets, dormer windows, white fences, lawn up to the sidewalk. A few centuries-old oaks, American flags waving in the blue sky, garden dwarves, rocking chairs, mailboxes. Like in a movie.
We are already late on our schedule, and then we open our convertible, take Route 66 and we travel it non-stop, up to Springfield. We take the R66 at Romeoville. On the way the American bulwarks and the oddities of Route 66, as in my imaginary made up watching thousands of American movies, begin to unravel: signs with the shield of the R66, fiberglass giants towering over the road, drive in, old gas stations, murals representing the R66. Desolate towns consisting of a few brick-industrial buildings, in the middle of nowhere.
Passing through Pontiac, where we get a map of the attractions of the R66, we turn to the interstate for Saint Louis, when we realize that the R66 ends up in nowhere, as in many other stretches in the following days. We return to the Mother Road in Cuba, and follow it to Lebanon, where we visit a picturesque collection of gasoline pumps covered with road signs. In Lebanon we look for a place for dinner, after discovering that in the United States people eat very early, and after 9 p.m. it is difficult to find open even a fast food for truckers. A magnificent tacos with synthetic cheese and an untasteful Cesar salad are our dinner.
We arrive in Springfield, Missouri, by now at 00:30, where our first Motel awaits us. A building in wooden planks, low, one floor, with a series of doors that follow one another behind the fence of a porch, each with its own parking lot occupied by a pick-up or some other giant car. We begin to acclimatize ourselves to the atmosphere of a motel: worn carpeting, giant beds, 60's furniture, but everything is quite nice and clean.
DINNER: Applebees | HOTEL: Best Western Rail Heaven
DAY 4
Springfield, MO - Amarillo | 923 km
Motel: instructions for use. You wake up to the sound of cars speeding on the Highway, right in front of the motel. You get ready, and check from the window curtains that the car is still parked in front, and still has all the wheels. You can go out to the central building, passing through the parking lot, where, next to the reception, you can have breakfast. The latter is typically composed of a buffet of plastic containers that house stale bagels, simple or with raisins, strictly accompanied by cream cheese and jam. If the bagel is not to your liking, you can choose from a wide assortment of loaves from the day before. A fridge offers sweetened yogurt, chocolate milk in Tetrapack with straw, jams and butter. Next to a bottle of maple syrup and tubs of peanut butter, a dispenser of dough for waffles to be poured into the cookie maker that burns next. Tea drunk in paper cups, a giant thermos of american coffee and some packaged muffins complete the delicious assortment.
After this luxurious breakfast, and after having filled a couple of big cups of coffee to keep handy in the dish rack of the car, like any American traveling on the highway, we resume the road to Amarillo at 9 a.m. The R66 takes us to Galena, passing through a tiny corner of Kansas, whizzing past rusty Ford pick-ups, cars that look like they came out of a Disney movie, and mailboxes popping up from milk cans aging in the sun. We reach Commerce, where we stop for a photo session in front of the picturesque (rebuilt) building of the Conoco gas station, and for a coffee at the Dairy King, one of the oldest bars on the Route, still in operation.
At 2 p.m. we get back on the road, this time the interstate until Oklahoma City. From here, we take the R66 again to Clinton, where we stop for a few photos in front of the Route 66 museum. We continue until Shamrock, brightened at night by the green neon of the Conoco Gas Station. One last stop, before resuming the interstate until Amarillo, where, just in time, we arrive for dinner at the Big Texan Ranch. As a must we consume ribs and a steak, and after juggling the giant pickups that populate the parking lot, we return to the car and go to our hotel.
DINNER: Big Texan Ranch | HOTEL: Santa Fe Best Western
DAY 5
Amarillo - Albuquerque | 696 km
Wake up at 9 a.m., we leave from Amarillo at 10 a.m., after a disappointing visit to the Cadillac Ranch, a muddy and uncultivated ground where some artist has planted 9 Cadillacs in the ground, which now house a forest of graffiti, and canisters abandoned on the ground. Disappointed by this umpteenth symbol of the Mother Road of dubious taste, we return on the road arriving at the ghost town of Glenrio, a tiny cluster of small dilapidated buildings around an old gas station. Here the asphalt road ends, and we head, through a dirt road that crosses endless green fields with windmills and grazing cattle, towards Tucumcari.
