Good evening, Singapore. My name is Julian. Today is Sunday, August the 18th of 2024, and this is Sleepless in Singapore. Today's episode is going to be about another road trip, again with Markus, my friend from Germany living in the United States. This time, we are not along the East Coast but along the West Coast. So without further ado, please relax, sit down, and let my voice be your guide to a restful night.

I landed at Las Vegas airport on a flight with Hawaiian Airlines, which was not great, not terrible, just good enough. Like the first time I went to Vegas, I was again surprised to see all the gambling machines, tables, and slot machines already at the airport right after going through security and immigration. Just like the first time, I went to Vegas without spending a single dime on any gambling or any kind of casino. This time, that was probably because I only spent maybe two hours in Vegas.

I found Markus at the Luxor Hotel, you know, the big pyramid in Las Vegas. I think it's the MGM Luxor or something like that. Markus had flown in from Philadelphia, where he's living or at least close to. He flew in the night before, and my flight, coming in from Hawaii where I spent the two weeks before, got pushed back three times in advance. Unfortunately, I arrived one day later than we had initially planned. But that was alright. Markus wasn't too mad at me, and he offered me a shower in his room, which I gladly took. Then we got ready for our road trip.

We checked out and went to the parking lot. I was expecting that Markus had gotten a very nice Mustang convertible from the car rental place, but unfortunately, they gave us a Dodge Challenger. It's a challenging car—it's not super nice to drive, and it feels really cheap. It's really not good quality. Anyway, it did the job, at least for a while. I guess I'll get to that later. But it did the job for the first couple of days.

The very first thing we did after leaving the MGM Luxor hotel was to go to breakfast at a place called The Egg and I. They had a giant menu of different breakfast choices: waffles, eggs, egg crepes, skillets, egg specials—a lot. We ate a lot and enjoyed the place. There was a little train going around on tracks up on the wall all around the breakfast place, and it felt immediately American again to me.

After that very American breakfast, Markus and I made our way to the first stop, which was the Hoover Dam. The Hoover Dam is this giant dam in Nevada that produces electricity for mostly California and Nevada. It was built in the '30s, I believe, and it's on the Colorado River. First and foremost, it's now a big site, with millions of tourists visiting every year. There is a visitor center, and it looks interesting. You have these reddish rock formations everywhere, the Colorado River, and then this giant dam. It looks interesting with the streets winding down there, and then the road goes across the Hoover Dam to the other side, to Arizona.

We stopped there for a while, took a couple of nice pictures, and then moved on down the highway until our first stop in Williams, Arizona, where we had an Airbnb pretty much in the middle of nowhere, up a small hill with no direct neighbors. The next house was maybe half a mile or so away. We had this basic but nice enough Airbnb there with a barbecue, and that is also what we did on the first night. We bought some sausages and some vegetable skewers and stuff, and we fired up that barbecue. For a while, after I might have put a little bit too much lighter fluid, it was on fire, but then it did the job very well.

It was a little Weber, like those regular pole Webers, very nice, like the one I had back in the day in Germany. Except for the rotten asparagus that Markus threw out immediately after opening the package because it smelled fishy somehow, we had a very nice dinner on our first night. We also had a nice evening there, enjoying the silence and the landscape, and a quiet night to get ready for the next day.

The next day, we went deeper into Arizona. We went to the Horseshoe Bend, a place where the Colorado River looks like a horseshoe. It took a little walk from the parking lot to get there. Unfortunately, on the way back, it started raining a bit, but not too bad. After the Horseshoe Bend, we went to a diner in Cameron. Cameron is a small place still in Arizona, and we mostly went to the Cameron Trading Post to that diner for lunch because there was also a Navajo Arts and Crafts shop, and we wanted to see some local art, some Native American art. We did, but we did not end up buying anything.

We also had this dish—I don't really know what it is, but the base looks a lot like a langosh. It's this deep-fried dough, quite light and fluffy, quite fat too. There were red beans, salad, cheese, and some salsa. I forgot the name, but I will try to google what that actually is because it was quite nice, albeit way too much. I think I ate maybe 20% of it before I was completely full, and I can eat a lot. So the portion was absolutely massive.

Then, in half rain, half sunshine, we went on to the desert of Arizona to see these red rock formations. That is quite impressive. It's something I had never seen before, and it makes for beautiful pictures. It's very interesting to drive along there. There is nothing else—just a road, red rocks left and right, little cactuses, and mostly short and dry plants. Otherwise, there is just this vastness of red rock and nothing else.

