After cooking in Death Valley we headed into Nevada, we were heading to Las Vegas via the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, it had been closed when we came by earlier in the year. To get to the North Rim we decided to head across Nevada into Utah and then down into Arizona, to do this meant we had to head north first to get around the top of Nellis Air Force Range, home of the infamous Area 51. We didn't know this at the time, they don't print that information on the maps! We only found out when we stopped in a town called Rachel, it is on Hwy 375, also known as the Extraterrestrial Hwy. There isn't much out here and by the time we were in Rachel we were ready for a drink and something to eat. There isn't much in Rachel either, pretty much just the A'le'inn restaurant. Outside there was all manner of reference to aliens and UFOs, we went inside and there was even more, it turned out they filmed the bar scene from "Paul" in here and it was here that we found out we were near Area 51, it was very cool and the place was great. Then it was into Utah through Cedar City, back along a road that we did earlier in the year after it had just opened after being cleared of the snow, very different this time. As we were heading south into Arizona we could see the storm clouds in the distance, complete with lightening, so we stopped and waited them out for a while, but not before riding through a major sand storm, it was crazy, and scary for Julie. When we thought the storms had shifted we headed to Jacob Lake, on the way getting only a little wet, but we could see it had rained quite heavily. In Jacob Lake it was still raining a bit so we booked into a campground and set up camp, complete with tarp to keep us dry. As expected it stopped raining. The next day was an easy ride to the North Rim, but on the way we had to stop and put our wet weather gear on because it started raining quite hard. The North Rim was very different to the South Rim, there was more forest and wide open prairies of grass where Buffalo are often seen. The North Rim Lodge is right on the edge of side canyon and looked fantastic made from local Lime Stone and Ponderosa Pine logs. Inside were high ceilings with log trusses holding up the steeply raked roof. Our view of the canyon was often obscured by fog and low clouds that moved very quickly giving us incredible glimpses of the deep canyon below. We stayed at the lodge for a while waiting for the rain to clear. When it did we rode around to lookouts closer to the main canyon, one being Point Imperial. The first lookout we went to we couldn't see anything for the fog, we waited fifteen minutes before we decided it wasn't going to clear. As we made our way back along the rim past the other lookouts it was clearing and we had incredible views, by the time we were at Point Imperial the sun was out, giving us some great lighting and making the trip well worthwhile. Our route to Las Vegas would take us along I15 before we turned off to go around Lake Mead. As we approached Las Vegas we were stunned to see this massive development of huge houses, palm trees, lakes and grass, in a desert! Then we crested a hill and saw Las Vegas, a massive urban sprawl in a desert valley. So wrong. We looked up camping in Las Vegas and found a KOA right in the heart of the city and thought it would be good for getting to "the strip". After battling the heat and traffic we arrived at KOA only to be told that a city ordinance prevented tent camping anywhere in the city and that the closest was back at Lake Mead, about 50 minutes away. We were not happy and thought we would have to settle for riding the strip and going all the way back to the lake. When we turned off the strip we spotted a Motel 6 and thought we might as well see if they have rooms and how much they were. They did have rooms and it cost us $51.51 with tax, so we took one. At night we went for a walk along the strip and marveled at the fountains and fire shows the casinos put on and all the lights and different characters walking the streets. There were homeless beggars and buskers, people dressed like Batman and Cat Woman, very entertaining. We have trouble understanding a lot of things here in the US and we don't understand why it needs to be fake. There were areas depicting New York with a fake Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building, a fake Paris area with Fake Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, a fake Venice etc. And naturally lots of huge hotels and casinos, well I guess we had to see it. The next day as we left we went and had a look at what made this place possible, the Hoover Dam. A very impressive piece of engineering, particularly for its time.