This is a tiny centre leaning against the Highway, where vintage car drivers and motorcyclists in Harley stop for coffee along the way. Tepee shaped motels, Route 66 branded junk shops, diners populated by truckers in leather vests, long beards and brooches decorated caps, a semi-abandoned motel with a huge sun-drenched pool, overlooked by a neon sign with missing letters and hanging wires, surrounded by still active rooms. A town that consists of two rows of low buildings along the dusty road. Behind nowhere, in front of it only the yellow lines of the roadway that run towards infinity. Truck noise and motorcycle roar. That's all.
We recharge our take-away coffee-cup, and leave again, crossing the time zone change line, without even realizing it. Here, too, the R66 no longer exists, and we follow the interstate until Santa Rosa, from where we take the Mother Road again, in the stretch dated before 1937, until Santa Fe, where we arrive at 5:45 p.m. Here we stop to visit this picturesque pueblo, something unique compared to what we have encountered so far. Low houses, with rounded edges, plastered with red, like the earth that surrounds them, topped by wooden trunks, cantilevered or forming a pergola on the flat roof. There's a fair in the town square, and the centre is very lively, full of people munching on meat and corn skewers as they stroll past the Texan hat shops.
The trip is accompanied by a summer thunderstorm, and now we enjoy the leaden sky crossed by a magnificent rainbow above the city, before taking the car and go to Pojoaque with the Highway 285. We take the High Road Scenic Byway to Taos, arriving at Chimayo, and enjoy a memorable sunset over an endless barren valley crossed by our road. From Chimayo we interrupt the scenic byway, as it gets dark, and return to Santa Fe, heading to Albuquerque, where we stay overnight. We look for something to eat, and as the guide recommends, we find the only Mexican fast food open late at night, quite renowned, frequented by students and Mexicans across the border. Our worst American food experience, ever!
DAY 6
Albuquerque - White Sands, NM - Saguaro NP - Tucson | 1.002 km
We leave at 6:45. Fortunately, American motels are used to receiving truck drivers who travel the country from coast to coast, and who depart at the most unlikely times, so we never have trouble having breakfast very early. Today we leave Route 66 and pick it up again in a few days, after exploring a big part of the U.S. National Parks.
We arrive at 11:30 a.m. at the White Sands National Monument, after crossing an expanse of pistachio plantations and stopping to collect pistachios and other delicacies in the themed mega store, complete with a giant fiberglass pistachio: a must! In the distance, in an endless red desert expanse, we can see a thin white stripe on the horizon, our goal. We discover that this immense desert is a place of missile testing, and we escape the probable wait of 1 hour indicated by a sign, which periodically stops drivers to keep them away from the effects of some military test in place. If you can, check the timetable in advance!
Once at the White Sands, an expanse of immaculate snow-white sand awaits us, dotted with some green bushes that burn under the sun. You can barely keep your eyes open, even with sunglasses on. We walk on the cold white sands for a while, looking for some desert animal, without success. We still take a tour by car, crossing these white dunes that contrast the intense and uninterrupted blue of the sky.
We depart at 1:30 p.m., completing our ring north, and arrive just in time for sunset, at 6 p.m. (Arizona time) at Saguaro National Park. Nobody on the street, the park is now closed. We walk along a road that leads to the pedestrian entrance of the park, where we enter just before they close the access. Already on the road we start to see the saguaro cacti that sprout in the vegetation, but the spectacle that awaits us after a few meters of walking towards Hugh Norris Trail, on the dirt road populated by desert hares, is incredible. A forest of tall cacti stands out in front of us.
