IMPORTANT: It's my first ever post, blog or story written so I will really appreciate your feedback and support. Please don't judge too hard, hehe :) Everything what's posted here is my subjective experience, so hopefully no one gets hurt !

Little Intro: My name is Provokator. I am a world citizen, currently residing in Los Angeles, California with my best friend - my dog. He's a very unique, smart and handsome Pomeranian Papillon. We occasionally travel (though we would love to travel more) and always wanted to share our experiences.

Part 1 - Getting to Colorado - Nevada/Utah

We departed from LA early morning to skip one of the worst traffic spots you can find on this globe. Las Vegas is approximately 300 miles away from LA, which is roughly 4-6 hours of driving with little or no traffic or it can be 10-12+ if you catch traffic. We left at 10 AM Friday (worst day in terms of traffic) and headed to the Sin City. It's a smooth and picturesque drive over the mountain pass to get out of LA which then leads to a long straight highway in the desert all the way to Vegas. You pass the cities like Victorville, which are pretty known for high crime, methamphetamine and crack consumption (common problem all over US). After that you hit the vast desert with cacti and blasting sun everywhere, with occasional rest area or a gas station where you can hide from the heat. It was 48 celsius outside, which is pretty extreme for a Northern person like me and my furry friend :)

http://www.avangartt.com/steemit/blogposts/Exploring%20Wild%20West%20-%20Part%201/Photo%20Jun%2027,%2012%2032%2051.jpg

http://www.avangartt.com/steemit/blogposts/Exploring%20Wild%20West%20-%20Part%201/Photo%20May%2013,%2015%2027%2023.jpg

On the left you can see the world's largest solar power plant, please read below!

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is a concentrated solar thermal plant in the California Mojave Desert, 64 km (40 miles) southwest of Las Vegas, with a gross capacity of 392 megawatts (MW). It deploys 173,500 heliostats, each with two mirrors, focusing solar energy on boilers located on three centralized solar power towers. Unit 1 of the project was connected to the grid in September 2013 in an initial sync testing. The facility formally opened on February 13, 2014, and it is currently the world's largest solar thermal power station (Wikipedia)

https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/ivanpah-glare-photo1.jpg

Las Vegas

Pssst. Don't forget to stop at the Outlets right before Las Vegas (40 miles). It's one of the biggest outlets and prices are pretty decent. I will come back to this Sin City with a dedicated post, because it really deserves it and because this time we just passed through Vegas on the way to Colorado. We had to do 1000 miles and we were not really planning to stop until we reached the destination. I will still add some photos from the Vegas "drive by":

http://www.avangartt.com/steemit/blogposts/Exploring%20Wild%20West%20-%20Part%201/Photo%20Jun%2027,%2010%2046%2041.jpg

http://www.avangartt.com/steemit/blogposts/Exploring%20Wild%20West%20-%20Part%201/Photo%20Jun%2027,%2011%2025%2015.jpg

http://www.avangartt.com/steemit/blogposts/Exploring%20Wild%20West%20-%20Part%201/Photo%20May%2013,%2017%2058%2048.jpg

From Vegas the roads splits pretty much towards Salt Lake City (Utah) or through Utah to Colorado.

Utah

After driving through the desert of Nevada, suddenly over one of the mountain passes you completely different landscape which starts changing mile after mile.

Desert to Canyon

http://www.avangartt.com/steemit/blogposts/Exploring%20Wild%20West%20-%20Part%201/Photo%20Jun%2027,%2016%2038%2056.jpg

Transition...

http://www.avangartt.com/steemit/blogposts/Exploring%20Wild%20West%20-%20Part%201/Photo%20Jun%2027,%2012%2050%2026.jpg

That's the pass I was talking about!

http://www.avangartt.com/steemit/blogposts/Exploring%20Wild%20West%20-%20Part%201/Photo%20Jun%2027,%2016%2045%2036.jpg

Triple View!!!

http://www.avangartt.com/steemit/blogposts/Exploring%20Wild%20West%20-%20Part%201/Photo%20Jun%2027,%2016%2048%2035.jpg

It's pretty hard to stop a truck moving 80-90 miles per hour downhill and suddenly brakes are off.. It's scary even in a SUV or SEDAN, not to say a truck.

http://www.avangartt.com/steemit/blogposts/Exploring%20Wild%20West%20-%20Part%201/Photo%20Jun%2027,%2017%2011%2027.jpg

http://www.avangartt.com/steemit/blogposts/Exploring%20Wild%20West%20-%20Part%201/Photo%20Jun%2027,%2017%2014%2006.jpg

I named this road - Utah Jazz! I felt Jazzy afterwards :)

http://www.avangartt.com/steemit/blogposts/Exploring%20Wild%20West%20-%20Part%201/Photo%20Jun%2027,%2017%2014%2022.jpg

After some time (maybe 500 miles haha?) the landscape started slowly changing.... But that's another story - Exploring Wild Colorado Rockies for 10 days..

http://www.avangartt.com/steemit/blogposts/Exploring%20Wild%20West%20-%20Part%201/Photo%20Jun%2027,%2015%2000%2011.jpg

I will post a quote which would be the closest to my experiences. For today it is:

"Get busy living or get busy dying" (Andy Dufresne, Shawshank Redemption)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tkzc983aE0

Always yours,

Pr0