On the second night, we had another barbecue because why not? This time, we not only had the vegetable skewers and sausage, but we also had two massive T-bone steaks that we threw on the grill. Just like the year before, we had a cooler box. Not an electric one this time, but it worked out fine. We bought this cooler box at the first Walmart we could find. Like here in Singapore, a cooler box in the US is like $40, so it wasn't the biggest investment. We filled it up with mostly drinks but also usually the grocery shopping we did for the evenings. We put a pack of ice on top, and that kept our stuff fresh until the evening. In the evening, we had extremely nice steaks. They were very good quality, and we made them on point. They were exactly perfect from the barbecue.

That night, we spent in Page, Arizona, in a place that again was an Airbnb. It looked very typical of what I think is typical for the United States or that part of the United States. You have hundreds of houses on these slightly curved roads, a lot of dead ends, and all the houses look exactly the same. I'm guessing all by the same developer. Honestly, you don't really know if you're on a road further or a road earlier; you don't see a difference at all. It all looks the same. Inside, everything was alright—big barbecue, comfortable big beds, so what else do you need?

The next day, we went on to see Monument Valley and the Navajo Tribal Park. If you've never been there, it's somehow a very magical place because you have these red rock formations and these red pillars growing out of nothing. You can go in that park with your car, of course, and you can drive around. We drove around for maybe two hours in there, and I took very impressive pictures—very out of this world, very unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was very hot, with quite a few tourists as well, but definitely worth the trip.

Talking about the trip and driving, unfortunately, I had forgotten my driver's license, so Markus had to drive for the first couple of days. I'm very sorry about that; it was a bit stupid of me. But well, we survived. Later on, I actually got my driver's license because Nat sent it to—I don't remember where she sent it to, but she sent it, and I could pick it up from the local FedEx place. Finally, I could also drive.

I'm looking at a place called Monticello, Utah, United States now, and there is much less red; the green is back. They still have these very funny rock formations. There is the Wilson Arch, for example, and there's this other thing that looks like a tent but is a rock. When I say rock, I don't mean a small rock. I mean a 30-meter-tall rock formation.

That night, we slept in Moab, Utah, in another Airbnb. Big comfortable beds, nice place, nice living room—nothing to complain about, also nothing special to mention. It was a good place to stay. Whenever Markus and I travel, we try to get a good mix of Airbnbs where we both have our own bedrooms or hotels if we want a little bit of service or if we don't mind spending a bit more. Often, it turns out that in the countryside, you have a bit more Airbnbs, and in the cities, we sometimes just went for a hotel to have something central and parking for the car and all that.

In Moab, we also went for our first American barbecue platter. Markus had a nice brisket, some sausage, something that looked like pork ribs, and some cheese balls. I had pretty much the same except I had some pulled pork. The place was called the Smokehouse in Moab, Utah. We also went to the Moab food truck park, but most of the trucks were closed down, so sadly, we didn't get anything there.

The next morning in Moab, we had breakfast at the Jailhouse Cafe. I had a very special kind of Eggs Benedict with what looked like sausage meat and a cheese sauce with a side of fried potatoes. I do remember it was great. I liked it. The whole place, the Jailhouse Cafe in Moab, is definitely a recommendation. It looked nice, had a nice feeling, and the food was nice.

After that, we went along the highway, along a river, and along the train tracks. The nature suddenly was very different. It wasn't red or sandy at all anymore. It was all green. Still no tall trees but very green, very fresh, very different. This river, Price River, and the area before we made it to Salt Lake City, passing through the Uinta and Ouray reservation, was very beautiful. Very raw, very empty, very nice. We had a nice day. We had a bit of clouds but very dramatic skies and shadows over the hills. It was a very good day in the car, with very nice impressions of an area I had never been to before.

Then we finally made it to Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City was somehow different than I expected. Maybe because all that you ever hear about Salt Lake City when it's in the media over here on the other end of the world is that there are the Mormons and everything is a bit weird and extremely religious. But the area we went to had rainbow flags, the cutest little bookshop in Wasatch Hollow. Let me see if I can figure out the name of the bookshop. The King's English Bookshop. I can only recommend if you ever get to Salt Lake City, visit that bookshop. It's somehow big but somehow small. They have a lot of everything, and they have these free books to give away if you need them. They even write a little description of the book and then wrap it in brown paper so it's a surprise. They call it Blind Date with a Book, Brain Food Books. Actually, there is an address, brainfoodbooks.org, and I found that to be super nice.