The sun at sunset caresses the thorns that are gilded drawing the profile of the plants, like a crowd of people watching the twilight. The sunset, with the torrid heat of the desert, is on fire, and illuminates the sky with all the shades of orange. Two little clouds cross the horizon above the hills, and are coloured in such a defined way that they seem to come out of a cartoon, one of those canyon landscapes by Willy E. Coyote, with pure, well-defined colours that trace the profile of the mountains like with a marker pen.
Unfortunately, when the twilight begins to blur with the darkness of the night, we must quickly return to the car, because the desert is territory of pumas and other animals that you would not like to meet on your way at night. A frightened coyote crosses the road, while we take a few last photos of the Saguaro profile that is drawn from the last light of dusk.
Here, too, we find the only café open late for dinner. This time we are lucky and we find a hidden corner of Tucson with a very pleasant inner courtyard. We eat a delicious fish and salad dinner and go to the hotel.
DINNER: Cafè A La Carte | HOTEL: Red Lion Inn
DAY 7
Tucson - Flagstaff | 876 km
Day of travel today, to consume the miles that separate us from the Grand Canyon. We leave at 9:30 a.m. from Tucson. The first stop of the day is only at 4 p.m., when after a winding road lost in the dust, we reach Oatman, a Far West town, intact in all its decadent splendor: ranches hovering in front of massive rocks surrounded by donkeys wandering free in the street, houses made of wooden planks connected by a continuous creaking porch, saddles hanging on the railings, shops of extravagant items and old rusty signs of Route 66 hanging from the light poles.
After this stop, we head towards Kingman, retracing the road backwards, and stopping to photograph one series of mailboxes after another. We arrive in Flagstaff at 8:45 p.m., and finally tonight we can enjoy a pizza-based dinner in an unlikely and excellent Neapolitan pizzeria that hides among the anonymous streets of the town.
DINNER: Pizzicletta | HOTEL: Comfort Inn
DAY 8
Flagstaff - Page | 387 km
We stayed in Flagstaff because it was the closest place to the Grand Canyon without entering the park and getting plucked for a decadent and super expensive hotel room in one of the famous Lodges. The decision seemed wise until Nic decided to set the alarm at 3:40 in the morning to leave for the Grand Canyon South Rim and admire his awakening at dawn. With reluctance, but too much curiosity, we get into the car in the cold at night, and after hours of driving we arrive at the Grand Canyon village at 5:15. We buy the park card at the entrance, and we go to find a parking lot, among pine forests populated by giant deers. We take the shuttle-bus that goes around the panoramic points of the park, and we arrive at Hopi Point at dawn.
It's still dark, and we're going to position the tripod for the photos. As soon as the sun begins to shimmer over the horizon, what's underneath us gradually lights up, a huge chiselled chasm that takes our breath away. An indescribable spectacle for those who have not visited it at least once in their lives. After this incredible sunrise, we move east, to start the Kaibab Trail at 9:10 a.m. It is a trek that descends on the south side of the canyon and reaches Colorado river that runs quietly on the bottom. Here people usually stay overnight in a campsite next to the river, and then go up, on the same slope, but further West the next day.
Obviously, in order to maintain the average density of daily activity of our trips, we decide to do this route in one day. We arrive at Colorado at 1 p.m., with our hats, wisely purchased in a Walmart 24/7 in the morning, before departure, on the advice of the attendant of the motel, under a scorching sun, without shelter of clouds or trees. We eat something raw to refresh ourselves and sip the water to survive this crossing. The hottest hours in the middle of the canyon are unbearable. A thermostat marks 45 degrees, and we feel every single degree on us. With lots of effort, we finally get to a stream in a sparse birch grove, where we put our wrists and ankles to recover from the asphyxiating heat.
After a few more hours, we find a refreshment point, near another campsite, where fortunately the shadow of the high walls of the canyon begins to wrap us, and where we can get water supply. The climb seems endless, the walls of red rock above us higher and higher towards the sky, until at a certain point, a small natural tunnel opens and we get to Bright Angel, the end of the trek, at 6:10 p.m.
