So I'll continue with letting you know what happened on Trek...

So after Bakersfield we headed to Death Valley. We stopped for many photo stops along the way and so arrived at our campground after dark. The campground was really basic and didn't even have showers. Paul thought he'd help us out by driving the can off the road and leaving the headlights on while we put the tents up but that plan didn't really work as we got stuck in soft sand. So yep we had the lights on for putting up the tents and then we had to push the van out of the sand. About 6 of us pushed the front while Paul reversed out. It definately added excitement to our day and Paul named us the Tigers and gave us all high 5s! It was really funny and the other people at the campsite were laughing at us and taking pictures! That night I didn't sleep well as there were lots of funny noises coming out of the dark including howling coyotes!

The next day we went to Golden Canyon and did a hike which started of relaxed and quite gentle and then became awful! There were too many up and downs and the path was next to a steep drop! I wasn't impressed. When we finally made it the view was good but I don't think it was worth that trek! In the afternoon we went to the sand dunes with the intention of sand boarding with a sled and cooking oil! Well Paul went first and face planted himself into the sand! He looked like an ostrich! Jong managed to take a photo of him while he was midair and his head was going toward the sand and his feet were curling up over his head. It really was funny - especially as I'd shouted please don't break your neck before he did it! I then decided it would be an idea not to do this! A few people had a go but noone did anything as spectacular as Paul! We saw the sunset at the sand dunes. It was amazing. When we got back to camp Paul gave us a ride to the ranch down the road where we had to pay $5 to use the showers by the pool! After Sabina and I went to the General Store there and bought ourselves some vodka and orange juice which we started drinking with dinner. By the time we'd finished dinner we were quite drunk! Some Texan boys came over. They were staying just behind us and their group was really boring too. They were on a Geology field trip from Texas A&M University and their names were Jonathan Funk and Luke Finger. The most ridiculous names you could imagine we we're sure if they'd made them up! But we stalked them on Facebook and they are real names! The four of us stayed up chatting and drinking around the fire until it got really cold, we'd polished off the bottle of vodka and Sabina threw up! They had to take us to our tent, open the zip, push us in and then zip us back up again! I woke up in the morning having somehow managed to remove my coat and shoes and get in the sleeping bag. I hadn't got as far as doing it up though so I was freezing and I felt rubbish! We then had to take down our tents and get ready for our drive to Vegas.

We arrived in Las Vegas at around lunchtime. Paul gave us a quick city orientation and then we went to the Luxor for the all you can eat buffet lunch. It was great! And I was starving so I had loads of fab food! We got to the hotel at about 5pm and our rooms were huge suites! We had a kitchen area, a big lounge and bedroom and a bathroom with two doors so you could access it from either the living area or bedroom! It was big we could have had a party in there! That evening we went to see the Fremont Street experience which is the ceiling with all the lights. It showed some strange movie thing with loads of colours and different shapes. I thought it was cool but I wasn't that impressed actually. Next we went to see the Bellagio fountains which were really cool. They play a different song every time and the fountains go in time to the music and they sway and shoot up at different heights and in different shapes. Really cool. The only thing with Vegas was how cold it was! I was freezing! We managed to visit Ceasars Palace and then me and Sabina decided we'd visit the mall but when we arrived it was closed. Very disappointed. We thought it was supposed to be a 24hour city but the mall shut at 11pm. It was 11.30pm. So we got coffee and I got a sandwich from Starbucks and then we walked back to the hotel.

We got up quite early the next day and set off from the hotel around 9am. We first went in the mall that we didn't get to see the night before. It was so cool it had sky and cobbled floor and the shop fronts were like buildings. The mall belongs to the Planet Hollywood hotel and the mall hasn't been changed from when it was the Aladdin Hotel. That day we did so much walking. We walked from the hotel to McDonalds opposite the Luxor and then we walked up to Circus Circus via various hotels, casinos and Madame Taussauds along the way. Circus Circus was a disappointment as the indoor theme park that we'd gone to visit only had one or two rides open. We then caught the trolley back down to the New York- New York and crossed the road to buy our American Storm tickets. We next had to walk really quickly back to the hotel as we didn't have a long turn around time before having to leave again. The woman at the ticket office said we had to be there at the theatre at the Stratosphere hotel for 7.30-8pm the show started at 8.30pm. We planned to get there for around 8pm and we were going to walk up to the MGM and get the monorail up to the top of the Strip and then walk up to the Stratosphere. But when Sabina was in the shower I read the tickets and they said as it was general admission we had to get the exchange our vouchers for tickets at the box office at least one hour before the show. This left us only one hour to finish getting ready and get to the hotel, four miles away! We left our rooms and managed to get a ride to the front entrance of our hotel on the back of a golf buggy from one of the guys who works there! He then put us in a taxi. We got to the hotel about 7.20pm and as it turns out we probably did'nt have to be there that early but I didn't was us to loose our tickets. We played the slots for a while. WE favoured the ones where you can put in $1 and each cent is one credit so you can play for a while with just 50p. I won $10 by getting a special combination and I'd only put $3 in at that point. Sabina won $7. We went to the machine to collect our winnings and then it was time to see the show. It was in a nightclub which didn't open until after the show. There were only about 15 people there including us! It was really embarrassing for us and the performers because you can't get much of an atmosphere or a reaction with so few people. Well they manager to do a good job anyway! This guy Josh came on the stage to "warm" us up. He was funny and cute. They he introduced the other guys. There were five of them and they did different dances to songs in different outfits but then they removed some of their outfits getting to be topless and then only one guy would stay on stage and he got someone out the audience to help him remove the rest! Thank God it wasn't me I may actually have died from embarrassment! They only got down to thongs it was the full monty! Me and Sabina we're sure if we were glad or not! At the end I got to have my picture taken with them. I'm sitting astride to of them's legs and they're all topless and one of them has his hand on my leg. It's a great photo!! I got a bit drunk while watching the show as the drinks in the club were strong! I only had 2 but then I'd only eaten McDonalds all day. After the show we walked back down the strip via a few more casinos and finally walked back to our hotel after deciding we needed dinner at 2.30am! I had Subway and Sabina had tacos in a 24hour food court! We stumbled in to bed at around 3.45am. Luckily before we went out we'd set the alarm clock for 6.15am when we had to get up for our drive to Zion.

