Well we're at the LAX airport

It's 9pm here or 3 pm in Melbourne. We are at the airport, scotch in hand waiting for the flight at 11.30pm.

This morning after a walk to the local shops to grab a coffee, I dropped the girls shopping at a large shopping outlet that was about 6km away, and went home for some more sleep. Tony was still a bit off colour so he was still sleeping. The girls texted me when it was time to collect them and we went for an hour drive along the the pacific coast before heading home to start packing. We saw some Dolphins off one of the beaches.

We were back at the house at about three so it was time to pack and get ready to come home. At about 5.45 we headed off but only as far as a local cafe for some seafood and to watch a pacific sunset.

It was brilliant - both the food and the sunset.

Leguna Beach is about 50 miles or just under 100km from the LAX airport. It took just under an hour to get to the Jeep rental office at the airport. They shuttled us across and we went straight through check-in and security in record time.

Metrics

We have -

• Flowen over 38,0000 km - both planes and helicopters
• Driven a little over 3,800km - We hired a Mustang and a Jeep

• Stayed in 11 different cities in California and Nevada - Rented 4 houses and stayed in resorts and motels for the other nights
• Traversed Yosemite and Death Valley National Parks and flowen into the Grand Canyon to float down the Colorado River.
• Ate out nearly every meal

 

It's been fun, fun, fun.











Animals

Sophie has kept a record of the animals we've seen in the wild whilst traveling in America:

Deers

Skunk

Seals

Elephant seals

Sea otter

Squirrel

Coastal squirrel

Coyote

Rabbit

Dolphin

Food

I tried to go 4 weeks without and vegetables or fruit; I lasted three. Fries were the substitute, even at breakfast. I think it was an accident but somehow I had a salad and then started having some fruit. I think I've put 8kg.

I took photos of most of my meals - wierd but so where some of them.




It's A Small World

On our flight from LA to New York our financial adviser was on the same plane

In 46th street in New York we bumped into some parents from Thalia's time at Caulfield Grammer

Saw Tim Robbins (Thelma and Louise etc.) a famous actor and producer at a supermarket in Venice Beach

Bumped into Rhonda and Kelly from Sophie's dance school at a shopping centre in Los Angeles

One Sophie's classmates was staying in a casino/resort opposite ours in Las Vegas.

Linda just ran in to another scientist from Melbourne here at LAX airport.

See you all soon.

 

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Tuesday 9th to Thursday

So there were a photo of us on Tuesday from San Diego at the bar they used in Top Gun. San Diego is the second biggest city in California (who knew) and a big naval town. It was actually pretty cool as we were

leaving and driving around San Diego Bay an aircraft carrier was entering the bay. Massive but I couldn't find out the name of it (wish I'd asked the old blokes watching beside us). After that we headed north on the Pacific Highway to where earlier in the morning Linda had rented zza house for us to spend the last 4 days of our holiday.

Tuesday

ZAs above we headed north to Leguna Beach which is on the coast, south east of Los Angeles. Pretty much the look and feel of Brighton back home. We travelled along the coast until it started looking like we needed speed things up and we went inland to a freeway; we had to meet the house owner at 5pm. 

 The house was so cool - picket fence, swing on thvermont porch and az little back yard with an aviary in it. Oh yeah, and the pacific ocean was at the end of the street. After meeting the owners and the rental foamlities we headed to the beach nd ended up up at a restraint/bar on a cliff over looking Laguna Beach. The sunset was fatastic. We had dinnner at another Restraunt later on.

Wednesday

Wednesday is rest day - no driving, and time to chill out as we are heading home in a couple of days and Disneyland is on the card for Thursday. So, we chilled out - sleep in, late brunch/lunch things, and an afternoon at the beach. I swzzam for about 45min as the water is still warm.

Warm water still, so the weather has been magnificent. An Indian Summer - the water is still unseasonably warm, and everywhere we've been has been warm to hot and no rain. Even the pilot that flew us to the Grand Canyon said we had a special day. The west pass we drove through in Yosemite usually closes zza week or so after we travelled it, and it was over 30C that day. They've been waiting for a big low pressure to cross the coast for two weeks and bring the fall weather break.