We resume the road, and late we arrive to Page, where our B&B awaits us, a huge prairie house, in perfect U.S. style, where a gentle lady, Kris, welcomes us in her mansion. No dinner because we collapse from sleep, tired for the day.
HOTEL: B&B Grand View Inn
DAY 9
Page - Antelope Canyon - Moab | 473 km
We wake up at 7:00 a.m. and go downstairs, where we have a hearty breakfast freshly prepared by Kris based on Southern dishes. We leave at 9:00 a.m. and make an obligatory stop at the Horse Shoe Bend, where, given the accessibility from the nearby car park, we find too many tourists for our taste.
Just the time to admire the canyon carved by the river wrapped around himself and to take some photos on the edge; we leave, to arrive on time for our tour of Antelope Canyon, at 11:30. We booked the photo tour, a guided tour, a bit exclusive, where a Native American Indian, accompanies us in a small group, within this wonder carved into the rock by rainwater trying to drain from a plateau to the valley.
A sinuous tunnel of red rock, with the sun at the top, that sometimes sculpts the rock itself, sometimes lapping it highlighting the rough surface, sometimes missing it, sticking like a blade in the reddish sand on which we walk, and creating beams of light that seem three-dimensional to the camera lens. The sandy canyon offers us some incredible photographic cues, with the sand that, like in a giant hourglass, descends from the walls and accumulates on the ground. We walk along the canyon at a steady pace, because the sun at noon, enters only for a short time, and after each curve, forms different plays of light, paints the rock now yellow, now red, now purple, until it hides behind the high edges of the canyon, until the next day. We calmly retrace our steps, after coming out from the opposite side, and return to the uncovered truck that led us jerking over the dunes, up to the Antelope.
We resume our car and leave for Moab, where this time we will stay for more than a day to explore the surroundings of this rocky plateau of Utah. On the way to Moab, we stop to admire the twilight behind the monumental valley, an expanse of funny headlands carved by the wind, that stands out above the desert, from which unfolds an endless straight road that offers an exceptional view of the Indian reserve. After a few nightly meetings with some American antelopes jumping around, we arrive at 10:30 p.m., and even here we find it very difficult to find something open for dinner, and we end up in front of an original hamburger with chips.
DINNER: Woody’s | HOTEL: Big Horn Lodge
DAY 10
Moab, Canyonlands, Arches NP
We wake up at 8:00 a.m. to be able to arrive at the Flat Sands campground in Moab at 9:00 a.m. We have in fact booked for the next two nights a nice caravan bed that will be delivered to us in the afternoon at the chosen camp site, which we go to occupy in the morning, before the arrival of the crowds. We enter the campground, which is a huge fenced rocky territory, where remote pitches are marked and equipped for parking. We choose our own corner of paradise, far from the other pitches, and with a view of the vast deserted prairie. Once occupied the pitch, our caravan will be delivered in the afternoon.
In the meantime we decide to go and explore the Canyonlands in an unusual way. We rent two mountain bikes, strong enough to go down hill between the rocks that surround the immense valley of the canyons.
BIKE RENTAL: Chile Pepper
We enter the park, and after a while we arrive at 12:00 at Dead Horse Point. With our bikes we explore the surroundings, ruining on smooth rocks, sands, roots of plants, all under the dazzling sun and with the crazy view of an immense expanse of canyons dug into the rock, hundreds of meters below us, beyond the plateau, on which we cycled for a couple of hours, on the edge of this parallel world collapsed towards the course of the small rivers that furrow it.
At 2:30 p.m. we return to the parking lot, and we resume the road to Moab, where we leave the bikes, before heading to Arches National Park. We arrive in this immense desert dotted with rocky spurs, we put on our backpack and tripod, and we set off for a walk of half an hour that leads us to the Delicate Arch. We arrive at 6:00 p.m., just in time to enjoy the last red light of the day that caresses the rock amphitheatre overhung by this majestic natural arch. Unfortunately the crowd is definitely dense, and we have to dodge the tourists to earn some photos. But at sunset, when almost everyone has resumed the way home, we (and a few other photographers waiting to immortalize the Milky Way) could admire this alien landscape at dusk and without crowds around.