Woke up not feeling as bad as the morning after at Death Valley and we got in the van and drove out of Nevada, through a bit of Arizona and into Utah. Our hotel was the historic Pioneer Lodge in Springdale. It was a lovely hotel. Very rustic. That afternoon some people went hiking in the National Park but feet had blisters on the them and my heels no skin from walking in unsuitable shoes for miles on end the day before in Vegas so I decided to just visit the Visitor Centre, take a stroll back to the hotel and use the internet. We met up for dinner about 6pm and went to this really nice restaurant where I had a great pasta meal with cheese and chicken. It was so good but huge so Martin finished it off! It was so nice to eat in a proper restaurant having been to quite a few fast food restaurants. This one was lovely. After dinner we got back to the hotel, changed into our swimsuits and jumped in the hot tub! It was 38f outside but over 100f in the hot tub. It burned went we got in and then it was great and then we spend most of the time sitting on the edge with our legs only in the boiling water! It was me, Sabina, Choi, Jong and Dimitri in the hot tub and we had a good laugh. A few days ago Sabina had an allergic reaction to something and it came back when she was in the water so she jumped out to get Paul and to get some medicine. The only thing was that she was the only one to have picked up a room key. So a few minutes later when we all got out of the hot tub I had nowhere to go as I didn't know where she was. I stood outside the room for a few minutes and my legs were burning and itchy because of the huge temperature difference between the water and the air. I started to get cold so I went and knocked on Martin and Dimitiri's door so I could wait in there until Sabina got back to the room. I asked to borrow a towel as my travel towel was all wet and cold. Martin threw me a tiny one which I though was quite funny. I then explained that I wanted to take my shorts off so I needed a towel that would fit around my waist! I then got a bigger one. And after a few mins I check next door and Sabina had got there so I could change for bed. The next morning we went to Monument Valley. We drove through spectacular scenery made up of red rocks and sand all covered in snow! It was great! We arrived at the Monument Valley Tribal area around 2.30pm where I put on my snow boots and we transfered in to a different van for our valley tour with Jamie who's Navajo. He took us all around the bumpy trail to see all the different buttes, mesas and spires and he told us what they were and the stories surrounding them. Jamie was a bit mad though as he kept singing and laughing like Woody the Woodpecker. At one point he got us all out the van and we laid down on this rock looking up through a hole in the rock towards the sky and he played us some traditional music. It was beautiful. Jong said that he felt like his soul had been cleansed which was funny! I sat in the back of the van and we got bumped around so much it was funny! At one point my head hit the ceiling! It was really cold especially as it got dark. Jong asked Dimitri he they could share a sleeping bag. This really gave me the giggles and I couldn't stop laughing for ages! I had such images in my head!

That night we were to sleep in a traditional Navajo hogan. Which is a hut made from wood with mud on top. Inside there's a woodburning stove. We were cooked dinner around the fire but I couldn't eat any as I got a really bad IBS attack. I felt like someone had stuck a knife in my stomach and every so often kept twisting the knife. Eventually it died down and then it was time for the entertainment. Two Navajo men performed some traditional dances for us and after one guy explained their history and culture to us. It's really beautiful and related to nature quite a bit. Soon it was time to go to bed. I set up my sleeping bag behind the stove as I was quite late getting to the hogan and the only other places left were by the door and I thought I'd be cold. Well I left my drink outside so I grabbed that before going to bed and it was frozen in the middle! I was really glad of the frozen drink though as behind that stove it was absolutely boiling! I was wearing full thermals from my ankles to my wrists and I was wearing just those and I rolled the legs up to my knees, the arms up to my elbows and then I laid on my front as close to the floor as possible and folded my top up my back to try and be a bit cooler. I felt like I was melting! By this time it was too late to move as everyone had settled down for bed and someone would have to move along for me to get in anywhere else. I slept quite badly but then it got cooler around 1am so I managed to sleep until about 6am when it got freezing as the fire had gone out. We all had to get up and dressed without leaving our sleeping bags and then we got back in Jamie's van at 6.45am and he took us to see the sunrise which was well worth getting up to early. We then got cereal for breakfast and then we headed out for our drive down to the Grand Canyon. We arrived at the Canyon around 1.30pm. It just crept up on us! We had just passed in to the National Park and I said to Paul are we there already? And we was like no it's a huge area and it's still going to take some tim