CANCELLED 16/07/21 Third attempt.. California, Arizona, Nevada.

[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by LizzyBear

Following along. Yours are the sorts of holidays I want to do when our kids are a bit older so I will live vicariously through your reports in the meantime I did the drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles with an ex in 2008 and stopped at quite a few of the places you've mentioned, really loved Monterey and definitely want to return there. The aquarium there has ruined all others for me now though! The SF tour you have planned looks great, my dad has a VW camper which we used for most of our holidays when I was a kid so they're close to my heart.

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We started small and built up.. NY, train to Washington, flight into Orlando. I guess that the boys were around 4 and 8
From there we grew it. The Boston one in my signature is my favourite .. so far.

Top tip. It is pretty safe to plan pretty much anything in the USA as there are no cultural or language issues. I always book in bits and have buffers to allow for travel delays, spending a couple of nights in each destination if flights are involved.

[duchy]

You’ve got me thinking about staying in the village rather than at Tucasyan. The Yavapai Lodge looks nice. Trying to find out the cost of bringing the car into the village (I’m sure there must be a charge). We are very similar to you but a few days behind you as we are visiting long lost family in Elgin south of Tucson and Tombstone is a must before hitting the Canyon , then maybe Lake Havasu (or Laughlin and do the boat trip to see London Bridge ... husband’s bucket list that one not mine) and then Vegas. I did think about flying Tucson to Flagstaff still debating that one. Husband has given up and just told me to book whatever I think is best and stop confusing him with options

[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by duchy

You’ve got me thinking about staying in the village rather than at Tucasyan. The Yavapai Lodge looks nice. Trying to find out the cost of bringing the car into the village (I’m sure there must be a charge). We are very similar to you but a few days behind you as we are visiting long lost family in Elgin south of Tucson and Tombstone is a must before hitting the Canyon , then maybe Lake Havasu (or Laughlin and do the boat trip to see London Bridge ... husband’s bucket list that one not mine) and then Vegas. I did think about flying Tucson to Flagstaff still debating that one. Husband has given up and just told me to book whatever I think is best and stop confusing him with options

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Your plan is indeed, similar.

We also looked at flying Tucson to Flagstaff, but would have missed the corner in Winslow Arizona. As a strange footnote, Jackson Browne, who with Glenn Frey wrote the famous song about his experience in Winslow later confided that he believes ‘the girl my lord in a flatbed Ford’ was in fact in Flagstaff, rather than Winslow! (Little known factoid).

The desert boneyard and Pima might appeal to your husband?

[enjibenji]

Have you done the hoover dam before? We done the engine room tour and all of us enjoyed it 😊

[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by enjibenji

Have you done the hoover dam before? We done the engine room tour and all of us enjoyed it 😊

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We have never strayed far from the California Coast before.

We have all day from sunrise to get from the South Rim to Vegas and clearly the Dam is going to be a stop. There is a place just south of and on the way in to Vegas that is ‘real wild west’, Eldorado Canyon. We will probably spend a few hours there.

Mandie will be ‘engineering zoned out’ by this time and I would struggle to enthuse her about a pump station (although I wouldn’t mind seeing it).

[duchy]

Husband wants to do the Dam from Vegas (another bucket list job), it’s close enough for a decent day trip and he wants it guided .

[enjibenji]

Originally Posted by duchy

Husband wants to do the Dam from Vegas (another bucket list job), it’s close enough for a decent day trip and he wants it guided .

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It was really good, we were inside sticking out phones out to take pictures of the dam, when we came out it was like Omg we were inside there and could see how big it is. I didn't think the 2 20 year olds would like it but they did. Was worth the extra for guided tour, they are strict on security so go through the bags. 😊

[enjibenji]

Also we done Oatman and sitgreaves pass as was on my bucket list. That was a good day out from Vegas as well.

[KarenG]

WOW what a fantastic itinerary. Especially liking the Tucson area elements!

Re: Yavapai Lodge, I think it was here we stayed at overnight at the Grand Canyon. It was very basic and the food options weren’t great (just for your awareness - we decided we didn’t care as we wanted to be ‘onsite’ and it was the cheapest option.

I also recommend the Engine Room tour at the Hoover Dam

[duchy]

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy

Your plan is indeed, similar.

We also looked at flying Tucson to Flagstaff, but would have missed the corner in Winslow Arizona. As a strange footnote, Jackson Browne, who with Glenn Frey wrote the famous song about his experience in Winslow later confided that he believes ‘the girl my lord in a flatbed Ford’ was in fact in Flagstaff, rather than Winslow! (Little known factoid).

The desert boneyard and Pima might appeal to your husband?

See more...

Jackson Browne , there’s a name from my youth clearly you were one of the cool kids too
We eventually booked to fly from Tucson to Flagstaff with a connection overnight in Phoenix (actually not flying til the next afternoon) and two nights in the Canyon then driving on to Laughlin as we fancy the boat trip to Lake Havasu so two nights there before Vegas.