In the heart of Utah, on the legendary Route 12, we find, thanks to Kari and Ulla, the small Escalante State Park. We set camp at the pretty site, mainly occupied by Europeans, and immediately jump into the inviting lake.

The place turns out to be paradise on earth. Escalante means, in a very free religious and spiritual translation, that there is a ladder here leading straight to heaven. Indeed, we do experience a few deep and heavenly moments.

We befriend three families and are happy to experience once more that friendship has no boundaries and can grow even when our lives and views differ widely.

Another great personality of Escalante is the “Rock Man” Scott. He has been collecting rocks since childhood and has made his hobby into a career. Lenny, our small geologist cannot get enough of Scott’s shop (by the way, Scott will deliver his gemstones abroad!).

Five days we stay on the edge of the Escalante Petrified Forest. 5.5 million tons of petrified wood – all in gorgeous colors – can be admired in the park.

Fungus and algae grow on the rocks of the area, forming a colorful moss-like fur. The fungus protects the algae and the algae produce food for the fungus. The symbiotic relationship is perfect and in many cases thousands of years old.

Katie, Ryan and their son Jaxon take us to see old rock paintings from the local Indian tribe. The impressive art tells of a good hunt; the figures are painted with a mixture of blood and berry juice and have survived hundreds of years.

With the three families, we make a trip to the dinosaur footprint area, where we actually see a huge dinosaur footprint, but where we have just as much fun climbing rocks.

In time for sunset, we find ourselves in Devil’s garden. We enjoy an evening picnic with Michael’s bread, cheese, eggs and fruit and say goodbye to this wonderful area and our new friends.

And on we go on the dream-like route 12 / 24, over the Boulder Mountain, through the Capitol Reef National Park, and at last we re-join the Interstate Highway heading East.

Thousands of hoodoos smile at the tourists and nature lovers at the Bryce Canyon National Park. Hoodoos are fantastic rock pillars, which have developed over millions of years by sedimentation and erosion. The hoodoos of Bryce Canyon get their unique shapes from the approximately 200 days a year of ice and snow melting during the day and re-freezing at night. Ice expands in the cracks of the pillars, forcing the rock apart.

Walking trails lead visitors into the heart of the hoodoos and silence the most avid talker. What a spectacle of nature! The evening sun gently winds its way through the rocks and makes our walk even more impressive. Later, a couple of cheeky, young deer join us at the local campground.

The management is strongly behind the preservation of the environment and the according education of the visitors. Free shuttle busses transfer guests from view point to view point and from hiking trail to hiking trail. Interestingly, most of the 1.5 million annual visitors are foreign tourists. Deep inside the canyon you can only hear: “Ah, c’est magnifique!”, “So schön!”, “So, lässig!”, “Bellissimo!” agnd “Piau Leang!”.

Yellowstone was declared a national park in 1872 and was the first of its kind in the world. The vast area of Yellowstone (most of it is a volcano crater) still stands as a natural wonder. The park has high snow-capped mountains, clear lakes, roaring waterfalls, geysers, deep forests and plenty of wildlife to offer.

We stay in a simple campground in the park, where we meet not only super nice travellers (including a mega-sweet Swiss couple), but also cook veggie burgers on a campfire and go fishing with the wooden rods our boys made themselves. During the day we watch wild animals (even a Grizzly Bear), swim in the cool river and admire the hot springs and geysers in the area. The volcanic area is noticeable at every corner: everywhere it is steaming and bubbling from the earth and the sulfur-egg smell in the air spoils our appetite.

But is Yellowstone really as idyllic as we wish a National Park to be? The park is heavily promoted and its uniqueness attracts around three million visitors a year. A public transport network is non-existing; thousands of vehicles and motor homes drive the over 300 km park roads of Yellowstone. An airport on the edge brings more visitors. Does it make sense to protect a natural area and by doing so attract millions of visitors? We wish dearly that Yellowstone will copy other American National Parks and reduce or prohibit private traffic by offering convenient and reliable, public shuttle buses.

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In Idaho, along a nondescript country road, the landscape suddenly changes. Have we landed on the moon, we wonder?

We are not so far from wrong. The large park, protected by the government, is called ”Craters of the Moon”. Over thousands of years small volcanoes erupted and showered the area with lava. We camp on lava, we climb a lava hill and we explore a “lava tube”, a sort of cave/tunnel, which was created by the lava flow.

Walmart, a huge supermarket chain allows (that is what they confirm on their website) overnight stays on their parking lots. The idea that those who sleep there, shop there too, probably materializes in most cases. In truth, the free overnight spaces are extremely practical when transiting a place. What goes on during those Walmart evenings and nights could fill books.

We divide the Walmart parkings into two categories: the beautiful and tidy ones that attract a dozen or more campers a night and the shabbier, run-down ones.

The former often resemble small campgrounds. Huge RV buses extend their motor homes putting out their slide outs, running their noisy generators to operate their TV sets and washing machines and taking their dogs for a walk on the car park lawns. Some stay in the same spot for days, even weeks.

Many Americans have lost their homes during the current economic crisis and have permanently moved into their RVs. Others are less fortunate and end up sleeping in the driver’s seat of their cars or with their children in the back of their pickup trucks with a plastic sheet stretched over their bodies for protection.

On the Walmarts of the rougher areas, we almost obligatory meet at least one person who talks to him or herself, lost in a different world, and one person searching the bins for useful remains, a bitter mother who yells at her children with a rather bad language and someone who is trying to sell a vehicle. Recently, homeless and unemployed joined the Walmart parking crew. You see them sat down at the entrances holding a piece of card in their hands “looking for work, no matter what”. Fathers with their children, elderly and former managers: it can hit anbody.

At the Walmart in downtown Tucson, we watched a shoplifter being chased with a lot of shouting. Another time we were torn out of our sleeps by remote control cars. After all, a nearly empty supermarket parking makes a great testing area for such toys. In a military base town we were awoken by machine gun fire; obviously a nearby night exercise. Once a strange man stalked us and once an extra friendly security guard visited us for a chat. One even apologized to us for the inconvenience of the noise due to the nearby railway line.

Recently, in California, we were torn out of a deep sleep at 1o’clock in the morning. The unfriendly voice came from the parking megaphones and demanded everybody who was present to leave immediately. Otherwise we would be taken to court. The next morning we found out why this particular Walmart took such drastic measures. Apparently, more and more homeless people moved to the parking lot and brought a not to be ignored amount of problems with them. When a woman tried to sell her baby for 20 Dollars, the local government stepped in and stopped the overnighting.  

More and more Walmart supermarkets place signs to prohibit overnight parking. It’s inconvenient to us and many others, but who can blame them?