We return to Moab, and after stocking up on some food in a Walmart for breakfast, we look for a place to dine. The only choice is a brewery, where of course we have to settle for a giant hamburger and a Greek salad, far from healthy.
DINNER: Moab Brewery | CAMPING: Red Rock Teardrop
DAY 11
Moab, Canyonlands, Arches NP
Usual, unlikely alarm clock at 4:30 in the morning. Not even the coyotes around us have woken up yet, and we are already preparing for our day. We arrive again in the Arches National Park, in time for the short walk that leads us to the Mesa Arch. Walk decidedly too short, which unfortunately allowed not only us, but also a group of 20 Japanese with any photographic equipment imaginable, to arrive to photograph the dawn, lined up with their forest of tripods to occupy all the space in front of the arch. Incredulous, we spend a lot of time in the cold, laughing at the Kafkaesque situation, luckily managing to carve out our space for incredible photos of the first rays of the sun that lap the bottom of the arch and that light up the fog that surrounds the violet and orange peaks of the Canyonlands on the horizon.
We have breakfast with the first sun, perched to admire this wonder of the world while we play with a small American squirrel waiting to steal the crumbs fallen on the ground. In the morning we spend time in the Canyonlands, where we take a long walk to admire this inhospitable expanse of rock, excavated by centuries.
In the early afternoon, we return to Moab, where we finally take some time to relax and calmly prepare a camping dinner. We wait for the arrival of darkness, and before going to sleep, we take a few shots at the Milky Way, in this immense and dark place, where not a light disturbs the view of the sky. An innumerable number of stars dot the celestial vault, from horizon to horizon, without getting lost in the glow of the lights as in the city, visible on the deep black mantle of the sky saturated with these tiny iridescent lights. A unique spectacle, which to me has never happened to see in any remote place in Europe.
DAY 12
Moab - Tropic | 911 km
We leave our trailer at 9:30 a.m. and take the Highway 12 Scenic Byway through Capitol Reef and Great Staircase Escalante, through larch forests and expanses of bare rock. The views you cross are of exceptional beauty and it's worth making a few stops to admire the landscape.
We also make a stop at Fruita, a Mormon colony where even today there are thick orchards, from which you can collect the fruit yourself, and some inhabited houses where local fruit pies are sold: really delicious. We reach Bryce Canyon at 6 p.m., in time to enjoy the sunset and twilight along the Navajo trail and up to Sunset Point. We arrive at Tropic just in time for dinner and overnight.
DINNER: Stone Heart Grill | HOTEL: Bryce Valley Lodging
DAY 13
Tropic - Bryce Canyon - Kanab | 911 km
We wake up at 5:00 a.m. to enjoy the sunrise at Sunrise Point in Bryce Canyon. When the sun is high we move to start the trek that goes through Queen's Gardens and then up through the Navajo Loop. In just over an hour we finish the trail, and decide to make another hike through the Fairyland trail, a magnificent and long path through remote pinnacles, very little beaten.
We start from Bryce at 4:00 p.m. on the way to the Grand Canyon North Rim, where we arrive at 6:45 (Arizona GMT). Here we enjoy the view at sunset, both on the terrace overlooking the canyon, and from the windows of the hall of the Lodge that dominates, on this side of the rim, overlooking the cliff. We arrive in Kanab at 21:30, when only one restaurant remains open, and we reach our accommodation.
DINNER: Vermillion 45 | HOTEL: Burro Flats
DAY 14
Kanab - Zion NP - Las Vegas | 469 km
Departure at 8:15 a.m. after a do-it-yourself breakfast in the house. Through a very scenic road we cross the territory of Zion National Park, where we decide to stop to have a few hours-long taste of this famous national park. We take a shuttle bus from the visitor center, which in about 40 minutes takes us to the entrance of a canyon that you can cross walking in the waters of the river that dug it. The path, called The Narrows, is very crowded, but as you enter the canyon, and you have to cross stretches of impervious river and very strong currents, until you get to points where you barely hold your arms out of the water, the crowd is dispersed and you can continue the excursion undisturbed, until the water is not too cold to make you give up, as happened to us after about 3 hours.
