I wanted to do one more post on our recent US holiday taking a look at it in terms of some significant numbers.
One number I won’t be concentrating on too closely is that of the pound to dollar rate which hit a virtual parity while we were away. Ouch!
Miles driven: 3,277
We already knew that this was going to be a holiday heavy on the mileage. It was a fly-drive holiday after all.
As you can see from the map above, with the route highlighted, the predicted number of miles was 2,628 but this just assumed that we drove from hotel to hotel and nothing else. What this didn’t take into account was the driving around the parks, to restaurants etc and, of course, a detour when the road to Death Valley was closed. All this added an additional 649 miles to the trip.
All this matters as we had to regularly fill up our car with petrol gas. We paid anything between $3 and $6 per gallon for fuel – a significant difference in price and we became quite adept at hunting out the cheapest rate.
Unlike previous trips this time we had no issues with paying at the pump except on one occasion when the reader wouldn’t return our card and I wondered if we’d have to go the rest of the holiday without our primary card (we didn’t).
The last fill-up we did was at $4.079 a gallon which is equivalent at today’s exchange rate to 0.97p a litre. This compares to the actual price per litre in Reading, UK of £1.69. Of course you don’t get as good MPG from those gas guzzling larger American cars.
Miles flown: 10,218
This doesn’t do much for my green credentials but unless you are Greta Thunberg and are willing to go by boat there really isn’t any other way of getting to the USA.
The total miles flown for the two legs were as follows:
LHR – SFO – 5,368
SLC – SFO – 4,850
Miles walked: 140.34
We had the usual issue that we have in America that in some places it really isn’t geared up for walking. This included us taking a two minute drive to reach a destination across the road and driving from a disappointing Taco Bell lunch to the adjacent Walmart. Other places such as Springdale, Moab and Jackson all were fine to walk downtown.
In the parks, however, the reverse is the case. There are many, many trails to take and most of them are very well documented and marked along the way by the NPS. On the entry to the parks as you flash your annual pass they happily thrust a map at you covering the park highlights including trails.
The parks are surprisingly well appointed. They almost always have a very informative welcome centre. There are regular toilets restrooms (and what a ridiculous almost prudish word that is) and, most impressively, drinking water refill stations which are essential when walking in the heat of some of the parks.
I have a lot of admiration for the American national parks and of the National Parks Service that administers them. I know that America is a large nation but I was impressed by the huge swathes of land turned over to parks or national forests.
Accomodations: 15
Overall the standard of accomodation was pretty good. Many of the hotel rooms not only had a sofa area, which was great for relaxing after a hard day in the parks, but also a couple of (at least) queen sized beds. This has always struck me as odd but I guess if you aren’t getting on with your travelling companion at least you don’t have to share a bed with them at the end of the day.
We also stayed in a number of cabins where the size was small and the quality not quite so good. In Monument Valley a strong wind overnight left me and the cabin shaking!
Parks Visited: 11
We managed to squeeze in 11 parks over the trip of which nine of them were managed by the National Parks Service (NPS) as follows:
- Yosemite ($25)
- Red Rock Canyon ($15)
- Zion ($35)
- Bryce ($35)
- Grand Canyon ($35)
- Arches ($30)
- Dinosaur ($25)
- Grand Teton ($35)
- Yellowstone ($35)
I have separated these parks out as they are all covered by the NPS annual pass which cost us $80 to buy. You can purchase the pass pretty much at any NPS office and we picked one up in San Francisco on our first full day of the holiday. The figures shown in brackets above are the drive up prices which are valid for one week from first purchase. The total cost would have been $270 if we had paid on the gate so we saved $190 using the card which is pretty good.
States Visited: 8
I admit that some of these are a bit of a cheat. Montana for example we only drove through on the way to another destination. Nevertheless it does give you a visual indication of just how much of the States we covered in our three weeks.
- California
- Arizona
- Utah
- Colorado
- Nevada
- Wyoming
- Montana
- Idaho
Temperature (low to high): -4 to 40
It came as a bit of a surprise to have to chip the ice off the car as we left Yellowstone park and the temperature indicator in the car (which we had changed to centigrade so we could understand it and frustrate the next occupants) showed -4 degrees.
At the other end of the scale Las Vegas was pretty hot and sweaty but we were somewhat saved by the air conditioned shops and casinos.
I’d like to say that we were well prepared for both ends of the temperature scale but despite checking on the likely weather before we left the UK neither of us thought to bring a woollen hat and so ended up having to buy one in Walmart.
Media taken: 2,666
We have taken an unbelievable number of photos and vides. 2,666 in fact. Whether we will ever look at many of these again is a moot point.
Conclusion
And that is it for this years American adventure. We have both throughly enjoyed the trip and have vacillated between what our favourite park was. The fact that there is no clear winner shows just how great each one was and we will definitely be back to visit at some point in the future.