Then we moved on to a place called Ruby Snap because apparently that's the place where you can get the fanciest cookies you've ever seen. It is true. They have tons of different cookies. I'm not sure what kind of cookie I'm holding in my hand here, but it looks like some kind of lemon glaze. I don't know. It was quite alright. After that, we went to downtown Salt Lake City to the Fisher Brewing Company, which is right around the corner from Ruby Snap. We had a beer, and they have this beer garden with a lot of folks running out there having a good time. There was an art exhibition. It was almost a bit alternative. It wasn't Berlin Kreuzberg, but it also definitely wasn't the Bible Belt vibes I thought there would be. Very good.

Then we got some scooters, you know, the ones you can stand on. We went around for quite a while. We went to Crown Burgers because Markus had never been there before and wanted to try. Then we went to Monkey Ranch because I wanted to try. Monkey Ranch is a place where they have super premium anti-dairy ice cream. From Monkey Ranch, we went to the Salt Lake City Tabernacle, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the Salt Lake Utah Temple. It's all in one area. The Meridian Monument. It's all in this very central area. I don't know the details and the background of any of that, but we took some nice pictures. It looks like these typical US churches, and the temple looked interesting too.

Because we had the time, we were quite early that day, and we had these scooters, we went around a lot more. We wanted to see the Utah State Capitol, which pretty much exactly looks like the US Capitol, maybe a bit smaller. Then we also went all the way up to Ensign Peak. Unfortunately, Markus almost didn't make it up there. Not because he's that much heavier than I am, I think his battery was just weaker than mine. But I always had to wait for him when he was coming up the hill on his scooter extremely slowly. Of course, I made a lot of fun of him.

In the evening, we went to Market Street Oyster Bar, which is in a nice old building. Then we had sushi at Takashi, which was very nice, especially for a place where there's not a lot of ocean around. I really liked that and enjoyed that day in Salt Lake City.

The next day, we made it to the actual Salt Lakes or THE Salt Lake, the Bonneville Salt Flats Special Recreation Area. That is very impressive. You might know these Salt Lakes, these dried-up Salt Lakes, from where they do the speed records when they have a new fastest car, a new rocket car. These Salt Flats are extremely flat. You still have a little salt and gravel and stuff, so you better make sure if you have a very fast car to test that you clean up your ways a bit. But they are extremely level, extremely flat, and they are big, like really big. So big that you sometimes cannot see the other end except if there are mountains or something. Because of the salt, they are white. They are extremely bright. Even wearing my sunglasses, they were so bright and so white, and the reflection of the sun was so strong that you could barely see. We spent some time there, and again, it was something I had never seen before. I was very happy that we did that.

Then we went on to find a place for lunch, and we found this place in Wells, Nevada, called the Taqueria El Compa, which is famous for very good tacos. I can tell you, they had very good tacos. They were so good that out of all the excitement, Markus dropped his whole pack, including his tacos and the sauce and everything, right on our car and right on his pants. Obviously, that was very entertaining for me, not so funny for him. But what can you do?

A little bit further from that lunch place, we went to Twin Falls, a place that seemed very special, very weird. They have big signs: "Attention, you are entering a private residential area. There are no views of the Shoshone Falls. Please turn around. Don't come here." But still, it was this quite nice area where the Shoshone Falls are, which, to be fair, I had not heard of before. I just went there because I liked the name, as it reminded me of a silly old German movie where there is a scene where they say, "Oh, wo die Shoshone wohnen?" So I asked Markus if we could go there, and we went. It was very funny because it was this bend of the river, and then there was this very secretive area of houses where these people live, very cut off from the rest of the world, in a very interesting place with these tall rocks all around them. They live down there somewhere above the falls. Quite interesting.

At night, we made it to Nampa, Idaho, where we slept. I can't really remember where we slept. Nampa, Idaho, in some Airbnb with what looks to be a big nice bed again. That's all I remember. I do remember that in Nampa in the evening, we went to this place called the Brick 29 Bistro, and that was super cool. They had a waiting area, like a lounge area downstairs, where you could have cocktails. They had a fireplace, and we were sitting in this dark area. There was a piano, but nobody was playing. I guess they sometimes have artists there. We had some kind of whiskey cocktail or something down there. When our table was ready, we had a steak with a potato gratin and burnt Brussels sprouts. The waiter highly recommended the cheesecake and something that looked like bread pudding. Because we were very full already, we asked the waiter if we could have half portions. He said, "No problem, half portions." He also charged us only for half portions. The problem is those half portions were twice as big as regular portions in any other country of the world. We had a giant piece of cheesecake and bread pudding, and of course, we couldn't finish it, but we tried our best.

The next day was a big driving day, and we made it to Portland. All about Portland and how we got there and how we made our way down from Portland along the coast all the way to Mexico before we go back to Nevada, I will tell you next week. For now, let me give you some Tom Sawyer.