Back to the car completely soaked and with our shoes full of mud, we dry as we can and take the road back to Las Vegas, where we arrive at 6:00 p.m. and take possession of the only luxury accommodation of our trip.
HOTEL: The Venetian Las Vegas
We spend the evening strolling through the Casino and the unlikely crowd that piles up in the streets, making the visit of the famous Strip really uninviting. Book a restaurant well in advance if you don't want to wander like us without finding a place to dine anywhere in Las Vegas.
DAY 15
Las Vegas - Death Valley - Los Angeles | 730 km
We take advantage of our hotel a little longer and leave at 11:30. After a two-hour drive we arrive at Rhyolite, a magnificent pearl of the Far West which consists of a small abandoned mining area. Rusty cans, decaying wooden railway cars and a few abandoned old pick-ups.
We arrive shortly after in the Death Valley, which we cover from top to bottom to cross this desert territory surrounded by hot air, endless views of the dunes and desolate roads, until we return for a short stretch on Route 66 before arriving in Los Angeles around 9:00 p.m.
DAY 16
Los Angeles
We dedicate the day to visiting LA. We walk through a disappointing, desolate and unkempt Hollywood, we arrive at about 12:30 in Beverly Hills, where we spend an hour driving through the streets lined with villas of unbridled luxury. After we walk on Rodeo Drive and among the luxury shops.
LUNCH: Avra Estiatorio
We arrive at sunset at Santa Monica Pier, where we spend time until the evening observing people among the rides on the pier, athletes training on the beach, and the Bay Watch towers. In the dark, we take a walk through the back streets, where alleys full of inviting shops lead to Venice Beach.
DINNER: Fish co.
DAY 17
Los Angeles - San Francisco | 703 km
Wake up before sunrise today too, this time to go and see the installation of the LACMA Urban Lights, still lit during the dawn. For breakfast we go to Venice Beach, where we take a walk through the canals and the bizarre houses of the neighborhood.
BREAKFAST: Great White
We make a very short but obligatory visit to the lookout of Lake Hollywood Park to observe more closely the notorious sign and then we resume the road at 12:00 on our way to San Francisco. We reach the city through Highway 1, a spectacular coastal highway overlooking the ocean, with some panoramic views of the beaches populated by sea elephants. We touch Big Sur at 7:00 and enjoy the sunset. We arrive in San Francisco for dinner.
DINNER: Che Fico!
DAY 18
San Francisco
We walk around San Francisco and visit the highlights by walking through the neighborhoods. We visit the must of the city: Haights, Painted Ladies, Hayes Valley, Mission, Castro. We arrive for sunset at Baker Beach, where we enjoy the view of the Golden Gate Bridge in the evening mist.
BREAKFAST: Mr. Holmes Bakehouse
When it's dark we drive to Treasure Island to photograph the complete panorama of the city from afar.
DINNER: Iza Ramen Izakaya
DAY 19
San Francisco - Napa - Reno | 480 km
We go to enjoy the spectacle of dawn on the bay from Battery Spencer and back to the center we cross by car the famous Lombard Street.
BREAKFAST: Toasty avocado bar
We take a walk in Golden Gate Park and then resume the journey to Napa Valley at 11:30 a.m. We reach Napa after 1.30 hours of travel and drive along the Silverado Trail to admire the vineyards and wineries that dot the valley. We leave at 3:30 p.m. and arrive at Lake Tahoe Incline at 8:00 p.m., unfortunately in the dark, without being able to admire the view, but on time to enjoy dinner. We arrive in Reno at 10:15 p.m. where we will stay overnight.