Thursday

Disneyland today!!!! We drove to Disney at about 9am as it was only a 20 min drive to Anaheim. Can't say anything else other than we went to Disneyland - grouse.

Hmmmm.... Poor Tony was a bit ill by the time we got home so we dropped him off and we went out for a very, very late dinner (10pm).

Ahhhhh - we fly home tomorrow night.

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At Disneyland plotting the days activities

It's true

Everything is better with bacon and cheese

Hello from Laguna Beach

Sitting in Johnny Rockets waiting for the movie theatre to open. Need a rest after an afternoon at the beach

Lunch in San Diego

We just drove into downtown for brunch. Ended up in the bar where Top Gun was filmed. On the way we were lucky enough to see an aircraft carrier entering the San Diego Bay.

After this we are heading to Laguna Beach where this morning we have rented a house for our final 4 days in the US.

 

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Grand Canyon and beyond

So last Saturday we were picked up by a limousine from our Hotel, New York New York, and taken zza short dive to the Los Vegas airport where we met our pilot for our flight to the Grand Canyon (I already posted some photos of us at the airport while we were waiting).

Grand Canyon

Once we're we're briefed about the safety we took of to the Grand Canyon. It was a 45 min helicopter flight each way. On the way we flew over Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam - all massive. But the best was to come. at times the mountains came right up to the helicopter. The helicopter seated 6 people, two in the front and 4 in the back - all had great views because of all the glasszz. We rotated the seating across the 6 hours of our tour.

As we flew over a ridge we had our first view of the canyon - it dropped 3 km straight down. It was amazing. The helicopter slowly fly along the canyon whilst deciding below the sheer cliffs until we reached the canyon floor and the Colorado river. It was mind blowing.

You have to see it to believe it, and photos and video can't show how great this place is.

We deparated the chopper on the canyon floor and hopped on a punt for a trip up the Colorado river. There were plenty of photos taken, as the punt floated back down the river to the Helicopter.

After the punt we hopped back in the helicopter and flew up the canyon, and then up to the west rim where we were dropped at the SkyWalk. The SkyWalk is a glass structure that hangs out over the canyon where you can look straight down 3km to the bottom.

We had a couple of hours to ourselves to explore around the west rim. This is where we had lunch and caught some buses, to other viewing area. All amazing.

At around 3pm we met our pilot back at the airport and he flew us back to Las Vegas.

Our hotel, New York New York is in the photo on the left. It was taken as we flew past.

On Saturday evening Tony and Linda went to another adult only Cirque De Solei performance that was shoeing in our hotel. Sophie and I hung out and over the evening went on 6 rides on the roller coaster ride that starts and finishes inside our hotel - you can see it in the pictur above, in the middle at the bottom.

Sunday

We checked out and drove to Palm Springs via the Majov Reserve. Not the quickest but the most scenic route. As per where we have been the scenery was great.

We detoured of the main road to see the Kelso Sand Dunes; these dunes are 20 meters high and form from the northwesterly wind collecting the sand and then blowing back on its self when it hits the mountains. The sand is dropped to form these dunes I. The middle of nowhere.

The scenery was fantastic and not far away was the Joshua Tree National Park which inspired U2 - and as we headed south through the Majov Joshua Trees started to appear everywhere. Apparently they can grow to 6-7 meters in height.

When we left the Reserve we travelled in part of Route 66.


Just before Palm Springs on either side of the road was America's biggest wind farm. 3,200 wind turbines - they generate all of Palm Springs power. ZAmazing.

 

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Kelso for lunch on the way to Palm Springs

Kelso is in the Mojav Reserve

Las Vegas is so cool

Inside our hotel

10 min to blast off

Las Vegas

Well we are in Las Vegas; today is Saturday and it's 7.45am. In about an hour we fly to the Grand Canyon via helicopter. The tour will be about 6 hours. Hmmmm, none of us have flown in a helicopter before.

We zarrived here on Thursday at about 7pm. It was just dark, and as we are staying on the 'Strip' we got to see all the lights as we drove to our hotel/casino. This place is massive. Tony thinks it's about 10 times bigger than he expected. We are staying in the New York NewYork hotel and casino. It's all a bit freaky how each casino/hotel, has themes.

