We arrived at New York on July 22nd and stayed in Manhattan midtown near Empire State Building.
For two days we immersed in the magic atmosphere of this grandiose metropolis,
visited some of its most famous places and enjoyed "shopping in New York".

In the afternoon of July 24th we left NY for Washington D.C., using the "Greyhound" bus - really a great way, to get around!
The Greyhound Line serves more than 3,800 destinations with 13,000 daily departures across North America.

The drive through the dessert of  Nevada as well as through the Canyon region was a real pleasure to us. The traffic density was low and the highways just great! You can drive hundreds of miles straight ahead without seeing any settlement. Someone could say, the dessert offers a boring view, but as for us we enjoyed looking up to the horizon in almost each direction, watched the scant but exotic vegetation and admired the fascinating sunset. The huge dimension of this countryside gave us a feeling of infinite freedom.

Apart from the Niagara Falls we never before have seen such breathtaking natural beauty like in the Canyons! The magnificence and variety of colored, bizarre rock formations  is simply overwhelming and incredible. These are indescribable beautiful and unforgettable impressions. On Lake Powell (Utah) we made a 5 hours boat trip to explore this rock surrounded lake and view the world?s largest natural bridge - the Rainbow Bridge - unique and unforgettable!
If you make a trip through the National parks you should in any case purchase the "Golden Eagle Passport". You pay per car, no matter how many passengers and are free to visit all the parks for one year. It is much cheaper than to pay at each place

Finally on August 5th we flew to Texas, where my pen pal Carroll picked us up at Dallas airport. He took us to his home where we spent some unforgettable beautiful days in the circle of his family, filled with happiness, joy and laughter. In this way we got the chance of a lifetime to experience life on a Texan ranch, watched how to grill a big piece of meat for the barbecue in a stove from stone - 12 hours!, drove around with the pickup truck and went on horseback. As a highlight our friends took us to a real rodeo! Never before we had an idea of the most exciting, fascinating atmosphere and the thrilling actions, which made this event unique and unforgettable. We thank our friends for their loving care, great friendship and hospitality. They left footprints in our hearts and are considered family members now.

It was our first time to use the rented car, our Chevrolet, and the first time to deal with an automatic gear-shift. No one had introduced us to the car, but we found out, what appeared to be necessary. Well, coming from the Grand Canyon we arrived at Page  around 11 pm and in the darkness we felt it difficult to find the hotel, which should be outside the city. We stopped on the roadside to look at the map, when we suddenly realized the police were behind us. They told us, that we weren't allowed to stop at this place, asked us to turn off to the right, then to turn over into the side road and to park there. But, feeling watched by the police, something went wrong with automatic gear-shift while turning over there and we stood crosswise across the street, hindering an approaching car.

Oh well! Finally it was done and when we got out of  the car, one of the policemen said "This has NOT BEEN FINE!" Of course we tried to explain a lot and excused ourselves extensively. However, we had to show or passports and the contract for the car rental . Then they unpacked a lot of paper and started filling out a big form asking "your age?, height?, weight?, color of eyes?... " We really did not know, whether we should laugh or better not. We decided to remaining neutral and to answer correctly. After signing the sheet the policemen laughed, handed it over to us and said: "This is NOT a fine - just a souvenir for you" and then helped us to find the hotel. Isn't that great?