DINNER: Big Water Grille | HOTEL: Nugget Casino Resort
DAY 20
Reno - Afton | 1.150 km
Today we face a long journey to Wyoming. We leave Reno at 8:15 and arrive in Virginia City at 9:00. It's a beautiful corner of the Wild West perfectly intact, with wooden saloons, continuous arcades crossed by motorcyclists with very long beards and cowboy boots shops. We reach Silver City and travel along Highway 50, passing through Eureka and Austin and other relics of the gold rush and the era of the precious metal mines. We arrive in Afton at 1:00 a.m. but we can wait to go to sleep to enjoy the magnificent Lodge where we are lucky enough to stay overnight, with hot Jacuzzi tub out in the wild.
HOTEL: Kodiak Mountain Resort
DAY 21
Afton - Gardiner | 1.300 km
We start at 10:30 a.m. and travel along the Grand Teton Scenic Drive, stopping at Mormon Row and Oxbow Bend. We briefly explore the town of Jackson Hole and leave at 4:30 p,m, for Yellowstone. We get lost in the meanders of the park in the dark, and we stop for dinner in a Lodge.
DINNER: Old Faithful Inn
We arrive at Gardiner at midnight and here we stay just outside the entrance to Yellowstone National Park in a drooping accommodation in a small wooden house. On the other hand, in the parks it is impossible to find accommodation at moderate prices and saving money obviously means sacrificing quality.
HOTEL: Corwin Cabin
DAY 22
Yellowstone
Also this morning we wake up at 6:00 a.m. to meet Tom Murphy, a well-known photographer (mostly famous for the connoisseurs of Yellowstone) whom we were lucky enough to be able to hire to accompany us on a photo workshop through the park. It takes us to Lamar Valley, Mammoth Springs, Swan Lake and a number of corners of the park that offered privileged perspectives on the valleys, buffalo herds and springs. The day was spent behind the lens, gathering all the tips to capture the park and the animals.
DAY 23
Yellowstone - Billings | 330 km
At 7:00 we head back to Mammoth Springs to have more time to visit. Afterwards we visit a number of highlights of the park, of which the geysers, to be fair, have been the least interesting part: Old Faithful, Firehole Lake Drive, Clepsydre, Grand Prismatic Spring, Artist Point. We leave Yellowstone with great regret and travel the Beartooth Scenic Byway at dusk until Billings
DINNER: Local Kitchen | HOTEL: Hilltop Inn by Riversage
DAY 24
Billings - Plainview | 1.466 km
We have a couple of days to get back to Chicago. Unfortunately, renting a car in one State of the USA and returning it to another had an exorbitant cost, much higher than what we would have spent taking the car back to Chicago ourselves. So we planned to cover part of the road that separates us from Illinois on this day, without booking any hotels, but stopping for the night after traveling as many miles as possible. We leave at 8:15 and make a short afternoon stop curious to see Mount Rushmore.
The rest of the day is just on the road between unlikely saloons along the way and huge fields of corn. We cross the Badlands National Park at sunset, and stop before it gets dark on the Pinnacle Overlook lookout, making a short detour from Wall Drug Store. The view is incredible and we are so fascinated by it that we decided to extend the route and proceed on the 240 state road instead of immediately returning to the Interstate. We grab a hamburger on the way in a drive-thru and continue to drive, until we get to Plainview, where we still cover unwanted miles at night trying in vain to find a free Motel. Everything is occupied or closed, except for a magnificent Motel worthy of the best American thriller movie.
HOTEL: Hill Creek Motel
DAY 25
Plainview - Chicago | 545 km
Last day of road trip. We leave at 7:00 a.m. and drive through the pastures and corn fields dotted with some red wood farms, all day long, until we finally get to Chicago. We stay in the same hotel as the previous time, and tonight we go in search of the famous Deep Dish pizza. Nothing not to be missed, after all, for an Italian.
DINNER: Giordano’s | HOTEL: Field House Jones
DAY 26
Chicago - San Francisco - Tahiti
We have one last morning to spend in Chicago, and we spend it walking along the streets of the Loop. This road trip was the first part of our Honeymoon, which will have ended with a relaxing week in Bora Bora. At 3:00 p.m. we take a flight that will take us to San Francisco, from where we will take a plane to French Polynesia.
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