Thursday

So we stayed Wednesday night in a place called Bishop. It is in the East Sierras - both side of the range surrounded by mountains.

We were still talking about the Wednesdays drive through Yosemite National Park, and Thusday was spent driving to Las Vegas via Death Valley National Park. What a drive - it was as good as the day before, as the desolation and sights were great. At times it was like being on another planet. The temerature rose to about 107f (42c) during the afternoon and as we left the park at about 6pm was still 104f. A few times we were at 4000 feet z above sea level, and at other below sea level. At one stage we were 260 feet below sea level.

 

 

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Only one week to go...

3 weeks and no vegetables - I think I can go another week. Fries are the best substitute.

Gary Cantwell

Dinner time in Las Vegas

Just. Been to Cirque De Sole to see Ka. Ka is a show that
They don't travel with. It was unbelievable.

Brunch in Paris

A drink before dinner

Checking in at Las Vegas

New York new York

Shoshone for a zz stop

90 miles to Las Vegas....

Lunch at Badwater Saloon

Currently lunching at Badwater Saloon in Death Valley.

Gary Cantwell

San Francisco

I started writin this blog in Oakhurst - just outside the Yosemite National Park. We drove here Tuesday from San Francisco. It wasz about 400 miles or just over 600km. Most of it freeways or dual carriage way. There is so much traffic, it always is moving above the speed limit and at time between 4 and 8 lanes wide on one side.

Sunday

So, Sunday we headed into Monteray to see the aquarium. Monteray Bay is famous for its Bay - the waters both north and south of the Monteray Bay are a National Park. The zaquarium was great and we spent about 3 hours there. We then headed north to San Francisco where we had rented a house for a couple of days. Everyone was heading home to SF after the weekend it was about 120 miles away so an easy a fast drive particularly with GPS lady and live traffic updates giving us route changes.

The house is in za suburb called Richmond. The suburb is about 6km west of San Francisco and the street we stayed in ran down to the bay (5 blocks) where you had great views of the Golden Gate Bridge. The house could sleep eight so there was plenty of room, and there were plenty of restaurants close by.

Monday

We caught a bus into San Francisco to the centre of town and picked up an open top double deckervtourist bus that takes you around all the main sights over a couple of hours. We've done this in each of the other major cities as it is great way to learn the history and orientate yourself in that city. The San Francisco bus also crossed the Golden Gate Bridge so that was fun. You can hop off and on at designated spots zaround the city. Z We decided to to get at the SF Warf and have a very late lunch. After a wander around we grabbed a cab back to the house.

Take away food for late dinner.

Tuesday

On Tuesday morning we packed up (there were some photos already posted from my phone of packing the car in SF) and drove down to the bottom of our street for a last look at the bridge and the beach.

We then headed south east to a little place called Oakhurst. This is about 20 miles from the southern entry to Yosemite National Park. We had decided to travel through the Park on Wedneday. We arrived in Oakhurst at about 6pm - There were signs warning of bears everywhere and deers wandering around the streets.

Tony, Sophie and Gary had a swim in the pool before dinner.

Wednesday

It was going to a long day of driving but not too far in distance - 139 miles but the road is very windy. At one stage we reached a height of 9975 feet or just over 3000 meters. That's 1000 meters above Austrlaia's highest mountains.

We travelled into the park and went straight to Mariposa Grove where there are the massive Sequia tree. These trees are up to 100 feet (30 meters) in circumference, 300 feet high and 2000 years old. Massive and a great start to our day of sightseeing. We had lunch in the Yosemite Valley village and used the Internet to book our helicopter trip from Vegas to the Grand Canyon on Saturday.

Hmmmm... It's hard to describe how good this days driving was with respect to the sights we saw. I'm not sure the photos will even show the grandure. At one stop we could observe some mountain climbers on a sheer cliff called El Capitan.

We arrived in the town of Bishop where we were going to stay for the night before we head off to Las Vegas via Death Valley on Thursday.

 

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Yosemite Park at Lunchtime Tuesday

Oakhurst

We're staying here tonight just outside Yosemite National Park

Lunch in Modesto

And the girls even serve you on roller skates!!!!

Coffee while the girls shop

We're still in San Francisco !!!

Off we go....

Packing the car

Yep, now there are live blogs...

Sophie Packing